quote:

Originally posted by ETCPJ:
If we really need more F-22's or not is hard for most of us to say but I do know that the guy who should "decide" IS NOT Jack Murtha, he is and has been for some time one of the biggest pork barrell spenders around, maybe he doesn't have an Air Force base in his district and possibley no one in his district or as unlikley as it may be the entire state of PA. but you know that there are plenty of other congreesmen that will benefit from building more F-22's and then they will "owe" him and that is more than likeley the goal here. Actually, Congress is the final say on if we buy more. Not a Murtha fan by any stretch, but he does have a say in the matter.

Production on everything at some point has to end. To follow the logic of the advocates of the "we have to keep the production line going to support the current fleet" approach then I guess we should still be building F-15's and I do not believe that we are or C-5's and B-52's and I know that we are not building any more of those. The current decision to stop production appears to be purely budget driven. As the commander of ACC said, there has been no study validating 187 F-22s as the amount needed to meet national strategy. We do not need to keep line open to support current fleet. The line needs to stay open if we want to buy more. When more C-5s were purchased, it took 7 years to get all of them into the fleet once decision to buy was made. And that decision was again a purely political one. When the L-1011 line ended, there was a sign on the last acft that said 'Thank You C-5B'.

What is the correct number to have? I will trust teh SECDEF to figure that out. You can always find some AF Geeneral who will say we need more of something because he wants more new toys. Calling the next generation of air superiority fighters 'toys' just muddies the waters and does not address that air-to-air is a very important mission. Secretary Gates is putting all his faith into an airframe that has yet to complete testing. That concerns me.And of course the opinion of a 4-star officer who has the responsibility to train and equip the fighter force means nothing because he is just 'some Air Force general'. The last two USAF secretaries and COS' also thought more F-22s were needed.

Back when Trent Lott was still Senate Majority leader and he pushed through building LHD-8, a ship the Navy never ordered and the Secretary of Navy publicly stated he/they did not want. TL's justifacation was that he had "letters from Admirals" saying it was needed. Well as it turned out to "make room for" this unplanned LHD the Navy then de-commed years before schedule one of the 5 LHA's.

That would be good evidence it was not needed!

Will we send F-15's to the boneyard years before there time just to make room for these unplanned/unwanted F-22's? Actually, the USAF is now planning to extend the life of 178 or so F-15Cs to at least 2025 (8000 hr airframe to 12000 hrs) because we are not buying more F-22s. The F-15E fleet will stay as well. One interesting thing about fighter SLEPs. The USN was going to do something similar to their older F/A-18C/Ds, but it turns out instead of an additional 2000 hrs, they will only get an average of 600 hrs per airframe and since they found more areas needing attention than previously thought, it will cost over twice as much. Will the USAF run into the same thing once the F-15 SLEP gets going?

I have stated before in other threads that if DOD needs to buy whatever to fill a legit need or have a base somewhere and the result of that is however many civilians in whoevers district get or keep jobs as a result that is fine but it is the mission of the DOD to protect the county it is NOT the function the DOD to provide jobs for Jack Murtha's or any other members voters. Agree. But if we are stopping production just as a budgetary consideration, then SecDef should say so. Not that 187 is mmore than enough when that has not been validated.

quote:

Originally posted by ETCPJ:
I will not dispute that congress has a role here but all too often the motivation behind their involvement is gaining or preserving jobs in there districts/states or in others so that whoever does benefit then "owes them" and defense of the country seemingly has nothing to do with it.

The AF could already have 1187 and the Jack Murtha's of Congress would still want more. Can not argue that!

I did not intend to muddy any water by using the term toys, just meant to say that if you look hard enough you will get some General or in the case of the Navy an Admiral or two that will say what you want to hear. As opposed the SecDef stating that 187 F-22s meets requirements when it has never been quantified. Or the BUR in 1993 telling President Clinton what he wanted to hear.

I used the example of Trent Lott and the LHD that the Navy did not want and his "Admiral's letters" It is fact that the Navy only ordered 7 LHD's to replace 7 LPH's, didn't want an 8th one and when TL forced one on the Navy to make room for it the de-commed LHA-2 years ahead of schedule, all the rest are sheduled to be in the fleet for years to come and LHA-2 wasn't some special case IE the victim of some major fire, collision, running aground or whatever that might have justified getting rid of it "early", no it was just that that LHD-8 meant not needing an LHA and for some reason, maybe because it was coming up on something big ticket like an ROH or major upgrade that I am sure still would have cost far less than building LHD-8 it was the sacrificial lamb. Unfortunately, this does happen. And as long as representatives and senators are elected on what the have done for the home folks, it will continue to happen.

But LHD-8 was built in TL's home town and keeping those guys at work at NG/Ingalls where his dad once worked is/was all that is important to him.

It is handy that the General in question here is the ACC CDR. but is it a real surprise to find out that a guy who I will bet is a fighter jock is going to want more fighters? A fighter guy in charge of figters. No surprise here. It is not so much more as opposed to newer. Buy more F-22s and the F-15 SLEP and potential unforeseen problems that could arise goes away. Would not end up with more fighters, just newer, more capable ones. Right now the average age of the USAF fighter fleet is at its historical high and it will continue to climb. Keeping F-15C/Ds built in the mid 80s to the 2025 timeframe is pushing it a bit. And remember the F-22 has some strike capability with 1,000 lb JDAm and SDB. The F-15C/D has ZERO. Or the SLEP could press forward and dedicate those airframes to CONUS air defense mission since some of those being used now are among the oldest F-15s and F-16s.

Not to me.

Who is to say how long the F-15 SLEP program will be good for, The USAF is going into it expecting, and needs, an additional 4000 hours on average per airframe. But could the program end up with disappointing results as the F/A-18C/D program indicates it is going to have? Yes, it could.the DOD has gotten more than it's monies worth from SLEP programs on planes like the B-52, KC-135 and A-10 maybe it would be long enough to be able to get the next new thing F-36 or whatever.