The U.S. Air Force is operating a fighter aircraft inventory on the brink of disaster
According to a senior defense official briefing to media on Mar 22, the rationale was based on three major elements:The first is a no-brainer. Today’s fighter aircraft average 28 years old with that age growing annually. The Air Force Chief of Staff hashe needs to buy 72 aircraft a year to reverse that trend and eventually bring the average age down to 15 years. Bizarrely, however, the Pentagon’s proposed 2020 budget would deliver just eight F-15EXs in, “3 to 3.5 years after contract award” ).
More to the point, OSD’s myopic focus on unit and sustainment costs ignores the actual costs necessary to accomplish desired objectives against the priority threats of the national defense strategy. Unlike F-35, the F-15EX will require additional specialized support aircraft to jam radars, defeat enemy fighters, and negate surface-to-air-missile systems.
Additionally, key skills that need to be protected are advanced aircraft design teams—very finite skills. Hitting the production button on a jet whose fundamental design is forty years old does nothing to preserve those skills. While F-15EX fighters offer upgraded capabilities from their Nixon-era F-15 model counterparts, they lack necessary attributes like low observability andfunctionality found in their fifth-generation successors.
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