The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: rangerrebew on September 07, 2020, 12:04:59 pm
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Scrap Old Planes Or ‘Risk Losing High-End Fight:’ CSAF Brown
"His greatest challenge will be to build the coalition in Washington, and particularly on Capitol Hill, that will support new ways of rapidly developing capabilities," says former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson.
By Theresa Hitchens on September 01, 2020 at 3:53 PM
WASHINGTON: New Air Force Chief of Staff CQ Brown, in his call to ditch legacy aircraft to fund new network-centric tech so the US can best Russia and China, faces the same daunting obstacles as did his predecessor: Congress’s fierce embrace of the status quo and DoD’s bureaucratic inertia.
The hurdles to Brown’s strategic vision may be even higher now because of the looming budgetary crunch in the post-COVID-19 environment and the magnitude of the overarching DoD acquisition trough. Add a possible change in administration — which almost always results in at least four to six months of budget uncertainty as a new president nails down priorities — and you’ve got some impressive obstacles to overcome.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/09/scrap-old-planes-or-risk-losing-high-end-fight-csaf-brown/
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Deep State Cronies want more money. We will scrap our old planes and be left without
due to cost overruns and late deliveries.
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He's preaching the same thing many before him have. It's a real problem. Some of the older aircraft are money pits due to their repair and maintenance costs. Then there was the RIF a few years back that took out thousands of experienced maintainers.
The most important stat of all to Commanders...Fully Mission Capable or FMC. Meaning ready to fight. Most are happy to get 75% FMC rates for their squadrons...the other 25% or more are down due to maintenance.
In 2018, General Mattis "ordered" services to achieve an 80% or better FMC rate. They couldn't do it. The USAF fleet wide was at about 72% FMC.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/05/fewer-planes-are-ready-to-fly-air-force-mission-capable-rates-decline-amid-pilot-crisis/ (https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/05/fewer-planes-are-ready-to-fly-air-force-mission-capable-rates-decline-amid-pilot-crisis/)
Many manufacturer's of the original parts are long out of business and so cannibalization from retired aircraft until there's none left to be had only gets you so far. The B-52 J-57 engines are only still running because there are so many variants of the engines used around the world, that "core" parts aren't too difficult to get.
The KC10, is on average, 36 years old. The KC-135 is even older entering service in 1957 and both are to be replaced with the KC-46. However, Boeing has been doing a wonderful job of delivering aircraft that are behind schedule and with shoddy maintenance. Fortunately, most of the overruns are on them and not the taxpayer.
It's not a simple "taxpayers get screwed" scenario...with a limited amount of $$ to spread across the services, service chiefs have to be creative in how they fund things. Are you aware that the services have to pay for retiree medical care? Think of what could be done with that $$ to support the active components if the funding was coming from another bucket of money. (And before some of you retirees on this forum lose your $hit, I am USAF retired.) In 2013, of DoD’s $150 billion request for compensation, healthcare costs were ~$40B of that...that's a lot of money that could be spent where it's needed, on the active force.
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As illustrated by the Seawolf Class subs and the F-22, high-end is VERY expensive, leading to limited buys (which become their own maintenance bad dreams). In the case of aircraft, that high cost and limited number become factors in decisions to deploy.
Older aircraft with timely updating have a large niche/role when the highest-end performance is not critical. The USAF has been wanting to kill the Warthog since the late 70s that I'm aware of (my employer in those years produced the cockpit displays for the A-10). It's proven its usefulness in multiple wars/conflicts. Its avionics have been updated some, and many will have new wings. Maybe new/updated engines ...?