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Home » Fast Movers » “Rob Peter to Pay Paul”

“Rob Peter to Pay Paul”

Here’s just released ani­ma­tion of the Eagle mishap that started the cur­rent “cri­sis”:

Pretty hairy, huh? Maj. Stilwell was lucky, to put it mildly.

Meanwhile the USAF is not ready to say everything’s okay now that the mishap inves­ti­ga­tors have fig­ured out what caused the struc­tural fail­ure. Here’s an excerpt from the lat­est run­ning at Military​.com:

Gen. John Corley, the top offi­cer at Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va., called the sit­u­a­tion a “cri­sis” that would be best solved by an infu­sion of costly new air­craft rather than fix­ing jets that are 25 years old.

The mechan­i­cal trou­bles, most acute in the F-​​15 Eagles used to pro­tect the United States, also have led to a patch­work approach to fill­ing crit­i­cal air mis­sions at home and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With nearly a third of the F-​​15 fleet grounded due to a defec­tive sup­port beam in the aircraft’s frame, other fighter air­craft, includ­ing F-​​16s and new F-​​22s, are being shifted from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s a rob Peter to pay Paul,” Corley said at a Pentagon news con­fer­ence. “It’s unprece­dented to have an air supe­ri­or­ity fleet that’s on aver­age 25 years old.”

Other reports today sug­gest the Air Force is lean­ing on Boeing to take respon­si­bil­ity for a faulty man­u­fac­tur­ing process that led to the longerons fail­ing. Stay tuned. That sub­plot is bound to get sporty.

Read the whole report here.

– Ward

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January 11th, 2008 | Fast Movers | 378746 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2008/01/11/rob-peter-to-pay-paul/%22Rob+Peter+to+Pay+Paul%222008-01-11+13%3A39%3A07paisley You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. stephen russell says:
    January 11, 2008 at 9:24 am

    Send this ani­ma­tion video to the White House & Air Defense Command & NORAD & MD.
    Fix this plane.
    Overhaul the air­frame.
    Get them fly­ing as Soviet Bears bear down on US.
    Send copies to House & Senate Armed Services Comms & the VA.
    Does Secty AF have this Video

    Reply
  2. Pharsalus says:
    January 11, 2008 at 10:19 am

    Everyone who is some­one has seen this video. They all knew before we did.
    And no one DOES any­thing about it because they’re scared of mak­ing a wrnog choice (read: mis­take) — account­abil­ity and such. It’s much safer to keep push­ing an issue away to a later date, so it’ll be Someone Else’s Problem.
    @ Stephen
    “Get them fly­ing as Soviet Bears bear down on US.“
    Eh? These are pro­pel­lor dri­ven recon bombers we’re talk­ing about — Bears make so much noise you can hear ‘em com­ing con­ti­nents away. Even a ‘Staffel’ of WWII-​​era Focke Wulfs could shoot them down. Big deal.

    Reply
  3. Cranky Observer says:
    January 11, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    I am still hav­ing a hard time com­ing to grips with what the require­ments are for air defense over US and Canadian main­land. For this we need F-​​22s or new-​​build F-​​15s? I real­ize that F-​​15s can be con­fig­ured for very long range and loi­ter time, but still aren’t there alter­na­tives? What is the threat? What are the pos­si­ble responses?
    Or is the con­ti­nen­tal defense require­ment being used as eas­ily under­stood, attention-​​grabbing cover for another agenda?
    Cranky

    Reply
  4. Dennis says:
    January 11, 2008 at 1:28 pm

    The Navy had the sanme issue with F14A’s (struc­tural weak­ness due to age), and they grounded them almost imme­di­atly.
    For once the Navy seems to be ahead of the Airforce, they did not wait for one of the craft to shread before down­ing them.
    I find this whole sit­u­a­tion to reek of incom­petance.
    Who would ever imag­ine a twenty-​​five year old air­craft, which par­tic­i­pates daily in com­bat train­ing exer­sises, would be hav­ing issues.….

    Reply
  5. NTV says:
    January 11, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Cranky–
    I wouldnt call it cover for another agenda, but CONUS air defense is eas­ily under­stood and attention-​​grabbing. IMO the F-​​22 would be a bad fit for main­land air defnse mis­sion, its LO capa­bil­i­ties are hardly use­full over the CONUS. However, there is a need for a highly capa­ble air to air fighter on strike mis­sions over hos­tile territory.

    Reply
  6. demophilus says:
    January 11, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    It’s not my field, but I think the CONUS/​NORAD defense mis­sion con­cerns are dri­ven more by esti­mates of cruise missile/​UAV pro­lif­er­a­tion in the near term, than a few Russian Bear mis­sions.
    IIRC, we have a vari­ety of inter­est­ing cruise missile/​UAV coun­ter­mea­sures in the pipeline, but until they prove out, all we have are manned inter­cep­tors.
    Some peo­ple seem to think that los­ing 30% of those in one fell swoop is a problem.

    Reply
  7. Neo Eagle says:
    January 11, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    “I am still hav­ing a hard time com­ing to grips with what the require­ments are for air defense over US and Canadian main­land.“
    TERRA!, TERRA! NORTH KOREAN NUKES, IRANIAN NUKES, FEAR, TERRA! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
    I think your on to some­thing Cranky…

    Reply
  8. Aaron says:
    January 11, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    Still think this whole thing is absolute bull­shit.
    f-15’s have been pro­duced for over a gen­er­a­tion and now ‘all of a sud­den’ ‘we just noticed’ that theres a ‘major struc­tural flaw’ that ‘can’t be repaired’ and that there­fore need to buy a whole new gen­er­a­tion of very expen­sive fight­ers ‘right away’. this b.s. stinks so bad I can smell it over the inter­tubes…
    This is an old and proven fighter design. I believe there are some units with crack­ing. This would indi­cate either a flaw in the inspec­tion rou­tine or a design flaw in that there is a non inspectable area. either way it can be fixed (fix the inspec­tion rou­tine or add an inspec­tion panel or add a hole for a flex­is­cope)
    This is at best an argu­ment for doing SLEP sooner rather then later and fix­ing it at the depo.

    Reply
  9. EM2(SS) says:
    January 11, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    For air inter­cept mis­sions, espe­cially INCONUS where stealth isn’t nec­es­sary, why not have the AF use the F/​A-​​18 E/​F Super Hornet? It’s still in pro­duc­tion.
    http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​u​p​e​r​_​H​o​r​net
    http://​www​.navy​.mil/​n​a​v​y​d​a​t​a​/​f​a​c​t​_​d​i​s​p​l​a​y​.​a​s​p​?​c​i​d​=​1​1​0​0​&​a​m​p​;​t​i​d​=​1​2​0​0​&​a​m​p​;​c​t=1
    It per­forms iner­cept mis­sions for the fleet, why can’t it work for the coun­try, as well? Just because it’s a navy air­craft??? The Unit Cost is only $57 mil­lion for the Super Hornet vs. $117 mil­lion for the F-​​22.
    http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​F​-22
    I see no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for more F-​​22s if there is already a good air­craft being built today that can per­form the role that these older F-​​15s are doing.
    Yes we need SOME F-​​22s for the ini­tial strike and air supe­ri­or­ity, but we don’t need F-​​22s to chase air­lin­ers or inter­cept Bears.

    Reply
  10. Nessuno says:
    January 11, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    “Yes we need SOME F-​​22s for the ini­tial strike and air supe­ri­or­ity, but we don’t need F-​​22s to chase air­lin­ers or inter­cept Bears.“
    Why not? You have far from proven this.
    For one thing, the F-​​22 is prob­a­bly the fastest oper­a­tional fighter–especially at cruise speed– that’s ever been pro­duced. You don’t think faster is bet­ter when chas­ing down radar blips that might be cruise mis­siles or terrorist-​​airliners?
    I’m not say­ing a Super Hornet or a new build F 15 can’t get the job done, but the entire thrust of our mil­i­tary phi­los­o­phy is to have dom­i­nance and the best we can pro­duce. The F22 is the best we can pro­duce at the moment. If you want to make an argu­ment that we should change the entire phi­los­o­phy behind our mil­i­tary pro­cure­ment, you have some ground­work to lay down. Abandoning it is going to take a lot of argu­ment and con­sid­er­a­tion.
    Also, please keep in mind that there are ben­e­fits to order­ing more F22s. For one, it keeps the pro­duc­tion line open, a line that is sched­uled to shut down in less than 3 years. Once that sucker shuts it will be exceed­ingly imprac­ti­cal to open it again. So, the F22, the best fighter that is likely to be pro­duced by a Western nation for the next 20 or so years will be out of pro­duc­tion entirely–in 3 years.
    Doesn’t that strike you as appallingly short­sighted? If you think you can pre­dict what the strate­gic threats to America will be in 10 years, let alone 20, then you are flat out disillusion.

    Reply
  11. EM2(SS) says:
    January 11, 2008 at 4:55 pm

    “Also, please keep in mind that there are ben­e­fits to order­ing more F22s. For one, it keeps the pro­duc­tion line open, a line that is sched­uled to shut down in less than 3 years. Once that sucker shuts it will be exceed­ingly imprac­ti­cal to open it again. So, the F22, the best fighter that is likely to be pro­duced by a Western nation for the next 20 or so years will be out of pro­duc­tion entirely–in 3 years. “
    I never claimed that we should shut down the F-​​22 line. I just don’t believe that it is the ONLY solu­tion to our air defense. I am sup­port­ive of the F-​​22 pro­gram, but I don’t think it should be the only pro­gram going, and at this point in time, I don’t see the F-​​35 doing much, as recent sto­ries on this site have shown.
    But when I see the abil­ity to get 2 F/A-18E’s for the price of one F-​​22, and we have old bro­ken F-​​15s sit­tling lame on the tar­mac, I’d rather get two new birds in the air for the price of one.
    Considering that the cur­rently fly­ing F-​​16s and F-​​15s aren’t get­ting any younger, and the F-​​35 pro­gram seems slow and over­bud­get at best, it would make more sense to me to have more birds avail­able.
    “For one thing, the F-​​22 is prob­a­bly the fastest oper­a­tional fighter–especially at cruise speed– that’s ever been pro­duced. You don’t think faster is bet­ter when chas­ing down radar blips that might be cruise mis­siles or terrorist-​​airliners?“
    I’d ask the ques­tion: Is it pos­si­ble to fit the F/​A-​​18 E/​F with a bet­ter, faster engine, sim­i­lar to the F-​​22? That may be an igno­rant ques­tion, but I’m no aero­space engi­neer. But I don’t think that we need an expen­sive stealthy plan for INCONUS mis­sions when another off the shelf sys­tem exists for half the price.
    I’m also more in favor of a KISS sim­ple solu­tion over an overly expen­sive high tech solu­tion. To me, based on train­ing and real world expe­ri­ence, there is a time for high tech, and there is a time for KISS sim­ple. Both are nec­ces­sary, and together they are more of a mul­ti­plier than just sim­ple addi­tion.
    The F-​​22 is a fine air­craft, but to me it’s not the best solu­tion for every mission.

    Reply
  12. DC2 Jennings says:
    January 11, 2008 at 7:07 pm

    Ohwilleke,
    I like your trust that noth­ing is going to hap­pen. Others thought the same thing about peo­ple hijack­ing air­lin­ers and fly­ing them into build­ings. What a pre­pos­ter­ous idea.
    You for­get about Iran. You for­get about Pakistan. And you for­get that the mil­i­tary needs to pre­pare for every pos­si­ble sce­nario with the best equip­ment they could pos­si­bly have.
    Nobody thought much about Navy ASW until a Chinese sub popped up next to the Kitty Hawk. Now we have deommed all of our frigates and ASW destroy­ers.
    Oh well, the Chinese are going to do any­thing any­time soon. Ignorance is bliss after all. I think I’ll just stick my head in the sand again.
    DC2

    Reply
  13. doc75 says:
    January 11, 2008 at 7:20 pm

    Ward,
    I was also think­ing of Boeing’s respon­si­bil­ity. Of course, when the Eagles were built it was McDonnell Douglas (cre­ator of the Super Hornet, too, folks) and they allowed these flawed parts to be built into the air­frame. I do won­der what the Air Force will do. How about some free F-​​15Es? Buying more of them or even brand new Super Hornets would be reward­ing the com­pany, wouldn’t it?

    Reply
  14. Ward says:
    January 11, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    Doc:
    Boeing’s a good com­pany, in gen­eral. I worked closely with them when I was on the V-​​22 pro­gram a cou­ple years back. But at the end of the day the pro­cure­ment sys­tem def­i­nitely favors the con­trac­tors (while it simul­ta­ne­ously claims to pro­tect tax­payer dol­lars and warfight­ing capa­bil­ity). That’s how the wheel spins.
    Again, stay tuned to see how that sub­plot unfolds. We’ll be watching.

    Reply
  15. Aaron says:
    January 11, 2008 at 10:58 pm

    doc75– sorry the f-15’s are out of war­ranty. dont expect any­thing from Boeing except a repair esti­mate. mil­i­tary equipt­ment does seem to come with a cer­tain period between deliver and for­mal accep­tance where equipt­ment can be returned.
    see the story about the coastie boats.
    EM2(SS)- also sorry, Im not sure, but I think planes need to be pur­pose built to super­cruise.
    frankly I think the answer is SAM’s– per­ma­nent placements.

    Reply
  16. Chad says:
    January 12, 2008 at 12:07 am

    $57 mil­lion for a F/​A-​​18E/​F? Dream on. F-​​A/​18C/​D [in the early 90’s] sure but the F/​A-​​18E/​F was NEVER even close to being that “inex­pen­sive”.
    Depending on how many you pro­cure in any given year a F/​A-​​18E/​F or F-​​15E costs ~$75–90 mil­lion each. For a F-​​16E (block 60) ~$60 mil­lion each.
    Another thing to note is that the rel­a­tive pro­cure­ment costs for each new F-​​15, F-​​16 or F/​A-​​18 is pretty con­stant (again depend­ing on how many are pro­cured in any given year) at this point BUT the rel­a­tive pro­cure­ment cost for each new F-​​22 will go DOWN con­sid­er­ably the more of them you procure.

    Reply
  17. evangeline says:
    January 12, 2008 at 3:17 am

    Just so every­one is clear, this is what broke: (http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​L​o​n​g​e​ron). The part itself is worth about $5 even to the air force. It is essen­tially just a piece of metal. The rea­son it is break­ing is metal fatigue. The alu­minum is work hard­en­ing from the stress of super­sonic flight. Over time the stresses even­tu­ally form cracks in the now brit­tle metal. Fortunately the solu­tion is as sim­ple as many of you have been grum­bling. Replace the metal. All of it.
    The air force is keep­ing quiet and just request­ing new planes because they don

    Reply
  18. So? says:
    January 12, 2008 at 6:33 am

    The com­peti­tors are also the main cred­i­tors, so I don’t see them going ban­rkupt first.

    Reply
  19. doc75 says:
    January 12, 2008 at 8:47 am

    Evangeline, I have con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ity of replace­ment the longeron. I’m sure the Air Force is doing that right now. I’m guess­ing you weren’t seri­ous with the com­ment that it would cost $5 to replace it. Forget the labor costs, cost of design and cost of machin­ing, right now alu­minum itself is at least $16 per pound. The prob­lem with replace­ment is that this longeron is a cen­tral part of the air­frame struc­ture. It’s kinda like a hip replace­ment or replac­ing one of your ver­te­brate. This is not a lego piece that can be eas­ily swapped in and out. The process could dam­age the aged struc­tural com­po­nents attached to the longeron. We’ll see if Boeing and the Air Force can cook up any­thing to fix this.

    Reply
  20. Cole says:
    January 12, 2008 at 10:32 am

    If bombers hit­ting the U.S. and hijacked air­lin­ers is the best the USAF has to jus­tify so many F-​​22s beyond 183, it is com­pletely lame. If bombers drop any­thing in our air­space, we have a whole lot more to be wor­ried about than con­ven­tional war­fare. There is no rea­son not to have F-​​15s state­side, and F-​​22s to sup­port the­ater war­fare. The num­ber of enemy aircraft/​air defenses remain­ing after F-​​22s/​F-​​35s fin­ish with them will be no match for older F-15s/F-16s/F-18s…and there is great evi­dence that the threat would be no match even with­out those advanced air­craft.
    Check out this link that com­pares the cost of past fighter air­craft to today’s F-​​22 in TODAY’S DOLLARS.
    http://​orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com/​b​r​e​a​k​i​n​g​/​f​2​2​r​a​p​t​or/
    Look at the right hand col­umn mid­way down. The WWII P-​​51 Mustang cost only $600,000 in today’s dol­lars. Fighter costs were rea­son­able all the way up to AND INCLUDING the F-​​15. The F-​​22 costs at least one hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars more in today’s dol­lars than an F-15…an expo­nen­tial increase in price…with an expo­nen­tial DECREASE in threat, because that air­craft was begun prior to the Soviet Union’s demise.
    There is zero rea­son to dis­card the $500K option of repair­ing F-​​15s for state­side use. The alter­na­tive of spend­ing 320 times more for new F-​​22s for the lame state­side mis­sion is ludi­crous, a waste of tax­payer dol­lars, and has­tens OUR COUNTRY’S BANKRUPTCY, not that of any poten­tial foe.
    A few nations with small num­bers of high tech air­craft does not make them com­pet­i­tive with the U.S. and its allies, our sheer fighter num­bers, and our over­all tech­nol­ogy and train­ing. It is ridicu­lous to claim thrust vec­tor­ing is the foe’s great savior/​advantage when our AAMRAMs are blow­ing them up before they even see us.
    Did I read cor­rectly that we have only 120 pilots for every 100 fighter air­craft? If so, why not sim­ply cre­ate a day and night shift of pilots. Execute night ground attacks with the F-​​22 to take out air defenses, airfields/​grounded planes, and other tar­gets with one set of pilots. Use the same air­craft to destroy any air­craft fool­ish enough to ven­ture into the day­light with a sec­ond set of pilots. We have ground and sea air defense sys­tems more than ade­quate for that air dom­i­nance mis­sion, as well.
    183 F-​​22s, repaired F-​​15s, a rea­son­able num­ber of JSF/​F-​​16s, and many F-​​18s is more than suf­fi­cient for any con­ceiv­able 21st cen­tury aer­ial oppo­nent. We need to spend money on real threats killing ground Soldiers/​Marines.

    Reply
  21. CapnVan says:
    January 12, 2008 at 11:40 am

    This is clas­sic inter­ser­vice rivalry and pos­tur­ing. There’s a lim­ited pro­cure­ment bud­get, and the Air Force wants to get as large a piece of the pie as they can.
    Given that there are actual shoot­ing wars going on, in which extremely expen­sive, extremely capa­ble air­craft aren’t really required, they need to come up with a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion some­place. Potential, albeit mostly imag­i­nary, threats are always good places to look — “oooh, those Chinese field a copy of a bomber designed in the early ‘50s! Better look out!”

    Reply
  22. Chad says:
    January 12, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    Sorry Cole but you are wrong & the num­bers on orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com are wrong.
    1st you have NO IDEA what threats the US may face in 10 or 20 years. THAT is the threat you have to pro­cure for NOW. You fight wars with what you HAVE, not what you wish you had. Don’t fall for the BS that we will never face a threat other than the cur­rent one and don’t fall for the BS that we are not spend­ing money on “real threats killing ground Soldiers/​Marines” or that procur­ing more F-​​22 will IN ANY WAY reduce the amount that we are.
    2nd you are flat out dream­ing if you think you could pos­si­bly pro­cure ANY of the ear­lier gen­er­a­tion fight­ers TODAY for the amount listed on the orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com page. There are fac­tors that effect the cost of a fighter pro­cured today that sim­ply are not accounted for by sim­ply mak­ing a infla­tion adjust­ment on how much it cost SEVERAL DECADES ago. What they cost to pro­cure way back when is irrel­e­vant, what they would cost to pro­cure TODAY is. Also note that the per unit cost tends to go down SIGNIFICANTLY the more you pro­cure. For exam­ple, the 1st three years of F/​A-​​18E/​F pro­cure­ment was an aver­age of ~$160 mil­lion each, the lat­est three years of F/​A-​​18E/​F pro­cure­ment was an aver­age of ~$80 mil­lion each.
    3rd our F-​​15s are sim­ply old & have been worked hard over much of their lives & while you can spend money repairing/​refirbishing them & keep them fly­ing for per­haps another 5–10 years they WILL HAVE TO BE REPLACED EVENTUALLY & I guar­ante that the cost of replac­ing them in 10 years will be MUCH more than the cost of replac­ing them with F-​​22s. Remember, most of our F-​​15 were sup­posed to have been replaced by F-​​22s ALREADY.

    Reply
  23. Evangeline says:
    January 12, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    Doc:
    first find a new alu­minum sup­plier, you are being ripped off. Otherwise I very much agree but I assumed that was implied in what I said.
    Cole:
    Also implied in what I was say­ing is that this applies to all alu­minum struc­tures on super­sonic air­craft. Over the next five (pos­si­bly two or three) years you will need to replace every alu­minum part on the F15s. when you con­sider the fact that, as Doc elab­o­rated, replac­ing a lonegeron involves remov­ing and replac­ing the avion­ics, engines, and wings incre­men­tal replace­ment will quickly exceed the cost of a new air­craft. Fairly soon this will begin to hap­pen to the F16s and F18s too. In other words, at this rate you will need to replace every air­frame in the inven­tory (except the super hor­nets) in the next ten years.
    Lets sup­pose for a moment that the AAMRAM is the sil­ver stand­off bul­let you seem to believe it is. Why use fight­ers at all when you can strap a whole lot of AAMRAMs and a spec­tac­u­lar radar to a B52 or a B1.
    The prob­lem with BVR mis­siles is that you cant see your tar­get ex hypoth­esi. Thus, you can­not ver­ify that your tar­get is in fact an enemy. As a result stan­dard engage­ment pro­ce­dure is now for pilots to ver­ify the tar­get visu­ally. All engage­ments are de facto within visual range where the decid­ing fac­tor is maneuverability.

    Reply
  24. Cole says:
    January 12, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    RE:1st you have NO IDEA what threats the US may face in 10 or 20 years. THAT is the threat you have to pro­cure for NOW. You fight wars with what you HAVE, not what you wish you had. Don’t fall for the BS that we will never face a threat other than the cur­rent one and don’t fall for the BS that we are not spend­ing money on “real threats killing ground Soldiers/​Marines” or that procur­ing more F-​​22 will IN ANY WAY reduce the amount that we are.
    Reply: In 10 years we will have 183 to 223 F-​​22s, 224 F-​​15E, 178 Golden Eagle F-​​15Cs with AESA radars, who knows how many thou­sands of F-​​16s/​F-​​18s, the first of F-​​35 fight­ers @ 48 built per year.…please tell me what other nation on this earth can match that in the next 50 years let alone 10.
    With 260 F-​​15A-​​D now fly­ing again, and oth­ers fix­able at $500K each, I sus­pect they can iden­tify 178 Golden Eagles they orig­i­nally planned to retain and upgrade with the AESA radars. But the USAF didn’t men­tion that fact or the fact that 90 F-​​22s already exist to replace grounded F-​​15s.
    By ear­lier leader admis­sions, the F-​​22 can replace up to 4 F-​​15s capability-​​wise. Considering that the IAF in 1982 downed 90 Syrian MIGs with­out a sin­gle lost F-​​15, I sus­pect one F-​​22 is the equiv­a­lent of more like 6 F-15s…and 100+ enemy fight­ers and air defense sys­tems.
    Our nation will not lose air dom­i­nance with fewer 5th gen air­craft because the qual­ity is so high…and other asso­ci­ated bells/​whistles are equally superla­tive to include train­ing and ground/​sea air and mis­sile defense sys­tems.
    I men­tioned dou­bling the num­ber of fighter pilots per air­craft. That is sim­i­lar to what the Israelis do to max­i­mize air­craft num­bers. Assimilate reserve pilots into active units in wartime to accom­plish the dou­bling and share F-​​22 air­craft state­side.
    More F-​​22s would strain bud­gets, poten­tially lead­ing to Army/​Marine cuts. Not buy­ing 200 more F-​​22s would save upwards of $24 Billion. Couple that with JSF cuts (not elim­i­na­tion) and you could retain key pri­or­i­ties of the groud com­po­nent that his­tor­i­cally have been shortchanged…leading to 40:1 casu­alty rates of Army/​Marines vs. USAF ser­vice­mem­bers.
    RE:Sorry Cole but you are wrong & the num­bers on orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com are wrong.
    2nd you are flat out dream­ing if you think you could pos­si­bly pro­cure ANY of the ear­lier gen­er­a­tion fight­ers TODAY for the amount listed on the orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com page. There are fac­tors that effect the cost of a fighter pro­cured today that sim­ply are not accounted for by sim­ply mak­ing a infla­tion adjust­ment on how much it cost SEVERAL DECADES ago. What they cost to pro­cure way back when is irrel­e­vant, what they would cost to pro­cure TODAY is. Also note that the per unit cost tends to go down SIGNIFICANTLY the more you pro­cure. For exam­ple, the 1st three years of F/​A-​​18E/​F pro­cure­ment was an aver­age of ~$160 mil­lion each, the lat­est three years of F/​A-​​18E/​F pro­cure­ment was an aver­age of ~$80 mil­lion each.
    Reply: First, loca­tions (California and New York) of some of our defense indus­try dri­ves expenses because labor costs are high there. Instead of relo­cat­ing, like other indus­tries have, prices con­tinue to rise because defense incomes must be higher to afford local hous­ing.
    Second, con­sid­er­ing the gist of the cited arti­cle was pos­i­tive, I doubt they went out of their way to dis­tort costs now vs then. Admittedly, tanks were much cheaper in WWII as well. When you insist on noth­ing but the best capa­bil­i­ties, you sac­ri­fice sheer num­bers to stay within a rea­son­able bud­get. The F-​​16 was/​is an excel­lent exam­ple that you can buy a pre­mium fighter at a cheaper cost through com­pro­mise.
    Despite a clearly reduced threat, com­pro­mise seems to be an alien con­cept to the USAF. You can either buy lots of F-​​22s to knock out air defenses and estab­lish air supe­ri­or­ity early…and then you don’t need stealth for other fight­ers. Or you can say that a com­bi­na­tion of F-​​22 and less costly F-​​35 can achieve air supe­ri­or­ity and wipe out air defense early..and you find the RIGHT BALANCE of both. An AMRAAM or Advanced HARM doesn’t know if it was fired from an F-​​22 or F-​​35, and the enemy is just as dead.
    What you don’t do is insist that you need stealth in extra­or­di­nary num­bers of both air­craft, to elim­i­nate threats that are far more lim­ited than the USAF is real­is­ti­cally pos­tu­lat­ing. It is ludi­crous to expect we will truly be involved in two major the­ater wars simul­ta­ne­ously. I might buy that you could have a mix of one major war and a smaller one, but two big wars at once will not be won by the USAF alone. The Army/​Marines would need to grow sub­stan­tially as well, which is planned…and endan­gered if the USAF insists that its needs come first.
    3rd our F-​​15s are sim­ply old & have been worked hard over much of their lives & while you can spend money repairing/​refirbishing them & keep them fly­ing for per­haps another 5–10 years they WILL HAVE TO BE REPLACED EVENTUALLY & I guar­ante that the cost of replac­ing them in 10 years will be MUCH more than the cost of replac­ing them with F-​​22s. Remember, most of our F-​​15 were sup­posed to have been replaced by F-​​22s ALREADY.
    Go back to my Golden Eagle com­ment. A March 2007 USAF arti­cle stated they planned on retain­ing 178 F-​​15C with upgraded AESA radars through 2025. That was never men­tioned by any­one when this F-​​15 prob­lem arose. Between the com­bi­na­tion of $500K repairs and 265 inspected/​ungrounded F-​​15s the USAF should be able to iden­tify 178 new Golden Eagles.
    http://​www​.afa​.org/​m​a​g​a​z​i​n​e​/​m​a​r​c​h​2​0​0​7​/​0​3​0​7​f​o​r​c​e​.​asp

    Reply
  25. Cole says:
    January 12, 2008 at 5:33 pm

    Evangeline:Also implied in what I was say­ing is that this applies to all alu­minum struc­tures on super­sonic air­craft. Over the next five (pos­si­bly two or three) years you will need to replace every alu­minum part on the F15s. when you con­sider the fact that, as Doc elab­o­rated, replac­ing a lonegeron involves remov­ing and replac­ing the avion­ics, engines, and wings incre­men­tal replace­ment will quickly exceed the cost of a new air­craft. Fairly soon this will begin to hap­pen to the F16s and F18s too. In other words, at this rate you will need to replace every air­frame in the inven­tory (except the super hor­nets) in the next ten years.
    .….….….….….
    Reply: Nobody has been say­ing that Evangeline. We keep hear­ing $500K and I read that the F-​​15 is large enough with suf­fi­cient voids to add brac­ing with­out removal of lots of items.
    In addi­tion, the USAF planned on keep­ing those 178 Golden Eagles and newer F-​​15E, any­way.
    Evangeline:Lets sup­pose for a moment that the AAMRAM is the sil­ver stand­off bul­let you seem to believe it is. Why use fight­ers at all when you can strap a whole lot of AAMRAMs and a spec­tac­u­lar radar to a B52 or a B1.
    The prob­lem with BVR mis­siles is that you cant see your tar­get ex hypoth­esi. Thus, you can­not ver­ify that your tar­get is in fact an enemy. As a result stan­dard engage­ment pro­ce­dure is now for pilots to ver­ify the tar­get visu­ally. All engage­ments are de facto within visual range where the decid­ing fac­tor is maneu­ver­abil­ity.
    .….….….….…
    Reply: I can envi­sion our non-​​stealthy fighter air­craft fly­ing par­al­lel to the moun­tains of Taiwan and launch­ing mis­sile after mis­sile at inbound Chinese…and duck­ing down behind the east face of moun­tains if the Chinese get a shot off prior to their destruc­tion.
    You can employ a com­bi­na­tion of TTP and tech­nol­ogy to ensure pos­i­tive ID. If hun­dreds of Chinese air­craft are inbound, you don’t wait for pos­i­tive ID. AWACS can fol­low the enemy from take­off. And if noth­ing but our stealthy air­craft are out in enemy ter­ri­tory ini­tially, we shouldn’t be get­ting too many errant AMRAAM lock­ups any­way. Choose an estab­lished return route for our air­craft that the Chinese could not find due to our stealth.;)
    Evangeline: It’s true that our poten­tial ene­mies may have only about two dozen high tech fight­ers each. We do have enough F15s to over­whelm them even if they have a 2:1 kill ratio. But I leave you with one ques­tion: do you intend to be the one to call the fam­i­lies of the 48 pilots shot down?
    Reply: I hate to play the casu­alty card again, but a lot of Marine/​USAF com­man­ders had to write let­ters to fam­i­lies of nearly 4,000 dead Servicemen…versus 75 valiant air­men that were mostly ground guys.
    And while I admire the USAF Major involved in the F-​​15 inci­dent, and rec­og­nize his courage and the sever­ity of his injuries…upwards of 30,000 ground com­po­nent Soldiers have mental/​physical injuries that will be with them the rest of their lives.
    Given the extra­or­di­nary figher capa­bil­i­ties of our USAF, Navy, Marines and Allies, we can afford to take more risk in the air com­po­nent than we cur­rently plan/​want to finance advances in ground com­po­nent ser­vices that may pre­vent such deaths/​injuries.

    Reply
  26. Evangeline says:
    January 12, 2008 at 6:25 pm

    Cole:

    Reply
  27. citanon says:
    January 13, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Cole:
    “Check out this link that com­pares the cost of past fighter air­craft to today’s F-​​22 in TODAY’S DOLLARS.
    http://​orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com/​b​r​e​a​k​i​n​g​/​f​2​2​r​a​p​t​or/
    Look at the right hand col­umn mid­way down. The WWII P-​​51 Mustang cost only $600,000 in today’s dol­lars. Fighter costs were rea­son­able all the way up to AND INCLUDING the F-​​15. The F-​​22 costs at least one hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars more in today’s dol­lars than an F-15…an expo­nen­tial increase in price…with an expo­nen­tial DECREASE in threat, because that air­craft was begun prior to the Soviet Union’s demise.“
    This com­par­i­son is non­sense for many rea­sons, but you need only one to illus­trate why: The income of the American worker has risen far faster than infla­tion, and when some­body becomes wealth­ier, you have to pay him more to do the same work. Therefore, unless we are propos­ing to out­source pro­duc­tion of F22’s to China, com­par­isons of this sort are a bit quaint with­out the proper eco­nomic context.

    Reply
  28. citanon says:
    January 13, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    Cole:
    “Check out this link that com­pares the cost of past fighter air­craft to today’s F-​​22 in TODAY’S DOLLARS.
    http://​orig​in​media​.mgnet​work​.com/​b​r​e​a​k​i​n​g​/​f​2​2​r​a​p​t​or/
    Look at the right hand col­umn mid­way down. The WWII P-​​51 Mustang cost only $600,000 in today’s dol­lars. Fighter costs were rea­son­able all the way up to AND INCLUDING the F-​​15. The F-​​22 costs at least one hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars more in today’s dol­lars than an F-15…an expo­nen­tial increase in price…with an expo­nen­tial DECREASE in threat, because that air­craft was begun prior to the Soviet Union’s demise.“
    This com­par­i­son is non­sense for many rea­sons, but you need only one to illus­trate why: The income of the American worker has risen far faster than infla­tion, and when some­body becomes wealth­ier, you have to pay him more to do the same work. Therefore, unless we are propos­ing to out­source pro­duc­tion of F22’s to China, com­par­isons of this sort are a bit quaint with­out the proper eco­nomic context.

    Reply
  29. Roy Smith says:
    January 14, 2008 at 4:27 am

    I won­der if,when their mil­i­tary equip­ment was turn­ing to crap all around them,the Soviets said,“Its okay,we have the Su-​​30 com­ing on line”,& “every­body knows that the T-​​90 tank is the best in the world”,& “its ok,we have no cred­i­ble threat right now & we have plenty of time to rebuild & build up our mil­i­tary.” We also know that they were “win­ning” the war in Chechnya & had ter­ror­ism on the run,blah,blah,blah,yadda,yadda,yadda,etc. Sound famil­iar to anybody?

    Reply
  30. Cole says:
    January 14, 2008 at 7:02 pm

    Evangeline: “I hope I don

    Reply
  31. Cole says:
    January 14, 2008 at 7:13 pm

    Roy: “I won­der if,when their mil­i­tary equip­ment was turn­ing to crap all around them,the Soviets said,“Its okay,we have the Su-​​30 com­ing on line”,& “every­body knows that the T-​​90 tank is the best in the world”,& “its ok,we have no cred­i­ble threat right now & we have plenty of time to rebuild & build up our mil­i­tary.” We also know that they were “win­ning” the war in Chechnya & had ter­ror­ism on the run,blah,blah,blah,yadda,yadda,yadda,etc. Sound famil­iar to any­body?“
    Reply: Those Chechnya insur­gents did a pretty darn good job with their anti-​​armor hunter-​​killer teams.
    Wikipedia:
    The end results of the New Year’s Eve bat­tle were dev­as­tat­ing for the Russian side, which lost est. 105 of 120 tanks sent into the city. The entire first bat­tal­ion of the Maikop Brigade, more than 50% of the 81st Regiment, and hun­dreds of men from the remain­ing units had been killed. A high-​​ranking Russian General Staff offi­cer later said “On January 2nd, we lost con­tact with our for­ward units.” According to Maskadov, some 400 Russian tanks and APCs in all were destroyed.
    Somehow I sus­pect the Soviet Union was NOT look­ing at us and say­ing there is no cred­i­ble threat out there.;)
    The dif­fer­ence is they spent their way into bank­rupty chas­ing a true threat, while too many stealth air­craft would com­mence our nation’s turn in that direc­tion chas­ing a phan­tom threat…while the real one on the ground goes underfunded.

    Reply
  32. DC2 Jennings says:
    January 15, 2008 at 11:30 am

    Cole,
    Stop whin­ing about how the Army is under­funded. It makes no sense.
    And I would say the war on ter­ror­ism is more of a phan­tom threat than war against a threat­en­ing nation. You look at how much we have spent in Iraq and tell me what is dri­ving us bank­rupt. China is much more of a threat to wipe the US off the face of the Earth than an Islamic rad­i­cal with a sui­cide vest.
    We would have a bal­anced bud­get right now if it weren’t for the addtional dicre­tionary spend­ing to fund this war.
    DC2

    Reply
  33. Cole says:
    January 16, 2008 at 6:13 pm

    DC2: “Stop whin­ing about how the Army is under­funded. It makes no sense.“
    ————————————————–
    It makes per­fect sense. Let me whine some more. ; )
    A CBO report just sug­gested lower cost alter­na­tives to upgrad­ing Army air­craft. The study’s impe­tus appeared to be con­cern that cur­rent plans had an aver­age cost of $3.3 bil­lion a year to reset/​modernize Army avi­a­tion instead of the $2.2 bil­lion annual aver­age of the past 20 years. Yet the dif­fer­en­tial between his­tor­i­cal and planned costs to upgrade/​buy 3,353 Army air­craft amounts to just $25 bil­lion spread out over 23 years. That cor­re­sponds closely to the cost of 200 addi­tional F-​​22s over a far shorter 10 years of addi­tional pro­duc­tion.
    No com­pa­ra­ble capa­bil­ity matches Army Aviation, proven over years of endur­ing con­flict. In con­trast, the brief weeks required to achieve air dom­i­nance hardly jus­tify exces­sive F-​​22s quan­ti­ties because non-​​stealthy air­craft can carry on for the long haul once air supremacy is achieved. You do the math: 3,353 Army air­craft essen­tial for the long war vs. 200 too many F-​​22s for the threat, given the exist­ing 183 F-​​22s, host of ground/​sea air defense and air sys­tems, and the com­ing F-​​35.
    —————————————————
    DC2: “China is much more of a threat to wipe the US off the face of the Earth than an Islamic rad­i­cal with a sui­cide vest.“
    —————————————————
    Mutually-​​assured destruc­tion (MAD) pre­vents China/​Russia from nuk­ing us. Yet, that con­cept is for­eign to Islamic rad­i­cals with nuclear sui­cide vests in the form of a 40′ con­tain­ers host­ing a nuclear device sailed into and det­o­nated in U.S. har­bors. Mad (angry/​crazy) ter­ror­ists, don’t care about MAD.
    They may have a point. How do we respond to such an attack. If we deter­mine from the radi­a­tion sig­na­ture that the nuclear fuel came from Iran, we could return the nuclear favor. But what if it is Pakistan and a device was stolen by dis­en­chanted mil­i­tary offi­cers. What if the device is from the Ukraine, bought on the black mar­ket and deliv­ered via Al Qaeda. Who do we retal­i­ate against? What if it is a Chemical attack? A nation­state would never attack due to known con­se­quences. Terrorists would, and unlike 9/​11, our retal­ia­tory response might be lim­ited tar­get­wise. Do we nuke Pashtun sec­tions of Pakistan where Al Qaeda is hid­ing and radi­ate the whole of Pakistan and India? Don’t think so.
    ——————————————————
    DC2: “I would say the war on ter­ror is more of a phan­tom threat than war against a threat­en­ing nation. You look at how much we have spent in Iraq and tell me what is dri­ving us bank­rupt.“
    ——————————————————-
    This vital region requires rig­or­ous defense of ship­ping lanes where the world’s oil tran­sits. As a for­mer Navy guy who wit­nessed the inci­dent of a week ago, you under­stand that. Iran remains a state-​​sponsor of ter­ror even as Iran/​Afghanistan state threats sub­side. Our pres­ence deters and pro­vides options. Military tech­nol­ogy for con­ven­tional war­fare, proves just as valu­able in insur­gency. Look at Chechnya, our cur­rent threats, and Israeli actions against Gaza and Lebanon to ascer­tain the value of con­ven­tional ground/​air forces against terror/​insurgent tar­gets and states

    Reply
  34. james says:
    November 5, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    Just wanted to know can any cred­i­tors take any of my Disablity if I get behind on an auto.

    Reply

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