{"id":178255,"date":"2019-01-25T20:13:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T01:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/01\/25\/ok-i-did-not-see-this-coming\/"},"modified":"2019-01-25T20:13:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T01:13:00","slug":"ok-i-did-not-see-this-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/01\/25\/ok-i-did-not-see-this-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"OK, I Did Not See This Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"
There are a number of things that I thought would never happen.<\/div>\n

One of them was that the US Air Force would never order another F-15.<\/p>\n

They have been trying to kill them for some time, but now it looks like they might be asking for some new Eagles in the 2020 budget<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Indecision has plagued the U.S. Air Force\u2019s approach to managing a fleet of about 230 Boeing F-15C<\/a>\/Ds. Only two years ago, top Air National Guard officials floated a proposal to retire the U.S.-based portion of the air superiority fleet. After that idea withered under the heat of a Congressional backlash, the Air Force last year opted to deprive its F-15C\/D units of a critical electronic warfare upgrade, making the entire fleet vulnerable to a near-term retirement decision. Again, Congress intervened and voted to partially restore the program in the enacted fiscal 2019 budget. <\/p>\n

But Air Force leaders now seem poised to perform the budgetary equivalent of the F-15\u2019s about-face Immelmann turn. Instead of launching another attempt to retire the F-15 fleet, the Air Force is likely to ask Congress for money to order new F-15s for the first time in 19 years. The anticipated policy reversal has prompted calls for the Air Force to justify such a sweeping, strange request in fleet strategy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a bit of a pickle, and the pickle is we don\u2019t have the capacity we need,\u201d Matt Donovan, Air Force undersecretary, explained on Jan. 18. <\/p>\n

Donovan was careful to clarify that he was neither confirming nor denying reports that the F-15X would be included in the Trump administration\u2019s upcoming fiscal 2020 budget, but he still offered a preview of the Air Force\u2019s newly formed argument that the time has come to reverse its nearly two-decade-old position. Instead of insisting that acquiring more non-stealthy, manned fighters in the modern era is futile, Air Force officials are now pleading for more air superiority aircraft overall, regardless of whether they are less observable to radar. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a number of issues, the USAF is maintaining that they are not getting F-35s fast enough, but I am inclined to believe that in addition to their sky-high acquisition costs, that the operating costs of the Lightning II are much higher than anticipated.<\/p>\n

The hourly direct operating cost of the F-15 is lower than either the F-22 or F-35, while the Eagle’s unrefueled range is greater than either of the newer aircraft, and its air to air and air to ground loadouts are superior.<\/p>\n

For about 95% of any conflicts, the F-15 is cheaper and more capable, so this decision would make sense, which is why I never expected the US Air Force to consider such a decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a number of things that I thought would never happen. One of them was that the US Air Force would never order another F-15. They have been trying to kill them for some time, but now it looks like they might be asking for some new Eagles in the 2020 budget: Indecision has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,381,379],"class_list":["post-178255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-defense-procurement","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}