planes do break and must be grounded for safety reasons. I will posit the USAF (as with all the services) will highlight problems when it is to their advantage and downplay them when it's convenient.

However, the savings from the personnel cuts do not pay for current ops, there are GWOT supplementals to cover those costs. What is not always fully covered is the additional wear and tear on the gear.

Here's where the USAF gets my goat: They whine and cry about recapitalizing the fleet AND buying new, very expensive systems. They continue to sink an inordinate amount of R&D money into go nowhere systems (ABL comes to mind). Finally, they are paying a high price in O&M because they decided to put people first (vice recapitalizing) when they were flush with cash and now have a very expensive infrastructure to maintain coupled with all sorts of monetary “entitlements” to pay Airmen (e.g. while we grunts lose our BAS when deployed, Airmen do not; while Marines are billeted in tents, the USAF uses hotels).

In these fiscally lean times you cannot have the trifecta of high tech gear, recap the old gear, and maintain an overly comfortable life style. As I said in another post the USAF has over the years developed a Champaign and caviar taste but now are faced with a beer and pretzels budget.

They seriously need to do a culture shift.