Air Force Fighter Fleet in 'Crisis'

Associated Press

January 11, 2008

Courtesy Of: Military.com

WASHINGTON - Years of stress on the Air Force's aging jet fighter fleet have led to serious structural problems that could grow worse even after expensive repairs are made, senior service officials said Jan. 10.

Gen. John Corley, the top officer at Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va., called the situation a "crisis" that would be best solved by an infusion of costly new aircraft rather than fixing jets that are 25 years old.

The mechanical troubles, most acute in the F-15 Eagles used to protect the United States, also have led to a patchwork approach to filling critical air missions at home and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With nearly a third of the F-15 fleet grounded due to a defective support beam in the aircraft's frame, other fighter aircraft, including F-16s and new F-22s, are being shifted from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's a rob Peter to pay Paul," Corley said at a Pentagon news conference. "It's unprecedented to have an air superiority fleet that's on average 25 years old."

The Air Force's dilemma has been largely overshadowed by the equally urgent demands from the Army and Marine Corps for new equipment to replace the battle gear worn down by more than six years of war. That changed on Nov. 2 when an F-15C aircraft broke in two during a training flight over Missouri.

The pilot, Maj. Stephen Stilwell, barely had time to eject from the front half of the F-15. His left shoulder was dislocated and his left arm shattered as the cockpit blew apart.

An investigation of the crash released Thursday concluded that a defective aluminum beam in the frame cracked, causing the $42 million jet to disintegrate in the air. There was no pilot error.
More troubling, however, were the findings of a parallel examination that determined as many as 163 of the workhorse F-15s also have the flawed beams, called longerons. The aircraft remain grounded as the Air Force tries to determine how broad the problem is and whether fixes should be made. Another 19 of the aircraft have yet to be inspected and also remain grounded.

In the report on Stilwell's crash, Col. William Wignall, the lead investigator, said that prior to Stilwell's flight, "no inspection requirements existed for detecting a crack in the longeron."

The F-15A through D models were built by McDonnell Douglas. That company merged with the defense manufacturing giant, Boeing Co., in August 1997.

The faulty longerons "failed to meet blueprint specifications," according to the Air Force. No decision has been reached as to whether Boeing might be liable for the repairs, however.

"This is the starting point of answering that question," said Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, a senior Air Force acquisition official. "So now that we have the evidence of what happened in (Stilwell's) case, it will all boil down to what our contractual relationship was with the manufacturer at the time."

Nearly 260 of the A through D model F-15s, first fielded in the mid-1970s, were returned to flight status Tuesday following fleet-wide inspections.

The Air Force's fleet of 224 newer F-15E Strike Eagles do not have defective longerons. Those jets, whose role is more oriented toward ground attack missions, were temporarily grounded after Stilwell's crash, but returned to service shortly thereafter.

The longeron helps support the cockpit and strengthen the jet as it moves through high-stress maneuvers while traveling hundreds of miles per hour.

Corley said even if the longerons in the older F-15s are replaced - a procedure that costs $250,000 per beam - there's no guarantee that other parts won't go bad.

"You may wind up with an airplane that is already so far beyond it's economic service life, that to throw a quarter of million dollars at it to replace a bad part may be a bad idea," he said. "That may be buying way too much risk. We've already bought too much risk because we've bought too little iron over the years."

The F-16, fielded in the late 1970s, is undergoing an extensive modernization program, Corley said. So, too, is the tank-killing A-10, a 30-year old plane used to support troops on the ground.

"This is systemic," Corley said.

The Air Force has fielded more than 90 F-22 Raptors, a stealth fighter made by defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. But these aircraft cost $160 million apiece and the Pentagon has decided to buy only 183. The Air Force has said it needs 381 F-22s and has support on Capitol Hill for a larger acquisition that would keep require tens of billions of dollars.

The F-35 Lightning is another new fighter that is being built but won't be in use for several more years.

Corley said the Air Force does not want to buy more F-15s.

"I flew this airplane 30 years ago," said Corley, an F-15 instructor pilot in 1979 when he was a captain. "It was best of breed at its time. It's not anymore. All options on the table, yes. But is it where I would turn to now? No."

By contrast, the F-22 is a modern plane that meets the Air Force's needs for an air combat jet, he said.

"The hot running production line that the United States Air Force has right now for fighter aircraft is the F-22," Corley said. "That line has the capacity. So you'd have to ask yourself, 'Can I buy F-22s?'"

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