USAF plans on retiring hundreds of Aircraft

[Nesher]

 

https://i-hls.com/archives/98856

[+guuruu]

Well.. not so reach US allies are waiting for retired F-16. Countries like Bulgaria, Croatia or Romania need planes to replace soviet equipment.

I think all retired F-16 should be offered for these 'forgoten' allies even for free.

[+daddyairplanes]

interesting to me theres no date (at least that i saw. that aside its two fold announcement. first is good old budget politics; "we dont have enough money need to retire the old stuff so we can get new".

however, some of the latest proposals are actually decent, like retiring a little over a dozen B-1B and 44 A-10 rather than the whole fleet. the aircraft proposed would be the higher hour birds and maintenence hogs of the fleet.

in the case of the A-10 (still in the process of being rewinged) it would mean 65 new wingsets rather than 109, and a source of other spares for the remaining fleet of around 210. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/10/bye-bye-brrrrt-air-force-wants-retire-44-10-warthogs.html

remains to see how the politics of this plays out tho. Congress is known for actions like not allowing retirement of the KC-135E fleet, at a time when they were sitting so long they had to be fired up and moved to keep the tires from going flat.

the second youngest service (feels wierd to say that) does like shiny new things, but it really does need to let go of some of the old however much enthusiasts or Congress cry no. older airframes do get hard to pay for too, after a while.

except BUFFs. ther will be a B-52 flyover when the USS Enterprise is launched

 

heres is another version of the same news, with a little more detail

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/10/air-force-send-more-100-planes-boneyard-it-invests-future-fighters.html

[PFunk]

If we're being honest, this is probably a good thing.  A lot of those airframes are older than the pilots flying them.  Lots of them (like the Bone) are getting next to impossible to maintain because of their increasing age.  Most of them likely couldn't operate in a modern conventional battlespace without massive electronic jamming support (I'm looking at you, F-15C).   Some of them have systems that are more than two decades old (the Block 25 Vipers).

We could easily hand off the -16s (and even the -15s) to client states that wanted something on the cheap.  The US military badly needs to modernize, if for no other reason than the safety of the pilots operating those aircraft.  Even the F-22A is getting to be a little old.  I'm very glad to see we've invested in some new-build Strike Eagles, probably the most versatile platform since the F-4 Phantom II.  I'm also very encouraged by the progress of the Raider; Northrop seems to be moving development along at a brisk pace.

We've needed new gear for a while, and we are going on two decades of sustained combat use of so many systems, they are now breaking from fatigue.  Everyone was saddened by the retirement of the Tomcat; the way that it happened was worse than the realization that it needed to be retired.  I think the one that will affect me more will be the last flight of the F-16.  I grew up a stone's throw from the fence around Carswell AFB and as a kid, I watched hundreds of new-build -16s take off for customers and even more being flown in for maintenance.  They were just a symbol of America for me.  When they're finally retired, it will be because we squeezed every last dime we could out of them.

Edited February 12, 2020 by PFunk

[Skyviper]

I'm just saying old isn't always obsolete/useless and new isn't always improved/better. I don't understand why some are so eager to toss away systems that have proven themselves reliable over the years, in favor of systems that have yet to do anything other than look pretty in recruiting videos. When talking about money spent maintaining the old ones ... what about the money spent on the new ones? F-35 program for instance. There's all kinds of drama surrounding that plane. Whether you're for or against really doesn't matter honestly because just about every aircraft has went through similar drama. However just about every other aircraft has eventually proven itself to be reliable. I'd like to hang on to what works until the new aircraft have time to prove themselves as reliable and adapt to their situation. Having shiny new equipment is nice and looks good but it won't mean a thing if they can't deliver.

Not modernizing can have its advantages too. People gripe about the nuclear program being soooo oooooold and in need of upgrades and yet while hospitals are getting hacked, websites with personal data are getting hacked, credit card information getting hacked, you haven't heard of silos getting hacked...because the systems are too flipping old. I wouldn't trust a corporation today to make any upgrades to that program. We can barely get Windows 10 to work right and people want new systems for our nukes? Nah. Like my grandpa says "if ain't broke don't fix it".

[PFunk]

Oh, sure.  I argue that governments should definitely be more frugal in their expenditures.  I think any citizen of any government would probably appreciate public employees being good stewards of our money.  And, where there is still use to be found in something, it ought to be used until something more efficient can be found.  I'm thinking of the A-10 in that regard as well; it does a job well and there's nothing else quite like it.  What I meant is that when we make the decision to retain equipment of any kind, that decision shouldn't be made out of nostalgia.

[+Erik]

The bone yard here in town isn't a grave, that's always a big misunderstanding. The bone yard houses and stores thousands of aircraft most of which are kept in a state that putting them back into service can happen over night. The crews that put these aircraft into storage are pros, they cover, protect, and have systems in place to protect an aircraft down to the smallest items you can think of. They take the entire inventory into consideration when planning the end stages of an aircraft and even that's not the end of these old gals. Once they deem an aircraft beyond storage viability they part it out and use those parts to bring other aircraft back into stored ready status. The parts are also used to supply museums with parts and air frames that they in turn restore. Even as an aircraft doesn't resemble an aircraft much they take those pieces and sell them to the many privately owned aircraft salvage yards around here. The US Government are pros at decommissioning and salvaging these aircraft and it is a necessary stage of their life. The guys at the boneyard do it with the grace and poise you'd expect from those caring for these tough but aged wings. The running joke down on the farm is when the tour guys roll past a multi acre section of land that's vacant and they tell the folks that's where they house all the stealth aircraft. The tour guys have to get a chuckle out of every photo that's taken. This last phase of duty isn't the end it's a reunion of the toughest and something to be damn proud of.

 

[PFunk]

The US military is quite possibly the record holder for most items recycled.