2008 Woodie Awards
Air Force's aging fleet and new Defense Budget for 2009
Marissa Lentowski
Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: News
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The F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II are new jet fighters that are supposed to replace the aging F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Air Force has had to deal with new fighters and their drastically higher costs that take more and more from the overall defense budget. The F-22 costs about three times as much as one $30 million dollar F-15.
The first F-15C was introduced in 1979 by McDonnel Douglas Corporation and has been deployed constantly since 1991 to the Persian Gulf in Operation Desert Storm and has been used in the war on terror in Iraq, Turkey, and Bosnia. The strain on the F-15 for the past 17 years has made recent headlines when in November nearly 700 F-15's were grounded after an F-15C failed during a routine training flight in Missouri. As recent as Feb. 20 an Air Force pilot died after his F-15 collided during a routine training exercise in the Gulf of Mexico.
The aircraft under inspection now represent about half of the F-15C fleet, but based on data recovered from the November accident the crash was caused by manufacturing errors in the jet's upper right longeron and not on the suspected war strain and aging fleet. Only about 40 percent of this model have been cleared while other aircraft longerons didn't meet manufacturing specifications and are currently under investigation.
The newer F-15E model has a different design than the F-15C and was cleared for operational duty and flight operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Air Force has seen new aircraft as early as the mid 1990's when the CV-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft was introduced as well as the B-2 Spirit a stealth bomber, and the C-17 Globemaster a very flexible cargo aircraft that has been a great asset to the current airlift force.
The current Air Force budget is planning to spend over 30 billion dollars for new refueling tankers but these new tankers won't be flying until 2013. These tankers allow aircraft to refuel in the air without landing, giving aircraft longer mission objectives, and the capability to fly farther. This plan is supposed to replace an aging tanker fleet of almost 600 aircraft.
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