Comments on: Air Force Grounds F-15s

By: tylerh

tylerh — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:31:01 +0000

The V-22 kept falling out of the sky, but the Pentagon kept pouring more millions into that program.

B52's have fallen out of the sky, in one case explicitly because of structural failure (over Kuwait), but we don't hear about a need to ground that fleet, which is 20 years older than the F-15.

Likewise, the tanker fleet is as as old as the B-52s and is kept flying.

Yet, One F-15 has trouble, out of 500, and they ground the entire fleet?

This just stinks. Any way we can TDY the Air Force procurement office to Karbala to focuse their attention on what's important?

By: anjin-san

anjin-san — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:10:05 +0000

due to budgetary constraints

In other words, Bush's money pit in Iraq is compromising national security...

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:54:02 +0000

If the Air Corps had flown the Spad 13, adopted in World War One, as long as the F-15, it would have been flying them at the beginning of the Korean War.

Quite so. Of course, that was in the infancy of military aviation -- indeed, aviation, period. Advances are much more incremental now and our enemies aren't in any danger of surpassing us.

It makes sense to do R&D and even to acquire some next generation planes. It's silly to use a Ferrari as a daily commuter, though.

By: Donald Sensing

Donald Sensing — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:47:31 +0000

If the Air Corps had flown the Spad 13, adopted in World War One, as long as the F-15, it would have been flying them at the beginning of the Korean War.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:46:47 +0000

The Air Force wants its new F-22, with its bells & whistles, at a cost of $250 million/plane. The new AF budget for next year has no money for C-17 cargo plane but F-22 fully funded. Problem has become its single minded focus on F-22 program has meant shortchanging the rest of its fleet. It probably needs to manage its fighter & cargo fleet more like Navy manages their carriers. And, of course, then there's the tanker replacement mess...

By: Boyd

Boyd — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:52:33 +0000

Back in my naval aviation days (crew member, not pilot), I was flying in airplanes (EA-3B Skywarriors) older than the F-15s are now, and we were bouncing them off of carrier decks. They also weighed 73,000 pounds, almost twice that of any other carrier-borne aircraft. Just because the planes are pushing 30 doesn't make them unusable. Sure, they're more likely to develop problems as they get older, but they're not bad planes just because of their age. That's what preventive maintenance is designed to combat.