Page 15 of 15 FirstFirst ... 5131415
Results 281 to 287 of 287

Thread: Airforce may be be going out of business

  1. #281
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    1,457

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by tankersteve View Post
    However, like Ken (not that I am his peer), I think some of the argument is not that credible. For instance, do you have to escort ISR if it is unmanned, small, and stealthy?
    It's situational, but yes, it would require escort to operate over denied territory - otherwise they'd get shot down. They don't have any of the threat-mitigation advantages of manned aircraft currently - they are low speed, not maneuverable, lack basic defensive aids, etc. But in reality I think it's unlikely we'd see that situation to begin with - the current crop of ISR UAV's are not exactly designed to be escorted or operate in high-threat environments. Once true UCAV's come along, then that will change.

    I don't want to appear to be 'Air-bashing' but the key arguement that I think the AF has missed is 'affordability'.
    Don't worry, that's not bashing! But I think the Air Force would agree with you! While the fighter community loves the capabilities of the F-22, they are not happy about the price tag because it has resulted in many fewer aircraft being produced at the end of the day (originally it was going to be 700). Of course, no one should feel sorry for the Air Force on that count, because it deserves much blame for the state of things. The Air Force has proven itself completely incompetent at procurement.

    How bad is the threat of advanced capability fighter aircraft? Can a viable threat buy, maintain, train, and fly an advanced 4th or 5th Gen fighter force? Do we see that as likely? Would a lot of slightly less capable, yet much more affordable aircraft do a better job? Mass (quantity) has a quality all its own.
    Today it's not that bad (absent China and Russia), but down the road things will probably get worse from an air-to-air standpoint. The Air Force position is that the F-22 is going to have to last for 30-40 years or more, so the service is, in part, looking at the long-term threat. There is some validity to that, but again, the AF has made its own bed and deserves a lot of blame.

    The main problem today from a threat perspective is actually ground-based air defense which is very capable and much simpler to operate for most nations than a fleet of aircraft.

    What if we had brand new F15s, with the latest electronics built right in, with the newest engine variants, with every update other countries have developed, etc? Perhaps made even better than the originals, with stronger materials, better engineering for superior maintenance access and reliability? Is it capable, especially if we could afford many more of them (at the rate of 3x or 4x as many F22s) of accomplishing much of what the F22 could do? Obviously stealth would be a limit, but it seems that the stealth requirement has turned our fighter fleet into a night-focused force.
    The F-15 is still being produced, with variants for, I believe, Korea and Singapore. These latest models are very capable - better than our own in many ways, with a lot of the latest gear. But even these aircraft are $110 million a copy, which is only 25-30% cheaper than an F-22. Obviously opinions vary, but most in the AF (including me) believe that extra cost is worth it for the tremendous leap in capability. We'll still have F-15's of course and they will still be around for quite a while.

    I've said elsewhere on this forum that if I could turn the wayback machine to the late 1990's, I would have canceled the F-22 and done what you suggest here. It would have saved us a lot of money and allowed time for many of the F-22's technologies to mature. Kicking the development can down the road about 10 years would have been wise, but unfortunately that didn't happen. The aircraft is done and in full-rate production, so the "cancel the F-22" ship sailed some time ago. The question is how many should we buy and for that I don't have an answer, though I think 183 is a bit low when a 40-year time-span is considered. The Air Force is going to ask the new administration for 60 more aircraft, which would cost about $3-4 billion a year for three years and is 140 aircraft less than the service has been asking for the past few years. We'll see what happens.

    I am not just stirring the pot, but hopefully learning about (and maybe even appreciating) my brothers in blue a bit more.
    Stir away! It's all good.

  2. #282
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Another story

    Sent by a non-SWC observer from WaPo entitled 'Combat Generation: Drone operators climb on winds of change in the Air Force' and goes over familiar territory as the Drone gang gain traction if only in the public's mind :http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022703754.html
    davidbfpo

  3. #283
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    The State of Partachia, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean
    Posts
    3,947

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Sent by a non-SWC observer from WaPo entitled 'Combat Generation: Drone operators climb on winds of change in the Air Force' and goes over familiar territory as the Drone gang gain traction if only in the public's mind :http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022703754.html
    From the article:
    "Valor to me is not risking your life," he said. "Valor is doing what is right. Valor is about your motivations and the ends that you seek. It is doing what is right for the right reasons. That to me is valor."
    Sorry, this is twaddle. Valour is being scared and going anyway. If you're not scared, then you're not doing it.

    Sorry, but I just cannot see how a UAV operator gets to up his "status" above a someone like a Patriot Missile Operator. They do not give air-traffic controllers "wings" or call them "pilots".
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

  4. #284
    Council Member Hacksaw's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Lansing, KS
    Posts
    361

    Default in re: wilf

    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    From the article:

    Sorry, this is twaddle. Valour is being scared and going anyway. If you're not scared, then you're not doing it.

    Sorry, but I just cannot see how a UAV operator gets to up his "status" above a someone like a Patriot Missile Operator. They do not give air-traffic controllers "wings" or call them "pilots".
    Not sure what you meant by the reference to the Patriot Missile Operator, but say what you might... they sit on the assets they are defending
    Hacksaw
    Say hello to my 2 x 4

  5. #285
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Montana
    Posts
    3,195

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    Sorry, but I just cannot see how a UAV operator gets to up his "status" above a someone like a Patriot Missile Operator. They do not give air-traffic controllers "wings" or call them "pilots".
    Actually, to stray on the simplistic side, they do give air traffic controllers wings. They call them ABMs....
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

  6. #286
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    1,457

    Default

    Agree on the "valor" thing.

    I work in the predator/reaper community now and 95% of the time pilots are just bus-drivers supporting the sensors and the intelligence collection mission.

    The clash between the old and new Air Force was especially apparent in the aftermath of the 2006 strike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq.

    Predator crews spent more than 630 hours searching for Zarqawi and his associates before they tracked him to a small farm northeast of Baghdad.

    Minutes later, an F-16 fighter jet, streaking through the sky, released a 500-pound bomb that locked onto a targeting laser and killed Zarqawi.

    The F-16 pilot, who faced no real threat from the lightly armed insurgents on the ground, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the same honor bestowed on Charles Lindbergh for the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

    The Predator pilots, who flew their planes from an Air Force base outside Las Vegas, received a thank-you note from a three-star general based in the Middle East. Senior Air Force officials concluded that even though the Predator crews were flying combat missions, they weren't actually in combat.
    As is typical, no mention is made of the analysts who actually solved this puzzle and put the pieces together to find this guy. If anyone deserves credit, it is them.

  7. #287
    Council Member carl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver on occasion
    Posts
    2,460

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
    As is typical, no mention is made of the analysts who actually solved this puzzle and put the pieces together to find this guy. If anyone deserves credit, it is them.
    No mention was made of a lot important things in the article. It was a collection of facts without context. God help the man who had to make a reasoned decision based on this article.

    No kidding Maj. Bright, you have to constantly coach an inexperienced guider driving a dreadfully slow machine. The Army seems to have done quite well with, God-forbid, enlisted men guiding those things around.

    A Pred saved the day when it first used the Hellfire. Perhaps that was due more to the characteristics of the Hellfire rather than what it was mounted on.

    One fighter pilot was unhappy because training drone guiders to be only drone guiders was something akin to a "puppy mill"; the implication being that the resulting "canine" was inferior to the pure bloods coming out of pilot school. He should watch some to the simulator techs at the simulator training centers like Flight Safety, do some of the wonderous things they do in the sims. They learned by just dinking around. They guide the sim via a computer. How is that different from guiding a drone by computer? Those "puppy mill" products at least have the benefit of formal training.

    As far as recognition goes, the people who directed convoys around wolfpacks, radar guided night fighters close enough to a target so the night fighters short range radar could be used, manned the Red Crown aircraft, etc., etc. were recognized for the vital work they did in some way. Why can't the drone guiders be recognized in the same way?
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •