F-15 Grounding Strains U.S. Air Defenses

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(12-26) 13:00 PST Fresno, Calif. (AP) --

The grounding of hundreds of F-15s because of dangerous structural defects is straining the nation's air defense network, forcing some states to rely on their neighbors' fighter jets for protection, and Alaska to depend on the Canadian military.

The F-15 is the sole fighter at many of the 16 or so "alert" sites around the country, where planes and pilots stand ready to take off at a moment's notice to intercept hijacked airliners, Cessnas that wander into protected airspace, and other threats.

The Air Force grounded about 450 F-15s after one of the fighters began to break apart in the air and crashed Nov. 2 in Missouri. An Air Force investigation found "possible fleet-wide airworthiness problems" because of defects in the metal rails that hold the fuselage together. It is not clear when the F-15s will be allowed to fly again.

Compounding the problem created by the grounding, another fighter jet used for homeland defense, the F-16, is in high demand for Iraq operations. And the next-generation fighter, the F-22 Raptor, is only slowly replacing the aging F-15.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/12/26/national/a104122S10.DTL

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. who the hell is about to attack us?

Iran?
Pakistan?
Palestine?
Belgium?
No, wait, I know! Zimbabwe!

[TomInTib]

2. If you ever watched Lou Dobbs....

you would know that we are already under attack.

If you see one of those pesky Messkins getting into a cropduster that doesn't belong to you...

then we are probably screwn without those F-15s.

[Turbineguy]

3. Luxembourgers

They are fed up with Americans ordering Hamburgers.

"I'll have a Luxembourger with Freedom Fries and some Coke!"

[hack89]

6. After 911, the political pressue to not let it happen again

was overwhelming. No politician, Republican or Democrat, would ever suggest that we reduce our air defenses - it would be political suicide. It is not rational but it is the political reality.

[Owl]

4. Bring it all back to the US, and repair / salvage what we can.

And keep it here.

[DemEyeDick]

15. I am with you Owl...

We need to pull all of our troops/equipment out of all foreign nations, bring it all back home, rebuild what we can, scrap the rest and stay the hell out of foreign affairs. The amount of money we waste on war machines is atrocious. Meanwhile people here are dying from lack of health care, New Orleans is still a mess, and people all over the world hate us for our heavy handed tactics.

[Joey Liberal]

5. And Bush is cutting 6K AF personnel too n/t

[hack89]

7. Not Bush's fault

Air Force leadership made the call to reduce personnel to buy new aircraft.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Is there a recall notice?

[99th_Monkey]

9. Not a word in this story about holding the manufacturer accountable for the defects

Unbelievable. So the manufacturer of these defective planes walks scott-free of any accountability for their
shoddy workmanship?

Just one more "non-story" the MSM sweeps under the Military/industrial carpet apparently.

[Plucketeer]

10. It's not the manufacturer's fault!

Those F-15s are being flown WELL past the service life they were built to give. The Air Force has gotten way more service out of them than they should have. It's that way with A LOT of the aerial hardware our services are using.
30 - 40 years ago, planes like the F-15 & F-16 were relatively cheap compared to the fantazmagorical wizardry that they're buying in the F-22 and other planes now. These newer designs will eventually take over the duties of the older jobs as they wear out - as is obviously happening with the F-15s. Thing is, the F-22s are SO DAMNED expensive that we can't afford anywhere NEAR as many as we would cheaper designs. Couple that with the fact that 2/3rds of America's military aircraft builders went belly up after the Soviet Union collapsed, and you have a crippled source as well.
Heh - call the manufacturers on the carpet??? McDonnell-Douglas (builders of the F-15) no longer exists!

[99th_Monkey]

13. hey, thanx for the info. i didn't know

that F-15s were sooooo old. i guess that explains my question ... thanx.

[mikeytherat]

16. Exactly! The most recent, up-to-date F-15s were built over 30 years ago!

I was, frankly, surprised when my pilot father told me they were grounding all of the F-15s at Langley AFB - I thought all of the F-15s were gone, replaced with the F-22, but Langley still had a bunch of F-15s at the ready.

mikey_the_rat

[Kajsa]

18. They are now Boeing.

And Northrup became Northrup-Gruman.

TRW became Northrup-Gruman
and a credit reporting agency.
( now called Experian)

We are the center of mergers.

[Redstone]

11. Uh, no, it is NOT the manufacturer's fault. Aircraft of this type end up, by the end

of their service life, being tasked to do MANY roles that were never envisioned, specified, or even thought of when they were initially designed.

The F-15 was intended to be an air-superiority fighter and long-range interceptor. By the time it had morphed into the E model, it had been re-purposed as a heavy strike aircraft, even being modified to a two-crew rather than a single pilot.

You don't think THAT kind of change puts stress on an airframe that the manufacturer never expected?

Similarly, the F-16 was designed as a lighweight, agile, daytime dogfighter. It's being used as a strike aricraft as well.

F-18? Same thing. It's now the F/A (A for Attack)-18, again, now two crew, and even expected to do duty as an EW jammer ship to replace the EA-6B.

Not the manufacturer's fault. If the government took a twenty-year-old Volkswagen Jetta, and expected it to be modifiable to win the 24-hour LeMans race, and it couldn't, would that be Volkswagen's fault?

Redstone

[99th_Monkey]

12. Gee, I didn't know all that. I didn't realize they were so old.

I'm kind of a dummy when it comes to military hardware. thanx for the run-down

[Redstone]

14. Oh, yeah. Did you know we're also flying B-52s that are over 50 years old?

Truth. An airplane can fly almost forever with good maintenance, but eventually something breaks that's too expensive to fix.

Redstone

[Thothmes]

17. Shoddy workmanship

Most of these air frames are over 20 years old. The problem is not in original design, its a result of thousand hours of flight time on these airframes.
We do not normally blame the manufacturer of an item for a design defect of an item that we bought 20 years ago, used heavily and maintained ourselves. maintained ourselves, for design defects. Not mentioned in any threads in this forum is that a large part of the Navy P3-C fleet is also grounded for age related air frame structural problems.

[Plucketeer]

20. 37 years ago, .....

....I was working for Lockheed at their Georgia plant. The project I was involved in was bringing in veteran C-130 aircraft and and taking them apart so a new center-wing section could be installed. The planes were reaching and passing their project life span and stress cracks were developing in the wing center sections (remember the horrific video of that aging C-130 firebomber losing it's wings as it was dropping fire retardant some years back!).
A new center wing section gave those planes a good number more years of service at a fraction of what new planes would cost.
Unless we make the transition to UAV planes completely, I can see this country buying some types of warplanes from foreign nations in the future. Truly a sad statement of the decline of industry in this nation, but it's what the GOP has been steering us towards for decades now.

[Locrian]

19. wearing out, old, degrading....

Gee, kinda like our WHOLE FUCKING INFRASTRUCTURE in this country. Planes, bridges, roads, buildings etc......

[Plucketeer]

21. Eggxactly!

And the GOP has been doing it's BEST to make the spectre of TAXES as evil as Bin Laden. Of course - without the money to rebuild infrastructure and revitalize our industry, we'll wither while they live the high life with hot and cold servants working for minimum wage or less!