As much as most loved the aircraft, it was time for the F-14 to go.

Yet for some reason it’s perfectly fine to keep refining the airframe and avionics of the F-15, which is less than two years younger as a design?

The Super Hornet is of course cheaper in nearly every way, being a less ambitous and less performant airframe coming off the lines with more modern avionics, but I don’t see people calling for the USAF to replace its F-15s with -16s for the same reasons.

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The F-14A suffered from being at the cross-over between tube and solid-state avionics ( the AWG-9 used vacuum tubes for some functions ) and, of course, from the engines. When both of those issues were resolved there was little reason to retire it other than cost-saving. That’s what it ultimately came down to, trading capability for cost; blaming the airframe is misplaced.

2.75″ FFARs from F.27 Enforcer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkh2LaG2r7o

Wow !

Murky AW-101 delivery perplexes Indonesian defence

Flight International’s dates are incorrect; on the 15th Jan it was still at Yeovil and certainly wasn’t ‘delivered’.

Actually departed Stansted as hold-cargo for delivery 20th Jan. Ex-ZR343.

Essentially the Su-30 is an F-15C/E for the price of an F-16.

And does Iraq currently need *any* of those types?

If you’re primarily concerned with loitering and dropping PGMs in permssive air environment, as Iraq will be for the next decade, a special-missions Gulfstream will do it all more cheaply and probably better. And with more ISAR kit onboard, plus a toilet and oven.

Hyper-expensive-per-hour fighters poddling around subsonic on account of big tanks and draggy munitions and having to bug-out of the fight due to fuel levels? Not sure I see the attraction.

I think Iraq’s mistake was wanting to be back in the fast-jet club.

As Trident notes, 30% isn’t that surprising given that the J79 ( -17 ) has about 32% higher compression ratio than the R-25-300 and a vastly better time-between-overhaul ( 2000+ versus 400 hours ). More spinning stuff, longer lasting, better made. The Soviet engine was really designed for a short, high-power usage given that the expected combat life of its host would be measured in single-digit hours.

An interesting investigation might be between the J79 and the R35, both about the same weight and compression ratio but very different in thrust. Again the R35 ‘suffers’ from a very low TBO in exchange for higher performance. The candle that burns twice as bright…

The pool of skilled Vulcan engineers must be pretty small anyway and these guys have to put bread on the table just like anybody else

One doesn’t need type-licensed engineers to dis-assemble an aircraft if it is no longer on a PTF and none is required in the future.

However I do agree with your other points. There are two ways to move a grounded airframe; (1) the less-expensive way, which is still not cheap, which involves quick cuts along convenient lines in order to fit the road loading-gauge; and (2) the stupidly-expensive way that involves reversing the assembly and which will often require drilling-out stuck screws and debonding various plates. Tedious, unpleasant and very very slow especially for volunteers who can give only a few hours per week.

Given how expensive the hire of plant and transport can be, charged by the hour, the former is the method I’ve seen most frequently.

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/07/weapons-syrian-war-airstrikes-non-syrian/129636/?oref=DefenseOneFB

The price to fly versus ISIS per flight hour:

I note that the graphic on that page just credits ‘Defense Department’ and contains no link to the actual data. It looks like they’ve just cribbed the numbers from previous reports regardless of context, and thus compare incomparable numbers in order to push their agenda.

For example the $45,986 per an hour for an AC-130U is a 2013 PROGRAM COST per flying hour number which divided the total annual program cost ( including all acquisition and upgrade costs ) by the total annual flying hours. That’s not relevant to actual flying over Syria in 2016; in fact if they flew MORE, the 2016 equivalent number would DECREASE!

In contrast the suspiciously-round $1000 per hour for the OV-10 looks like a guesstimate of the raw per-hour figure; a civilian Mu-2 with the same engines comes in around $690 per hour* fr fuel, maintenance and insurance. So it’s not a fair comparison with the figures given for other aircraft on the list unless they build-in the costs of reactivating the OV-10s, training crews, ferrying them to theatre etc.

Until I see raw DoD data I’m not convinced by fancy ‘infographics’.

* http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iYMrYJQzwIgJ:http://turbineair.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Mits-Cost-of-Operation.pdf%2Bmu-2+cost+per+flying+hour&gbv=1&tbs=li:1&hl=en&ct=clnk