USAF mulls options for replacement of Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle

Dan Goure, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, disagrees. “What would you replace [the F-15] with? It’s not an F-22, and it’s not an F-35. Here we go starting to talk about sixth-gen or something,” he says. It would have to be a clean-sheet design, but there is probably not going to be enough money to pay for an F-15E replacement given that the USAF will need to pay for a large number of aircraft procurements in the 2030 timeframe.”

http://www.dailytech.com/US+Navy+Starts+Search+for+a+Sixth+Generation+Fighter/article24483.htm April 2012

So, do we let the Navy have lead on the 6th-gen F/A-18E/F & F-15E replacement aircraft?

First, you have to remove everything you don’t want outsiders to see/take. That takes labor, which costs money.

Then you remove anything that could be used in other ships, or which could be recycled in other way. More labor, more expense.

Finally you have to remove any regulated environmental contaminants (like asbestos, etc). Lots of labor, really expensive.

All this has to be done no matter what you plan do do… scrap or sink.

Now the first two do return some money in the form of reduced parts expenditures for other ships… but rarely enough to compensate for all the costs involved.

It is usually cheaper to just keep 30-40 sailors aboard to provide security and prevent fires/flooding, etc, park her off in a corner hooked up to shore utilities, and ignore her… but she is then still “in commission”.

Over time the radiation produces crystalline fatigue in the metals of the reactor, making a failure more probable.

To be safe, she would need a complete replacement of her 8 early-generation archaic reactors… which would almost be the cost of a new-build conventionally-powered carrier her size!

This is why she is being retired… along with just plain being “beat-to-****”, in a “very expensive hull-work” way!

I’m not British (thank god*), but here’s my contributions:

Mom & Dad too young to do anything other than go to school during WW2 (living in Kansas).

2 of Mom’s brothers (the oldest) served in WW2, 1 US Army & 1 USN… made it out of the US, but not into combat (unless you count the nights they, being stationed near each other, would meet at a bar midway between. And, after a few drinks, start “fighting” each other… only to pull out when the donnybrook got going good, and watch from the door until they heard the MP’s sirens. Then they would sneak off back to their bases.)

One of Dad’s older brothers got to Germany right at the end… wouldn’t say what he saw.
The other got all his affairs in order after Pearl Harbor, and went down to enlist a couple weeks later. He was told “Sorry, but the farmers for miles around have come down and let us know you are the only one who can keep their combines & tractors working, so you are now listed as “in a war-essential industry”… and you aren’t allowed to enlist or be drafted! After all, we need the food they raise to feed the troops.”.

My Granddad (Mom’s Pa) served in France in WW1 with Pershing’s Army… fought in the trenches in 1918, caught a lung full of gas, but lasted until the summer of 1980 (or else Mom wouldn’t have been born)!

* my ancestors came from various parts of Scotland

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Federal+government+cancels+fighter+purchase/7663407/story.html

Federal government cancels F-35 fighter purchase

By Michael Den Tandt, The Ottawa Citizen December 6, 2012 10:06 PM

OTTAWA — The F-35 jet fighter purchase, the most persistent thorn in the federal government’s side and the subject of a devastating auditor-general’s report last spring, is dead.

Faced with the imminent release of an audit by accountants KPMG that will push the total projected life-cycle costs of the aircraft above $30 billion, the operations committee of the federal Cabinet decided to scrap the controversial sole-source program and go back to the drawing board, a source familiar with the decision said.

This occurred after Chief of the Defence Staff Thomas Lawson, while en route overseas, was called back urgently to appear before the committee, the source said.

More details at link.

A possible “black world” long range ISR/Strike platform that might be in development at Groom Lake in a blink transforms itself in “Dave is going to get cancelled”!

Could we leave Dave out of this topic? We already have one entire topic dedicated to “derailing Dave”…

Indeed!

The USAF has announced early-stage “pre-RFP” programs initiated for B-52/B-1/B-2 and F-22 replacements, a possible long-range strike platform is possibly cited… and posters assume that the one stealth aircraft with no announced replacement or alternative is the only thing it could possibly be aimed towards?

If anything this is development work towards the USAF’s “Next-Generation Bomber”!

I didn’t bother with the article, since Bill Sweetman was involved in its writing.

Just by his name appearing I know he was suggesting the F-35 connection… mainly due to his clinical obsession with bashing that aircraft even when talking about things with no connection to it at all!

Now for them to remove the 6 portholes from CV-6 Enterprise that were installed in CVN-65 and install them in CVN-80!