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TerraN_EmpirE said:

So yesterday I voiced my opinion on the claims push for F15C/D retirement but why is there a case for it?

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Holmes says a minimum of 100 new fighters are needed per year to reverse this situation and begin rejuvenating the force. He wants to expand the F-35A build rate to 60 per year, but only after it completes development, to avoid upgrade costs.

Air Force Assistant Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stayce D. Harris tells Congress that the service cannot afford to drop below the minimum operational requirement of 55 fighter squadrons, and would rather grow to 60, about 2,100 aircraft. But it would prefer a healthy force of 55 fighter squadrons with enough pilots and maintainers to support operations than a stressed and undermanned force of 60 units.

ACC says it must retire some fleets to unlock money and personnel to transition to the F-35 and future PCA platform, while still modernizing the F-16 and F-22 fleets. The F-16 and F-15E Strike Eagle are relatively young, with plenty of service life left. The Air Force tried and failed to retire the Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog, so the F-15C is the next obvious cut.

“We’re trying to work out that mix,” Holmes says. “One of those options is, what year does the F-15C go away?”

He says money being spent on F-22 upgrades will maintain its advantage over its Russia and China adversaries. “If the F-15s go away, eventually those F-22s will move into that role, so we need to get to Penetrating Counter-Air [for the high end],” he says.

PCA was born of the Air Force’s one-year Air Superiority 2030 study, which wrapped up last year. A follow-on 18-month analysis of alternatives will deliver its recommendations to ACC in 2018. Holmes says the Air Force is discussing various acquisition strategies and authorities with Congress to shorten or avoid the typically lengthy engineering and manufacturing development phase if the proposed aircraft is mature enough.

After the PCA study, the service hopes to move quickly into the prototyping and flyoff phase. The OA-X light-attack aircraft program is seen as a trailblazer for the next fighter buy.

Holmes wants to take advantage of the three-stream adaptive cycle engines being developed by

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and Pratt & Whitney under the Air Force Research Laboratory. However, the service could decide to field an initial batch of fighters sooner, powered by an existing engine, perhaps the F-22’s Pratt & Whitney

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supercruise propulsion system, he says.

He compared this type of acquisition plan to the Century Series during the Cold War, in which six distinct aircraft models were fielded in rapid succession—a mix of fighter-bombers and interceptors—each bringing improved capabilities.

John Venable, a former airman and defense policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, does not believe the F-16 is a viable alternative to the F-15C, and it will take many years to complete the F-16 AESA radar upgrade anyway. He says radar size matters due to physics, and the F-15’s dish is significantly larger. There are not enough F-22As to fully assume the F-15’s role right away, and there is little hope of Lockheed restarting the production line, due to cost and dated technology. He doubts the Air Force can develop and field another aircraft in the time line needed before critical F-15C life-extension and force structure decisions must be made.

“The F-15C is still a great airplane,” Venable says. “It doesn’t have the maneuverability of the latest Russian aircraft or French

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, but the biggest thing it has going for it is tactics. What happens with those squadrons?”

The proposed retirement is a serious issue for the ANG, which is run by the states. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whose state is home to the 104th Fighter Wing, an F-15C unit, raised the issue with Air Force leaders during a congressional hearing. They stressed it was predecisional, and the ANG’s adjutant generals are being consulted as studies continue.

John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association of the U.S., says the ANG would prefer to see these aircraft modernized, not retired. He acknowledges that the F-15C fleet presents a large bill at a time of constrained budgets and competing priorities, but the units in question are highly skilled in the air superiority mission, an Air Force core competency. “They provide the bulk of the defense of the nation’s air sovereignty and also deploy overseas,” he says. “These are busy aircraft and our preference would be for them to be modernized.”

The service says it is still studying the proposal, and cannot say how much it would save by retiring the fleet. The total operating cost of the F-15C/D fleet was $1.3 billion in fiscal 2016.

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Navy F/A-18s face persistent oxygen issue

• 
  

• 30 MARCH, 2017
  
• SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM
  
• BY: LEIGH GIANGRECO
  
• WASHINGTON DC

The US Navy is still struggling to find the root cause of the hypoxia issue plaguing the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and E/A-18G Growler, service leadership told House Armed Services Committee members this week. The service’s Boeing F/A-18s are experiencing a dangerous crew cabin pressure issue, while the newer variants may have possible oxygen contamination.

Since 2010, the Navy has directed pilots to report possible symptoms that could be related to the Super Hornet’s onboard oxygen generation systems (OBOGS) and environmental control system (ECS). Lawmakers expected hypoxia rates to increase once pilots became aware of the issue, but were still surprised at the uptick in physiological events. The F/A-18A through D models saw a 90% increase in physiological episodes (PEs) in Fiscal 2016 compared to 2015, while the E and F models saw an 11% increase in the same period. Meanwhile, the EA-18G Growler doubled its number of PEs during that same time, according to information delivered to Congress by the navy.

Over the last year, the Navy has developed protocols to review each ECS component on a malfunctioning F/A-18, Director of navy tactical aircraft Rear Adm Michael Moran told lawmakers during a 28 March hearing. Some aircraft with persistent problems were transferred to Naval Air Station Patuxent River for further inspection, he says. The Navy has determined that rather than repair valves and switches as they fail, the service will replace parts for the legacy Super Hornets on a schedule now known as the ECS reset.

The US Navy is also taking part in an investigation into an air contamination incident on an Australian Air Force F/A-18. During that incident, both the pilot and ground crews who sat in the aircraft’s cockpit and breathed air from the system experienced dizziness and degraded cognitive ability for a half hour. The navy suspects lubricants and engine fluids might have seeped into the oxygen generation system, though the process is not fully understood.

The Navy observed a grease lubricant on the nose wheel well contributed the most contamination and has since told the service to control the amount of grease applied to the wheels, Moran says. That’s a potential cause, but the navy did not see enough numbers of incidents to identify its effects on humans, he adds.

“Also for that process there’s fluid for the radar cooling and so there’s a discharge port that basically could release some contaminants into the engine, because the engine is ingesting air all around the airplane,” he says. “We’re looking really hard at everything possible the engine could ingest and contaminate the air we’re breathing.”

The Navy still isn’t sure why the Growler experienced a higher PE event rate over other F/A-18 variants, though Moran points out the EA-18G’s electronics put a greater strain on the ECS system. Boeing will examine one of the Growler’s ECS systems and the Navy has already changed a restrictor plate on the aircraft to increase the airflow to the avionics that helps control its pressurisation issues, Moran says.

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The Air Force may pay pilots nearly a half-million dollars to stay in uniform

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Christopher Woody

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March 30, 2017

The US Air Force, struggling to retain pilots and fill undesirable positions, is considering paying up to $455,000 in annual bonuses, the branch's personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso, told the House Armed Services subcommittee for military personnel on Wednesday.

requested[/a]$48,000 limit.

Grosso

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the House subcommittee members that the branch was also considering one- and two-year extension deals for pilots, in addition to the current five- and nine-year extensions on offer.

All told, an Air Force pilot who stays on board for 13 years and earns the full $35,000 bonus could pull in $455,000 on top of their normal salary.

The Air Force is increasingly falling short of its quota of pilots. Grosso told the subcommittee that the whole service branch — including active Air Force, guard, and reserve — has

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than it needs. That includes a 1,211-fighter-pilot shortage.

Taking into account the $11 million cost for training a pilot to man a fifth-generation fighter, "a 1,200 fighter-pilot shortage amounts to a $12 billion capital loss for the United States Air Force,"

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.

View photos
air force
(Members of the Air Force's 455th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Armament Flight inspect an F-16 Fighting Falcon 20 mm Gatling gun on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, July 5, 2015.Tech. Sgt. Joseph Swafford/USAF)
" data-reactid="49">(Members of the Air Force's 455th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Armament Flight inspect an F-16 Fighting Falcon 20 mm Gatling gun on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, July 5, 2015.Tech. Sgt. Joseph Swafford/USAF)

Grosso told[/a]the subcommittee. Among them is the service's high operational tempo over the last three decades, enticements from private industry, and frustration with elements of Air Force life.

according[/a]to Department of Defense News. "And we are now at a decision point: sustained global commitments and recent funding cuts affect capacity and capability for a full-spectrum fight against a near-peer adversary."

Many Air Force pilots have been drawn away by commercial airlines, which,

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retirement requirements, have been hiring, taking on 4,100 pilots in 2016, a hiring level expected to continue for the next 10 to 15 years,

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.

A pilot jumping from military service to the private sector can also see, on average,

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.

"Cultural issues that affect the quality of life and service for our airmen," such as duties not related to flying and difficulties maintaining work-life balance, also appear to have driven fliers away,

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.

In addition to financial inducements for established pilots, the Air Force is looking for ways to broaden its intake.

Grosso

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that applicants will be able to select what information about them is presented to Air Force hiring officers in order to better match themselves with certain positions.

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Jura said:

this is interesting:
Navy Expects to Field Winged ASW Torpedo by 2020

source:

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A new torpedo upgrade that will fundamentally change the way US Navy airmen hunt submarines is on track to seek approval to begin low-rate initial production later this year, Boeing and Navy officials say on 28 March.

The High Altitude Anti-submarine warfare Weapon Capability (HAAWC) is in the midst of safe separation tests from the Boeing P-8A Poseidon. A guided flight test is planned in late Fiscal 2017, allowing the programme potentially to order 140 high-altitude torpedoes total over the first two lots.

Following operational testing scheduled for completion by FY 2020, HAAWC also will be available to the P-8 fleet’s foreign customers, which currently include Australia, India and the UK, says Capt Tony Rossi, programme manager for Maritime Patrol and Reconnsassance Aircraft.

The HAAWC integrates an air-launched accessory (ALA) kit with a GPS guidance system and folding wings onto a standard Mk54 torpedo. Boeing describes the HAAWC release ceiling as “up to 30,000ft”, but the precise maximum altitude is under discussion and could be higher.

The capability potentially transforms a typically low-altitude anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission, as practiced for decades by Lockheed P-3C Orion crews, who are required to skim the wave tops at 100ft to release torpedoes.

In the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) competition that led to the P-8A’s selection in 2004, Boeing officials were careful to emphasize that the 737-800ERX-derived aircraft could perform the same low-altitude ASW mission. The company even organised flights for sceptical P-3C crews and journalists, swooping down from 41,000ft on an ocean vessel, leveling off at 200ft and performing tight turns to make multiple surveillance passes of a simulated target.

Despite the company’s marketing, the navy’s ASW community were already eager to dispense with such laborious low-altitude operations, Rossi says. Indeed, the navy deleted the magnetic anomaly detector from the P-8A configuration, the only sensor that demands the aircraft fly at low altitudes.

“If it’s not something that drives you to low altitude, I’m not sure why you would go there,” Rossi says.

The P-8A has “no problem with low-altitude,” Rossi says. But the navy prefers to operate the aircraft at higher altitudes, where crews are less fatigues and can take full advantage of the Poseidon’s sensor suite, including a multi-mode radar, electro-optical/infrared camera and a multi-static active coherent acoustic system.

The HAAWC is expected to be fielded in 2020 with an initial capability that could be upgraded later. The initial configuration lacks a data link to allow the weapon to receive target updates from the P-8A launch platform en route to the moving target. Studies are underway to determine the requirements for the data link, Boeing says. But the HAAWC meets the navy’s standards for targeting accuracy without an in-flight navigation update.

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The head of U.S. Strategic Command on Friday acknowledged the potential high cost of upgrading the military’s nuclear force but said the country can’t afford not to do so.

“Deterrence will always be cheaper than war and there’s nothing more expensive than losing a war,” said

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Gen. John Hyten, echoing recent comments made by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein.

As head of Stratcom, Hyten oversees the so-called nuclear triad consisting of strategic bombers; land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs; and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs. He was the keynote speaker Friday morning at the annual Military Reporters and Editors conference, which took place in Arlington, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.

“Look at what the world has done in the last 20 years since we started de-emphasizing nuclear weapons in our arsenal,” Hyten said. “Did our adversaries de-emphasize? No. Russia completely modernized their entire nuclear force and expanded and now just

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in violation of the Intermediate-[Range] Nuclear Forces Treaty into Russia. China has completely modernized and built up. North Korea has gone from zero to a nuclear capability in that time frame. Iran has built ballistic missiles.”

The general added, “When we started de-emphasizing nuclear weapons, what did the rest of the world do? The rest of the world did exactly the opposite. So if we de-emphasize nuclear weapons, we’re putting the country at jeopardy and we can never allow that to happen.”

The Defense Department’s fiscal 2017 budget

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spending $108 billion over five years to sustain and recapitalize the nuclear force and associated strategic command, control, communications, and intelligence systems.

That money would essentially be a down-payment on a long-term project to overhaul the entire nuclear triad by building new ICBMs to replace the Minuteman III, a replacement to the Ohio-class ballistic submarines and a new fleet of strategic bombers to be called B-21 Raiders.

Hyten acknowledged he has seen estimates for the nuclear modernization program ranging from $300 billion over a decade to $1 trillion over 30 years.

“I don’t know if any of those numbers are right,” he said. “But if you bought a house and you did an estimate about what you thought it would be to build a house, would the first thing you do [be] go tell the builder, ‘Hey this is my estimate. Now let’s start negotiating?’ Now that’s just a crazy way to build things.”

Hyten added, “We should be able to build it for an affordable price. We should be able to afford 6 percent of the defense budget to do that when it’s the most critical thing that we do in the military.”

President Donald Trump as part of the so-called skinny budget has proposed the Defense Department receive $639 billion in fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1. Six percent of that figure is about $38 billion. The president’s full budget request, due in February, is expected to be released in May.

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Equation said:

It's good to be an Air Force pilot right now! I'm sure it's the same for the Navy aviators as well.

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The Air Force closed out Fiscal 2016 short a total of 1,211 fighter pilots, which amounted to a $12 billion capital loss, the service’s manpower chief said on Wednesday. “It should be noted that the cost to train a fifth generation fighter pilot to prepare him or her for their first operational squadron is approximately $11 million,” Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso told the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee. Grosso said the Air Force does not have a problem recruiting new aviators, but it struggles to retain mid-career pilots who have grown weary of the high operational tempo and repeated deployments over the last 26 years. Not to mention commercial airlines are “actively recruiting the world-class experience of our rated airmen because the Air Force pilots are highly attractive with diverse experience and quality aviation training,” said Grosso, who noted the “annual hiring levels are expected to continue for the next 10 to 15 years.” In an effort to address the problem, the Air Force intends to expand undergraduate pilot training to the “maximum capacity” of 1,400 pilots per year. The service also has reduced additional duties and administrative work, allowing pilots to focus primarily on flying. Last year, Congress authorized a $35,000 a year aviation bonus—the first increase in 18 years.

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Boeing submitted its proposal for the Air Force’s T-X advanced pilot training system on Tuesday, two days ahead of the deadline, company program manager Ted Torgerson told reporters during a company teleconference Wednesday. The 90 days of preparation since the service released its request for proposals was “proposal hell,” Torgerson said, but all the required basic flight data, collected with the No. 1 aircraft, have been submitted, he reported. Boeing is about to fly its second T-X, and will continue flying both aircraft into June, when additional flight data may be submitted. Torgerson emphasized that the T-X is “all about the entire training system, not just the airplane,” and reported that the ground-based training system that goes with Boeing’s proposal is functioning well, having trained some five pilots so far. Torgerson observed that the aircraft went from design to flight in less than two years, and asserted that Boeing can meet the Air Force’s requirement of reaching Milestone C—readiness for production—in 2022 and initial operational capability in 2024.

“There is different instrumentation” in Boeing’s two jets, which he described not as prototypes but as “EMD [engineering and manufacturing development] … representative” aircraft that are very similar to the final configuration. The first one, he said, was configured to collect the basic data required in the RFP, while the second will expand the envelope. It hasn’t flown yet because Boeing is being mindful of cost and not spending money unless necessary, Torgerson said, and it was a testbed to prove out “repeatable manufacturing” methods. The No. 1 jet has flown as many as four sorties a day, which “shows the robustness of the design,” Torgerson asserted. An announcement of where the aircraft would be built if Boeing wins will be coming “soon,” he said, but final assembly will take place in the US. Boeing is partnered with Saab of Sweden on the T-X program.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

T-X and OA-X are two different programs.
T-X calls for a flight trainer to replace the T-38 Talon.
OA-X is a Ground attacker, and some hope light fighter. to fill gaps of the A10 and Coin ops.
Boeing has bowed out of the OA-X. They are still in on the T-X

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Air Force Brat said:

Jura said:

I've recently made a series of related posts in
What the Heck?! Thread
LOLOL the French saw the trouble coming

now the great line is this: "I inadvertently briefed [somebody] with incomplete information ..."

anyway, I repeat this:
Dec 3, 2016
and bid farewell to him

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Sad day Komrad, will be mistake, a serious asset when dealing with the Russians,,, that Navy Seal dude??? does not look like the right guy for the job???

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