Air Force secretary: ‘We are stretching the force to the limit’

[pauldun170]

The cost of 20 years of vanity ops.

STRETCHED TO THE LIMIT: As the Pentagon prepared for a three-day weekend, the civilian head of the Air Force delivered what has been become an increasingly urgent refrain. While higher funding levels are in the new defense authorization bill, they mean nothing unless Congress acts to lift the spending caps known as sequestration that remain the law of the land. “The most important thing we need to do is we need to lift sequestration as it's currently structured,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters at a Pentagon briefing yesterday. “Risk accumulates over time, and you just don't know exactly when things will break. But we are stretching the force to the limit, and we need to start turning the corner on readiness.”

Wilson and Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, painted a grim picture of a overburdened force on the ragged edge of readiness, in which jobs formerly performed by the many are now done by the few. That, Wilson said, is burning out people, and exacerbating a growing shortage of pilots that has gone from 1,500 earlier this year to 2,000. “It's not just pilots, though, and air crew, when it comes to readiness. It is spare parts and flying hours and munitions,” Wilson said.

High operational tempo combined with years of budget cuts have left the Air Force “too small for all the missions that we're being asked to carry out on behalf of the nation,” Wilson said. “Secretary Wilson and I remain adamant that Congress turn off the auto-pilot and get back in control of the budget,” Goldfein said.

SHELL GAME: It was a similar tale of woe over at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's readiness subcommittee, where the senior aviation officers from the four services described the toll that the lack of stable, predictable budgets was taking on the combat readiness of U.S. forces. “We are meeting the combatant commanders' requirement for ready, lethal carriers and air wings forward, but at a tremendous cost to the readiness of our forces at home," said Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, commander of Naval Air Forces.

Shoemaker described what he called the “shell game” required to move jets around in order to ensure the USS Carl Vinson, USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt had their full complement of aircraft for their deployments this year. The result is the hollowing out of nondeployed squadrons, which are left behind without enough planes to provide the flying hours needed to allow pilots to maintain their proficiency.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/a...tching-the-force-to-the-limit/article/2176984

 

[bshole]

Trillions of dollars and they're broke? Jesus H Christ.....

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Trillions of dollars and they're broke? Jesus H Christ.....

The problem is with allocation of resources. Instead of investing in people and infrastructure monies are going to hardware like the ever increasingly expensive F-35. Congress did not choose wisely.

 

[Svnla]

AF is short about 1,000 pilots - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ed-pilots-address-serious-shortage/785344001/

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

If it's anything like the AF I was in, there's a severe level of un-accountability regarding funds, as well as a strong problem with training/incompetence within the ranks in individual units. If everyone was twice as capable (very possible from my experience) you might be able to GSD with the funding you have, or less. Also, if you stop wasting money on stupid shit, you might be able to GSD with your current funding/competence level.

 

[Blackjack200]

I don't really mind if the USAF gets less money and can't drop as many bombs on Middle East and African countries, but the issue here is the same one that we see in the corporate world where budgets shrink and people are just expected to produce the same work with fewer resources. In bottom line terms it looks great because you're getting the same amount done at lower costs, but what you don't see is people burning out and resenting the unfair expectations and uncompensated extra work.

 

[K1052]

Over expensive weapons procurement programs that are years behind.
Constant demanding tempo of basically full time combat ops in a number of theaters.
Likely massive institutional wastage of resources while demanding more money and less accountability.
A near total lack of oversight from the executive and legislative branches.
Explosion in demand for commercial pilots resulting in a ton of good paying gigs.

Who could have seen this coming?

 

[yllus]

Pretty much every military degrades and wastes away huge amounts of money while no existential threat exists. But yeah, this is an especially bad showing.

 

[Zorba]

I've worked for an airline and for the air force. The amount of waste at the AF is unbelieveable. Not to mention the "tempo" puts about 500 hrs/yr on each plane. An airline puts that much on their aircraft every 5-6 weeks. Many AF fleets average even less than that.

Not to mention their budget is bigger than American, Delta, United and Southwest's total revenues combined.

Yeah, airlines don't have to buy bombs, but they maintain their aircraft to a much higher standard and maintain 90%+ availability (USAF is probably around 50% when accounting for the entire fleet).

 

[brycejones]

I've worked for an airline and for the air force. The amount of waste at the AF is unbelieveable. Not to mention the "tempo" puts about 500 hrs/yr on each plane. An airline puts that much on their aircraft every 5-6 weeks. Many AF fleets average even less than that.

Not to mention their budget is bigger than American, Delta, United and Southwest's total revenues combined.

Yeah, airlines don't have to buy bombs, but they maintain their aircraft to a much higher standard and maintain 90%+ availability (USAF is probably around 50% when accounting for the entire fleet).

But aren't most AF air frames built for 10-15K hour service lives at most?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I've worked for an airline and for the air force. The amount of waste at the AF is unbelieveable. Not to mention the "tempo" puts about 500 hrs/yr on each plane. An airline puts that much on their aircraft every 5-6 weeks. Many AF fleets average even less than that.

Yeah, this is a very real problem. I've worked in units essentially searching for a purpose. Like, very minimal real-world-mission requirement, training with ancient methods (if they trained at all), ensuring they're all but useless when the time actually comes to be called on. Then take into account all the people required to support them, people required to support THOSE people, etc.

 

[Zorba]

But aren't most AF air frames built for 10-15K hour service lives at most?

Yeah, but they fly so much less, they can usually out live most airliners.

They also use 1950s maintenance philosophies, instead of the maintenance philosophies learned by commercial, that have been in use since the 70s. Even though the older philosophies have been proven to be far more expensive, and produce dramatically worse results for safety and longevity. Mil-specs were just updated in the last few years to allow to even consider the commercial methods.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

But aren't most AF air frames built for 10-15K hour service lives at most?

C5's, C130's, and F16's (all workhorses, arguably *the* workhorses of the AF) have enormous service lives.... unless you mean timelines between teardowns or whatever. Not sure what it is for those.

EDIT:
C5 - projected 50k hours
https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-5.htm

C-130, nothing solid, seeing stuff referencing 45k though for center wing box?
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/aero/documents/global-sustainment/product-support/2013-hoc-presentations/2013-HOC-Tuesday/Tues 1515 Israel Aerospace Industries.pdf

F16 - extended to 12K, so that one's a bit lower
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/politics/us-air-force-extends-f-16-lockheed-martin/index.html

Point still stands though, airlines fly a *lot* more than AF birds do.

 

[Blackjack200]

Do you mean the C-17? I thought that was more of a workhorse than the C-5.

 

[Svnla]

But aren't most AF air frames built for 10-15K hour service lives at most?

I have a few friends who are in the AF and work on numerous airplanes in maintenance department. The B-52 bombers are still flying even they were made in the 1950's and 1960's and the AF is planning to keep them at least to 2040 and beyond.

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/gods-green-earth-b-52-still-service/

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Do you mean the C-17? I thought that was more of a workhorse than the C-5.

Ah, yeah, probably. I always worked with the fighter birds, not the transports

Looks like they're around 30k hours from original spec
https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-17.htm

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I have a few friends who are in the AF and work on numerous airplanes in maintenance department. The B-52 bombers are still flying even they were made in the 1950's and 1960's.

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/gods-green-earth-b-52-still-service/

Those are calc'd at 32.5k-37.5k, apparently. Expected to last until 2044 (84 years total).
https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-52.htm

 

[Zorba]

C5's, C130's, and F16's (all workhorses, arguably *the* workhorses of the AF) have enormous service lives.... unless you mean timelines between teardowns or whatever. Not sure what it is for those.

EDIT:
C5 - projected 50k hours
https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-5.htm

C-130, nothing solid, seeing stuff referencing 45k though for center wing box?
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/aero/documents/global-sustainment/product-support/2013-hoc-presentations/2013-HOC-Tuesday/Tues 1515 Israel Aerospace Industries.pdf

F16 - extended to 12K, so that one's a bit lower
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/politics/us-air-force-extends-f-16-lockheed-martin/index.html

Point still stands though, airlines fly a *lot* more than AF birds do.

Yeah the large aircraft generally have a lot of life in them. The fighters not as much. Their cyclic loads are much higher, and weight is a much higher concern, so both play together to create a lower life limit. Most large aircraft are killed by corrosion costs, not fatigue, even with airliners.

 

[Zorba]

I have a few friends who are in the AF and work on numerous airplanes in maintenance department. The B-52 bombers are still flying even they were made in the 1950's and 1960's and the AF is planning to keep them at least to 2040 and beyond.

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/gods-green-earth-b-52-still-service/

They also have very few hours on them for a 55 year-old aircraft.

Those are calc'd at 32.5k-37.5k, apparently. Expected to last until 2044 (84 years total).
https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-52.htm

That is based on "economic life" it isn't a true life limit, just a projection of when the cost of maintenance will become uneconomical. That number has also gone up in recent years as they try to push for "2050 and beyond."

 

[brycejones]

I have a few friends who are in the AF and work on numerous airplanes in maintenance department. The B-52 bombers are still flying even they were made in the 1950's and 1960's and the AF is planning to keep them at least to 2040 and beyond.

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/gods-green-earth-b-52-still-service/

Yes, and they've also had to pour billions into programs to rebuild/strengthen critical structural components as they've reached the end of their original design lives. Its just the decision has been made to pay the much higher maintenance costs than fund replacement aircraft for their given mission.

 

[K1052]

I am curious to see if they ever actually get around to re-engining the B-52 or just keep those TF33s burning an ocean of fuel until retirement.

 

[brandonbull]

FIVR and his army of 1000 retired pilots are on the way.

 

[kage69]

I heard it was a fair bit more than 1000 pilots.

Aha. http://www.military.com/daily-news/...t-shortage-climbs-2k-pilots-general-says.html

So, about 2000. Even with those retention bonuses so they don't go fly for Delta. Not good.