{"id":197824,"date":"2008-01-09T00:13:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T05:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/01\/09\/air-force-attempts-blackmail-to-get-more-f-22s\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T00:13:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T05:13:00","slug":"air-force-attempts-blackmail-to-get-more-f-22s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/01\/09\/air-force-attempts-blackmail-to-get-more-f-22s\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force Attempts Blackmail to Get More F-22s"},"content":{"rendered":"

The USAF has been trying any means possible to keep the F-22 production line open.<\/p>\n

This time, it is using the structural problems of the F-15 to do so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let’s be clear, this is a serious issue, but the USAF permanently grounding 180 aircraft is unnecessary.<\/p>\n

It appears that the problem is the result of two things, the age of the airframe, and the fact that some of the longerons are defective.<\/p>\n

That being said, the USAF personnel running around crying that the sky is falling, and so you get quotes like this:<\/p>\n

“Do you try to patch a 25-year-old airplane that has been patched and patched and patched?” another senior Air Force official asked. “After the repairs, it will not be the same aircraft it was before.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The answer, of course, is that it will<\/span> be the same aircraft as before. The repairs are not cheap, my guess would be on the order of $200,000 to $300,000 per aircraft, and with a weight hit of somewhere between 50 and 100 kg.<\/p>\n

Compared to something north of $150,000,000 for an F-22, it is an inexpensive solution.<\/p>\n

One of the things that USAF is studiously quiet about is the fact that the F-15 is a superior platform for the interception of cruise missiles<\/span>, because it has a larger antenna for its radar (Physics is a bitch, ain’t it).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The USAF has been trying any means possible to keep the F-22 production line open. This time, it is using the structural problems of the F-15 to do so. Let’s be clear, this is a serious issue, but the USAF permanently grounding 180 aircraft is unnecessary. It appears that the problem is the result of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,1008,1006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-defense-procurement","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197824"}],"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=197824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}