Aging Air Force Wants Big Bucks Fix

Get used to needing stuff and not being able to pay for it. If you look at things such as refueling aircraft, lift helicopters, even hummers, as being infrastructure, then you will see that we can't afford them. Much like roads and bridges, computer systems for air traffic control, technology and people for border control, etc etc, the US government if flat broke and its citizens are tapped out as well. Between government entitlements and the consumer being in enormous dept, the wealth in the country is already spoken for. We are collectively broke. News for the 4 stars in the Air Force.........there ain't no money for the infrastructure, because there ain't no money period. We are racing to the third world.

but we want to give an additional billions to Africa and other forign aid packages that go directly to dictators and other scum. By the way Obama wants that to increase 10 times. Go figure.

They could start by saving money,...like NOT building a luxury dorm with private rooms and baths like they did at Thule AB in Greenland. The cost?
Between 11 and 22 million dollars, for just ONE of these dorms.

The following from the article:
The gunships logged more than 9,000 hours in 2007. It's comparable, Heithold said, to putting 70,000 miles on a car in a single year instead of a more normal 12,000 miles.
Since 365x24=8760 ...I thought only Democrats were doing this kind of math.
Obama will have his cousin Odinga in fat city on YOUR tax dollar without a doubt. Bushey just jump started the process for him. Go figure yet again.

Not a liberal at heart, but ya gotta admit, we're in debt up to our eyeballs... I don't see this general (and the AF overall) getting the money it needs for this amount of aircraft. It ain't gonna happen.

This war we're in now is the first major war in American history in which we didn't go into it "whole hog" (so to speak). No war bond drives... no draft... we're basically fighting it half-assed.

And this is the result. A nation being driven even faster towards bankruptcy than it was before.

I don't accept the premise that the nation is broke. The money to fix these problems is out there-however the government has to go after it. When guys like Glenn Tilton and others can walk all over there employees and come away with 40 million. There is money out there.

Anything for a buck. Anything to empoverish the other services...

My husband was just RIF'ed (reduction in force) as an officer of the USAF. They have been reducing their force of dedicated officers to buy new planes. My husband comes from a line of men in his family that dedicated their lives to the USAF and this is the thanks we get. We have sacrificed throughout our entire marriage for the Air Force. My husband has done his time in Iraq and would have willingly gone back if asked. He had wanted to be an officer in the Air Force since he was a child. He wanted no other career. And now we were forced out by government wanting to buy new planes. I would not encourage anyone to join the Air Force after seeing the way they treat the dedicated individuals who support them kicked to the curb. I was once proud to be the wife of an officer in the USAF, but after this whole process, I am ashamed of the way the government treats our military men and women who want to serve and don't care about the money.

I may be wrong, but I believe the WW2 war bond drives were more to keep inflation down than to give the government more cash.
On the other hand, putting more new-model dorms in the budget is, IMHO, dumb. Two rooms with a shared bathroom is luxury enough to start with.

Well, the USAF has two basic options. 1: Cut back on our air fleet and accept that the US cannot operate a global dominant air force anymore. Maybe not in the next ten years, but twenty years out we won't be able to do it. It's going to hit a point where the people and/or the aircraft to do the missions are not there.
2: Pay up. And it will be expensive, but paying the cost now will prevent a future congressional hearing of "why weren't there any fighter planes for X" (along the general lines of the "why weren't there up-armored Humvees in Iraq" debate)

We pay for it somehow, either in money now or capabilities (and heaven forbid lives) later.

Sh1fty,

I respectfully disagree with both of your options. The USAF budget is larded with programs of record that duplicate, triplicate, and replicate existing programs because money must be spent. The USAF is in this mess because of its budgeting and acquisition cultures. Frequently in meetings I wonder just who runs the USAF - blue suiters or Big Vendors?

What you've recommended sounds to me like scare tactics - practically extortion. These tactics are fairly common for the USAF to employ when it comes to the Title X money-fights. But: you won't hear the Army declaring that if they don't get FCS then they won't fight AND win anymore. You'd never hear a Marine or a sailor say that. Only the USAF has such hubris.

Perhaps if the USAF learned to budget money, and understand that it, and not the vendors, has the power to dictate the price of modern aircraft and technologies. No one else in the world can buy these aircraft and technologies: 1 Raptor is more than more nations entire defense budget. So in answering 'who is the only customer' the USAF will find the freedom to contribute to our great Nation's defense, not bankrupt it.

My two cents...

Dave

Few comments:
1) Military spending is at 3.7% of GDP, near a historic low, and certainly ridiculously low for being in the middle of a global war.
Military budget of the United States
We rank like 9th in military spending, and we are the worlds superpower and adult.
2)The facilities budget would buy you very little.
3)When I exited DoD procurement, the AF was still footing the bill for most system of systems engineering, and a lot of basic sci-tech. The result was things like Comanche--a fighter avionics suite grafted into a tank body. Army Transformation, a generation of computer savvy army officers, funding transfers, and a little prodding from Don R. got us properly building a modern army equipment base. But lets not forget that our AF friends do tech well, and airframes do stress. Plus, we may not always have such impoverished enemies, and smart missiles are getting cheaper.
4)Build F-20's!! :-)

I am disappointed at the comments of some of the patrons of this site. As a twenty-something AF pilot who flew an aircraft that my grandfather could have flown, and did fly two aircraft my father flew (with a possible third in the near future), I see the problems we have with aging aircraft every day. For a great pictoral representation of just how old our aircraft are, go here: http://www.afa.org/media/reports/contrast.asp

I know aircraft accidents do not always make the national news, but when we have structural issues with the bread and butter aircraft of our fleet, F-15s and F-16s, that cause them to fall out of the sky, you know we have problems. Since WWII, we have had the advantage of air superiority, and that is not something to take for granted.

A few weeks ago Instapundit included a article that cited that China could overtake AF technology in only a decade or two. Although I am skeptical about China's aerial abilities, that fact scares me. Right now we are able to keep up descent parts and aircraft to the AOR because there is not as much need for anything but close air support at this point in the conflict. But if you look back to the 90s, there were major issues with aircraft here in the states because so many resources were going to Eastern Europe. And even that conflict we mostly air-to-ground, with not many aerieal threats. If the USAF had to go against a descent force sometime in the near future, it would not be pretty...

If the USAF were an airline it's annual board meetings would be a blood bath. They are beginning to get an Amtrak attitude when it comes to budgets and priorities. Spend on toys and then scare the hell out of everyone with China to get more subsidies.