Posted on 02/04/2010 5:54:00 PM PST by Kaslin
There is nothing being done in any of those countries that could not be replaced elsewhere in a matter of 12 months.
Those countries have no long term physical strategic value to us due to their lack of resources. I view them as I would Belgium and the Netherlands - nice places, nice people, no real long term value to the US. If those countries were wiped out by a Tsunami tomorrow, the world would go on.
I’m not saying we don’t want stability in that area, but the main responsibility needs to be on the inhabitants and leaders of those countries, not the US Seventh Fleet and the American Taxpayer.
Sure there is. Cost per plane, and availability.
A hangar queen cannot meet the needs of the nation, and we can't afford to buy twice the number of planes to account for that because they are so damn expensive to beging with.
Well then I have a bargain for you. A brand new F-4E Phantom cost about $2.5 million. Well it did in the 1960s.
Okay, okay. A new F-15 from Boeing is $100 million, while a new F-22 is $140 million. The F-15 costs $17,465 per hour to fly, and the F-22 costs $19,750 per hour.
As far as I know, the F-22 was on track for an 85% mission capable rate fleetwide last year, and the 525th FS was at 100%. But I guess everyone is hung up on the 62% MC from 2008.
By availability, I mean hours of maintenance per hour of flight.
I’m sure its very available if you set the bar low enough.
My favorite American General of the modern era is MacAuthor, Patton is a very close second, sure wish we had generals like those two today.
Ah! You mean Direct Maintenance Man-Hours per Flight Hour (DMMH/FH). In 2007, the F-22 required about 34 hours of maintenance per flight hour. In 2008 it was 18.1 hours. In 2009 it dropped to 10.5 hours. The USAF requirement was 12 hours at maturity (100,000 flight hours).
For comparison, the F-15 requires about 20 hours and the F-16 requires about 19. Remember, the F119 engines have about 40% fewer parts than those F100s and F110s.
While looking up the DMMH/FH, I noticed an error on the figures I gave you for mission capable rates... The F-22 was not on track to 85% MC for 2009 as I had stated. They had a 68% MC in 2009 (compared with the 70% for the F-15) and are on track for 85% MC at maturity (100,000 hours).
All of those numbers are ridiculous for all the aircraft mentioned.
But for purposes of comparison of supersonic aircraft, how many hours of maintenance for every hour of flight for the Concorde?
I’m sure it wasn’t 10, 15, 20, or 30.
I’ve read 18 for the Concorde. And I’m sure the numbers are all ridiculous. But that’s not important for a comparison. It’s important that all the ridiculous numbers are compiled the same way. Apples to apples.
Concorde @ 18 hours * 6 hour round trip = 108 hours of hangar time.
4 1/2 work days of maintenance per flight? Really?
It's in man-hours. Presumably British Air had more than one guy working on the Concorde. (Not sure about Air France though). If you had 15 guys in a crew, 108 MMH would be done in a shift. My guess is that afterburning engines for a plane that is supersonic are very maintenance intensive, and that is where the bulk of the maintenance man-hours stem.
My bad, concerning mahours. That’s not clear when you read about this.
The F-22 stuff says half the maintenance time is spent on the aricraft skin.
Sadly, we are not event selling the Republic of China all the weapons they want.The would like more F-16s (especially block 50/52 or Block 60s), AMRAAMS, and submarines.
Actually he didn't survive the Eisenhower Military, many believe he was murdered, in a fake accident.
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