There's lots of F-16's and F-15's parked at Davis-Monthan, no reason to build new ones if you're not buying F-35's and F-22's.
Posted on 06/16/2009 8:11:41 PM PDT by Nachum
House defense authorizers are pressing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to consider buying existing fighter jets instead of the next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to curtail a severe fighter jet shortfall in the Air Force National Guard.
During a House Armed Services Committee markup of the 2010 defense authorization bill on Tuesday, lawmakers raised alarm that aircraft shortfalls could present significant challenges to the Air Force’s ability to protect domestic airspace.
At press time, lawmakers had included an amendment sponsored by Reps. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) and Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) that would force Gates to consider buying F-15, F-16 and F-18 aircraft with Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, high-capacity datalink, enhanced avionics and the ability to deploy advanced weapons.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
The list, ping
NO! We need the F-35. Stupid.
“F-15, F-16 and F-18 aircraft with Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, high-capacity datalink, enhanced avionics and the ability to deploy advanced weapons.”
We have these in service now. We need the newer tech in new airframes.
That's what cost us dearly in WWII and Korea. The rest of the world proceeded with their R&D and we rested on our laurels. This peace dividend will cost lives. It will also cost us our aerospace industry.
When we really need a 5th generation fighter, we can always buy one from the Russians.
There's lots of F-16's and F-15's parked at Davis-Monthan, no reason to build new ones if you're not buying F-35's and F-22's.
What’s amazing is the amount of $$$$ they are just throwing to the wind - and they cut military funding in the midst of a Nuclear threat from two rogue nations. Lovely.
Without the purchase of the F-35 for the ANG, the unit price of the Navy/Marine Corps variants will skyrocket.
Are they planning on scraping the entire F-35 weapons system?
Knowing that dumbass Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), she’ll demand all of the manuals and markings inside the cockpit be written in Spanish. What a dumb ****.
I thought the F-22 and F-35 were competing for a contract. When did it happen that both were going to be purchased?
I would assume we have hundreds of all sorts of aircraft parked at that base. Question is though how many are serviceable.
I don't think so. The Russians won't be taking our checks much longer. Our credit's no good.
Three or four years ago it happened.
The F-22 was to replace the F-15’s. And the F-35 was to replace the F-16, A-10, F-18, and a number of allied airframes.
Most are not serviceable. The were sent there by START and SALT treaties, and budget cuts. They are used for parts, occasionally.
The F-22 is an air superiority fighter intended to replace the F-15. The F-35 is a multi-role fighter intended to be produced in variants that can be tailored to the individual needs of the Navy, Marines and USAF. It is intended to replace the F-16 and F/A-18.
The multi-role concept gets us back to the F-111 (TFX) which wound up being a bomber instead of a fighter. Also, it was completely rejected by the navy which developed the F-14 as their version of the F-111 that actually worked shipboard.
Now it looks like we will get neither in any great numbers. We'll just get reinvented vintage aircraft.
F-16 ping.
Saturday morning, 174th Fighter Wing pilots will take off on their final scheduled deployment in the cockpits of the fighter jets they've flown since the 1980s.....In the fall of 2010, the F-16s replacement -- new, unmanned drones called MQ-9 Reapers -- will arrive at Hancock Field.....the unmanned drones are "the future of aviation in terms of high performance fighters," [174th Fighter Wing Commander] Bradley said.
Syracuse's 174th Fighter Wing's F-16s taking off on final scheduled deployment
Maybe we can buy the cheap Chinese knock-offs. Send the procurement officer to Wal-Mart aisle 9, ask for the “Bum-Dong 35”.
The reason the F-15s and F-16s are at AMARK to begin with, is that they are tired (and occasionally breaking up in flight).
Those planes are not operational. While they are kept in a condition that would not be too much trouble to get them ready to fly - they are not a threat to any enemy as they are...
As far as the original focus of this thread... how much $$$ has been poured into the F-22 and F-35 program? And now we want to flush that down the toilet?
As has already been posted - this is the EXACT scenario that got our tails handed to us in the first year or so of WWII, and it took nearly the whole war to get our war machine up to speed. History today doesn’t teach the reality of just how close we came to losing that war.
Lots of service men and women gave their all so that we could learn that lesson and never find ourselves in that same sad position again.
So now we have 0bama... and the libTARDs in charge. WE will be buying our weapons from the Chi-Coms before it is over...
Yes. this was planned. The Reaper is an amazing weapons delivery platform.
The 174th is a Guard Unit and their planes were set to retire, not be replaced by the the F-35. There are other Guard units that were, or are, slated to receive the F-35. One of those is the Joint Base at McEntire Joint National Guard Base near Columbia, SC.
We don’t have many with AESA radars. There is actually an element of sense to this. With good radars and good electronic countermeasures - say as good as what is currently being installed in Arab & Polish & Chilean F-16s - we could extend their useful lifespan by quite a bit.
It is a sad day when foreign fighters can buy off the shelf upgrades in the US that our fighters don’t have...
This assumes you have airframes with lifespan left on them. If not, then I believe the costs would be prohibitive, since new ones aren’t a whole lot cheaper than the F-35 will be.
Every F-22 bought brought the price down. Same for the F-35. You’re paying for 20 years of avionics engineering and advanced material engineering. That’s not cheap.
Jet Jaguar: “We have these in service now. We need the newer tech in new airframes.”
Air superiority is absolutely vital to military success. Our avionics are probably second to none, but anyone who has ever seen a newer MiG outperform an F-15 knows our fighters need an upgrade.
US fighter aircraft at the beginning of WW2 would have been more competitive with early Axis types if we’d had more powerful engines in them. It wasn’t until the P&W Wasp radial (essentially a big-a— bomber engine) was hung onto Navy & Marine aircraft that the Pacific War stabilized in the air. When the Army Air Corps replace those mediocre Allison engines with the Rolls-Royce Merlin (Packard-Merlin), the P-51 became a world-beater.
The P-40 wasn’t half-bad as a fighter bomber and it was dangerous to tangle with at lower altitudes.
The fighter aircraft to come will have no people in them. They will be highly persistent, will have autonomous air-2-air refueling, etc. They will turn on dimes, put no pilots at risk, be capable of attacking targets behind them, and much more.
AF generals despise such aircraft. But they’re coming.
Quite a few F4 Phantom II’s parked there as well... Quite a few interesting aircraft... pretty cool!
You thought wrong. The F-22 was to be the "high" end of the "high-low" mix. The F-22 would be play the same role as the F-15, while the F-35 would be comparable to the F-16 for USAF a "swing fighter, that could do air to air early and then air to ground later. It was also slated to replace the F/A-18 for the Navy, and AV-8B (Harrier) for the Marines. British were also to use the F-35, and I believe the Spanish and Italians, who also current use variants of the Harrier.
But hey the world is a safe place at this point in time, (Riiight) and we're the Big Dog (in some respects) so we don't need more military stuff. Much more important to save the Turtles, the Snail darters and of course the inner city welfare recipient.
Considering what the Soviets are now producing (and will in the future), I think F22’s and F35 are a more prudent choice.
Some are, most are not. At best they are kept in good enough shape for parts to be taken from them and used to keep the rump of the fleet flying a little longer.
I imagine they've got such a severe case of cranial rectal inversion that they don't have a clue themselves.
“But they’re coming.”
Don’t hold your breath. It is much harder than folks assume.
Only the BUFFs, but some BUFFs where sent by budgets cuts as well. Also 1/3 of the Bones (B-1Bs), which I suspect are being cannibalized for parts, even the original notion was to just not operate them to save on flying hour and manpower costs, but have them otherwise in nearly flight ready status.
And it shows their lack of foresight in assuming the Chinese will not be a threat and cutting the F-22. There would be no lack of aircraft for the Air National Guard if F-22 production was sped up instead of cancelled, with the late-production front-line F-15C's going to the ANG units.
I think they are trying to sabotage us. They, meaning the enemy within.
Do we really need stealth and and other advanced capabilities for domestic defense?
No they aren't. The LibTards will divert the money to African Folk Dancing troupes in the 'hood or some other such such rot.
There are other Guard units that were, or are, slated to receive the F-35.
That's all great but the cynic in me says that Obama will be in no hurry to buy more F-35s, and will use the delays as an excuse to curtail the program or worse. He sees DoD as a likely place to cut funding by slashing new weapons systems and cut spares procurement. Fighter wings are especially vulnerable to defense cuts in this Jimmy Carter redux environment. The pressure to slash defense will only increase as inflation takes hold and interest rates skyrocket as a result of his reckless spending spree. He's already crippled the CIA, signaled weakness to our enemies and undermined our missile defenses. Major weapons systems are all in danger.
YouTube: Barack Obama - Yes I Can Make Us Defenseless—Just Like Dec 7, 1941
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| Sovereignty alert: The first (and forgotten) priority |
| Posted: 09/29/08 TheHill.com |
...Unfortunately, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and ANG are facing a tremendous obstacle — the so-called bathtub effect on the fighter fleet. The bathtub effect refers to a graphic representation of the fleet of current fourth-generation fighter aircraft used by ANG that is running out of flying hours and thus being removed from the inventory (a downward trend), resulting in a flat line, when no new aircraft will be acquired. This shortage — or bottom of the bathtub — will remain for several years until the F-35 begins to trickle into the ANG (an upward trend).
The ANG will be disproportionately impacted because their aircraft are “hand-me-downs” from the USAF. The backbone of the ASA fleet, F-15s and F-16s, is aging rapidly with no timely replacements. A sobering fact: in eight years, 80 percent of fighter aircraft currently defending the U.S. will run out of flying hours and be decommissioned. However, its intended replacement, the F-35, will not even begin production until 2016 and may slip further behind....
YES.
Missiles have gotten very, very good. No stealth = sitting duck.
Unfortunately, the AI is still not there at all.
In the last test of an MQ-9 vs a manned F-15, the F-15 ate the MQ-9 for a light snack and kept going.
Drones right now have their place - it’s in ground attack, close air support, and Wild Weasel roles. It is *not* in air superiority or combat air patrol.
The BONEs are sent there to die.
Each airframe is almost a custom build. Parts (other than common avionics and some engine parts) don’t interchange.
One reason they are sitting at D-M.
Who is going to be firing those missiles within our own borders?
1995
Um, you mean other than invading forces or terrorists?
Oh, also? The Mexicans, who HAVE been running border incursions with their official army, have lost a number of their air defense missiles. Just the thing to bring down a US Air Force fighter getting too close to a drug smuggling plane.
Specifically, who?
You mean other than drug gangs and marauding rogue elements of the Mexican military? Do you really need any more?
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