Airforce may be be going out of business

[reed11b]

Don't save all of your abuse for our brothers in blue.

Co-worker and friend is a Marine F/A-18 pilot, who was gently, but firmly told to stand down when he put together a paper making the case that Marine air was going the wrong direction in seeking stealth capability and Joint Strike Fighters, (how stealthy can you be below 1000' supporting ground troops) and should be considering platforms such as the Skyraider.

Unfortunately that whole argument has been deeply tainted w/ Sparkyisms and it will take time to heal the damage caused there. At one point I was working on a paper to compare cost efficiencies of using less expensive to operate helicopters in decentralized taskings compared to higher operating cost helicopters in more centralized taskings. Sparks caught wind of it and contacted me and insisted that the story needed to be about the then current LUH program and trailer mounted helicopters. Of course that was not something that could work, and I was annoyed to the point of dropping the idea before completion. Now whenever I see an idea supported by Sparks and crew, I have a tendency to reject it out of hand. Some of the ideas are good, even if Sparks et al. really do not understand them.
Reed

[William F. Owen]

Now whenever I see an idea supported by Sparks and crew, I have a tendency to reject it out of hand. Some of the ideas are good, even if Sparks et al. really do not understand them.

Concur.

[Jedburgh]

CSIS, 19 Dec 08: America's Self-Destroying Air Power: Becoming Your Own Peer Threat

.....Almost every major aircraft development program is in so much trouble that the replacements are stuck in a morass of procurement and development problems, cost explosions, and rifts within the Department of Defense. Fifth-generation tactical aircraft are affected by significant delays and cost increases.

The F-22 has almost tripled in unit cost. Meanwhile, the planned procurement quantity has been reduced from 750 to 183. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter faces a similar fate, and may not be ready in time to replace aging legacy fighters, creating a ―fighter gap in the Air Force‘s and Navy‘s inventories. The strategic capabilities are not less affected by these problems. A new bomber is planned, as the previous B-2B program escalated in cost by a factor of at least 300 percent, and was reduced to roughly one fifth of its original force goal. Finally, a program to replace the almost 50-year old air refueling tanker is stuck in a political tug of war caused by the Air Force‘s mismanagement of the program. Meanwhile, maintenance costs to keep the legacy fleet operational are increasing rapidly.

There now are fewer program alternatives if any key program runs into trouble, failed methods of cost analysis are still in play without adequate cost-risk analysis or use of regression analysis.The pressure to ―sell‖ programs by understating cost and risk have all combined to push air modernization to the crisis point. Current plans for aircraft modernization are not affordable unless aircraft costs are sharply reduced, deliveries are delayed years longer than planned, or funding shifts to lower cost variants or upgrades of older types. The only alternative is a major increase in real defense spending.

This report examines how these problems affect the tactical, strategic, and enabling capabilities of US air power. It draws on recent government data and news reports to reveal the state of current strategic air power and identify the challenges the next administration will face for future force planning and budgeting......

Complete 54-page report at the link.

[Stevely]

That is a fascinating and depressing find, Jedburgh, thanks for posting the link. It seems it's one of those things where everyone knows at some level things are seriously out of whack and have for some time (just read back to the beginning of this thread), but seeing a systematic exposure of the details doesn't fail to shock.

[Surferbeetle]

Bloomberg Website, posted 2 Jan 2009.

To boost cooperation between NASA and the Pentagon, Obama has promised to revive the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which oversaw the entire space arena for four presidents, most actively from 1958 to 1973.

The move would build ties between agencies with different cultures and agendas.

“Whether such cooperation would succeed remains to be seen,” said Scott Pace, a former NASA official who heads the Washington-based Space Policy Institute. “But the questions are exactly the ones the Obama team needs to ask.”

[carl]

There is a very interesting article in the current Atlantic magazine about air combat, F-15s and F-22s. Regardless of your position in our F-22 vs. the world debate, it is a very good read.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/air-force/5

(moderator: i don't know how to set up a link. this is the best i could do. Added by Moderator, works fine thank you).

[davidbfpo]

Carl,

A good catch and being written by Mark Bowden, doubly worthwhile. Others will identify the lessons for the USAF, but I liked the comment on an exercise with the Indian AF in 2005.

davidbfpo

[Starbuck]

I think the push to accept unmanned planes has the same psychological effect on the Air Force that the push to eliminate horses had for the Army. (To a small extent, this is true across the broad range of the aviation community, I would say)

Think of how prevalent the image of the fighter pilot is in our society. The Air Force leadership grew up with images of Chuck Yeager. Today's Gen-Yers grew up wanting to be Maverick and Goose, or Luke Skywalker. Think of the plot of JAG--a Navy JAG lawyer also, from time to time, has to pilot F-14 Tomcats to fight terrorists. In order to pilot something, you need to have been (before laser surgery) born with superior eyesight, etc. It's almost as if you're born with a magical "gift".

I will agree that in the USAF's culture, being a rated aviator is everything. It's rare to see someone rise to high ranks and NOT be a rated aviator (although it looks as if this has changed in the last year or two). UAV operators are continually made fun of by the entire aviation community (The fact that UAV operators have received DFCs hasn't helped the resentment, either), and are treated as "less than aviators". But the interesting point of the matter is that UAVs are, in fact, becoming a much more prevalent portion of the aviation community, and is doing so rapidly. I'm not pushing for the complete removal of manned aircraft from the inventory, but we could conceivably add many more unmanned aircraft to the fleet.

The decision to place them under ground or aviation units is a good one, as is whether or not to place them under the control of rated aviators. In my opinion, as congested as the airspace is now, I'd rather have them under the control of rated aviators instead of people who have never experienced a near mid-air incident, which is "game over" in a UAV, but not so much in a manned aircraft.