Well, the rumor among some of my AF friends is that part of the reason the AF leadership wants more than 183 F-22's is because with so few aircraft there won't be many pure fighter pilots in the future and so the fighter mafia won't take almost all the leadership positions.Originally Posted by Ken White
There is probably a grain of truth to that, but there are also legitimate reasons, IMO, to increase the F-22 buy. One thing to keep in mind is that capping production at 183 aircraft and closing the line, the AF will probably want an F-22 follow-on sooner than might otherwise be the case
And I agree with you on the problem with a mentality that demands the best at the expense of the good enough - something that seems to afflict military procurement in general. Part of the thinking however, at least with the F-22, is that it will be the principle air superiority weapon for four decades and that it must be state-of-the-art now to ensure it remains competitive against potential threats 30 years from now (particularly the surface-to-air threat, which I see as much more of a problem over the next decade or two than enemy fighters). There is some legitimacy to that argument, but I think the AF has oversold it. As I said in another thread, if I could set the wayback machine to the mid-1990's and made myself procurement Czar, I would have halted F-22 development for 10-15 years and bought updgraded F15's instead and worked on an alternative for the important SEAD mission. We could have safely waited another decade before fielding a fifth-gen fighter IMO, while continuing basic R&D to mature some of the technologies before full development which would (hopefully) save some on development cost.
Everything = compromises. Specialized aircraft have compromises too, just different ones. It's much harder, for example, to min/max capabilities on the fly with specialized aircraft and adjust to changing needs. And specialized aircraft will require a bigger Air Force with more airplanes and people - something that doesn't seem likely given financial realities. I would agree, however, that for some things you really do need a specialized aircraft, though we might disagree on what those needs might be.One is still confronted with the fact that multipurpose = compromises.
Yes, true to a point, but as I discussed above, the dedicated CAS aircraft we have (A-10) doesn't appear to be clearly superior to other types of aircraft - at least based on what I've read in AAR's and LL's. The Marine's seem to get by just fine with an airframe not designed for CAS - the one that lost to the F-16 in the Air Forces lightweight fighter competition.Look at the USAFs record on dedicated CAS aircraft...The point being that training and coordination are more important than a dedicated airframe.
Maybe what the AF needs to do is allow different units of multi-role aircraft to specialize their training in certain areas while maintaining minimum qualifications in everything else instead of pursuing a standard qualification routine. For example, out of all of the F-16 squadrons we have, some percentage would specialize in CAS, some air strikes, some air-to-air, etc. Such a scheme could prevent CAS from atrophying after OIF/OEF are over and provide other benefits as well.
Yes, and for similar reasons: readiness and sortie generation rates. Airlines cannot afford unreliable aircraft because that means canceled or delayed flights, disruption of the sensitive hub system most airlines use, etc. The military cannot afford much of it either because lower readiness rates negatively impact the ability to meet mission requirements and severely impact the ability to surge forces for any length of time. This is because of two factors: Older aircraft breakdown more often and older aircraft require more maintenance time per flying hour. These factors compound on each other to significantly reduce the number of aircraft you can have in the air at any one time and the ability to turn those aircraft around in a timely manner for the next sortie. Such issues can be planned for and worked around in the relatively static air environment that we have in Iraq and Afghanistan today, but can really spoil your dinner in air operations with greater uncertainty and higher optempo.All true but that doesn't negate my point; L1011s and DC-10/11s have a lot of years left. Does maintenenance cost more? Sure but that's partly because manufacturers have no need to build in long life unless the customer specifies it. Airlines have a valid customer appeal reason to not necessarily do that; do Air Forces have such a need?
Take my F-14 experience from earlier where out of a squadron of 14 aircraft only about 8 were considered "up" at any one time on average. That means only 2 or maybe 3 aircraft can be kept in the air constantly (say for a CAP). But, since those airplanes break more often and since turn-around time is longer (because more maintenance is required per flying hour), the ability to keep those 2-3 aircraft in the air diminishes more rapidly over time than for a newer aircraft like the F-18. So by contrast, a 12-plane F-18 squadron typically had ten aircraft "up" at any one time and so could keep more aircraft in the air and sustain that for a much longer period of time.
The flip side of this is exploiting those factors on our enemies, which is something you usually don't hear much about. Most world air forces have low readiness rates compared to western air forces. This is great for us because it reduces the number of aircraft we'll have to deal with and, in the case of a long conflict, those air forces will run out of steam quickly through maintenance attrition even if all other factors are equal (which they never are). When talking about air threats a lot of people seem to like to list the OOB - look, country X has a gazillion Mig-29's!, but as I'm sure you know, inventory =/= capability.
So in short, newer aircraft with better readiness rates allow you to do more and do it for a longer period of time and usually at less cost economically.
Well, I agree with F-4's getting embarrassed by Skyhawks, etc., but that was 40 years ago. As Cliff pointed out, CAS is a whole different ballgame today - flying low and slow to properly ID targets is not necessary anymore, nor desirable most of the time. It's why I don't understand the continuing interest in fielding a CAS-specific or COIN-specific aircraft such as the OV-10 or T-6. Those aircraft don't offer any advantage over current aircraft except for operating cost that I can see.True today -- my point was and is that that is not a graven in stone truth, it is simply the way things are. Many things that 'are' do not happen to be optimum.I don't find it compelling either. However, when that factor is added to mission capability certainly a case for the aircraft exists. Does to those of us who've been on the ground and happy that birds were available but I gotta tell you I've watched too many Fox 4s, a great bird by any standard, get terribly embarrassed by little bitty Skyhawks and REALLY embarrassed by some Spads. Capability is as or more important than durability. Both would be nice where attainable...
Cliff,
I don't really agree with you here. The main driver toward multipurpose aircraft was to provide greater operational flexibility and to realize cost savings by reducing maintenance, logisitics and support costs through having to support fewer airframe types. That's a big reason driving the F-35, for example, an aircraft attempting to maximize commonality while still satisfying a diverse set of requirements from a diverse set of customers.When you can only buy half the planes because of the cost of aircraft, you have to make them multipurpose.
Overall, I think we have realized savings in O&M costs but at a price, part of which is increased development cost. It remains to be seen whether the F-35, for example, will prove cheaper over the entire lifecycle than three separate aircraft.
Wilf,
Exactly, so what advantage does an OV-10 provide over an existing aircraft that justifies buying, operating and maintaining a fleet of them?You can drop JDAMs off a P-3, or AC-130 as long as they fly above 16,000ft and out of the MANPAD threat umbrella.
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