Burning The Candle From Both Ends At The Same Time
Take a look at this marketing material from L-M:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/conten...-34324h001.pdf
Now, take a look at this:
Gen. Mark Welsh sounds alarm on undermanned Air Force
It seems to me, General Welsh is a day late and a pound short in sounding the alarm for the USAF manpower situation. Besides that, there is no real solution offered. It also seems to me that bringing on the F-35As in the quantities being promoted will only add to the manpower problem. Unquestionably, the F-35As are going to require more manpower to service and maintain than F-16C/Ds. Since we seem to be stuck in the Middle-East for the foreseeable future, why is there the need to rush to buy more and more F-35As at high procurement costs and then pay to fix all the deficient items that crop up as the testing programs drag on? Why isn't the USAF procuring new F-16s at reduced procurement, manpower requirements, operating and maintenance costs?
The most advanced F-16s in the world aren’t American. That distinction belongs to the UAE, whose F-16 E/F Block 60s are a half-generation ahead of the F-16 C/D Block 50/52+ aircraft that form the backbone of the US Air Force, and of many other fleets around the world. The Block 60 has been described as a lower-budget alternative to the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, and there’s a solid argument to be made that their performance figures and broad sensor array will even keep them ahead of pending F-16 modernizations in countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. The F-16 has now undergone 6 major block changes since its inception in the late 1970s, incorporating 4 generations of core avionics, 5 engine versions divided between 2 basic models (P&W F100 and GE F110), 5 radar versions, 5 electronic warfare suites, and 2 generations of most other subsystems. Moore’s Law applies as well, albeit more slowly: the latest F-16’s core computer suite has over 2,000 times the memory, and over 260 times the throughput, of the original production F-16.
For the Syrian, Libyan, Iraq missions the only real thing missing between the F-35As and the F-16C/Ds or EFs is the F-16s don't have a stealth capability. We aren't fighting an enemy with an air force, why is stealth that important and is it worth the added costs? Maybe we do need the F-35A or a fast jet like it (an improved iteration) in the future to maintain the future technological advantage, but I think at the moment we have enough demos to play around with.
Also, it is curious the manpower comparison years chosen by General Welsh. Does anyone remember the year of Desert Storm? It was 1990.
Some technical & cost comparison stuff F-35As to F-16C/Ds:
Lockheed-Martin Data October 2015
USAF F-35 Planned Quantities: 1763
LRIP Aircraft Costs (not including engine):
o 23 F-35As CTOL - $103 million/jet LRIP 6
o 24 F-35As CTOL - $98 million/jet LRIP 7
o 19 F-35As CTOL-$94.8 million/jet LRIP 8
Standard Internal Weapon Load
• 25 mm GAU-22/A cannon
• Two AIM-120C air-to-air missiles
• Two 2,000-pound GBU-31 JDAM guided bombs
USAF Data, Sept. 23, 2015
F-16C/D Total USAF Inventory: 1017
Unit Cost in 1998 (Fiscal ’98 constant dollars): $18.8 million ($27.4 million in 2015 dollars, 45.9% cumulative inflation) Add another ~$10 million to get E/Fs
Payload: two 2,000-pound bombs, two AIM-9, two AIM-120 and two 2400-pound external fuel tanks
Speed: 1,500 mph (Mach 2 at altitude)
Range: more than 2,002 miles ferry range (1,740 nautical miles)
TD