Defense Tech is reporting that Congress is increasingly frustrated with the Air National Guard’s modernization planning:
As the Air National Guard grapples with an impending fighter jet shortfall that will threaten its ability to protect U.S. airspace, its supporters in Congress and the Pentagon want the Air Force to consider all possible solutions — even buying Navy F-18s to fill the gap.
I like it!
There’s even precedence: After 9/11, quite a number of Air Guardsmen – many of whom had paying work as airline pilots – were trapped away from their guard bases when the national airspace structure was briefly closed down. Navy and Marine Corps FA-18s from Miramar and Lemoore flew CAPs in the San Francisco and LA regions until they could get back to their bases.
(Wonder whether they’ll be needing weapons school qualified instructor pilots…)
Well, first there’s that flight physical thing….
The flight physical shouldn’t be a problem. The PRT? Meh.
Yah, but wouldn’t it be the USAF physical? I think that involves moving 20 boxes of paperclips from one side of a desk to another…
Thought you were the Cross Fit guru?
Lex, the AF so hated the fact that they had to buy the F-4–an aircraft designed for the Navy–that they vowed NEVER AGAIN to let that happen. At one point this irrationality carried them to the point in the 70s that they were considering F-16s as long-range interceptors for Alaskan AD and AD in general, rather than buying the one aircraft then currently in the inventory custom designed for the AD role, your service’s F-14. They finally compromising on the F-15, which is a fine bird, but NOT the AD platform the F-14/Phoenix was designed to be. Will be interesting to see if they can be made to swallow the Hornet…
Virgil, I wouldn’t be surprised that logistics/support came into play. I don’t argue that the Tomcat was a dangerous weapon, but it required quite a bit more maintenance than a Viper; consider the swing wing, if nothing else.
This reminds me of the decision to drop the original Lightning (P-38) in favor of the Mustang. The Lightning was in many ways a precursor of the Phantom II and/or Tomcat; big, busty, and twin-engined. Alas, it was very expensive to build and maintain, since they were originally designed to be -in effect- hand-made.
And just to be snarky, the Air Force did get the F-86 design from the Navy.
I’m not sure I would put too much credence in that Rand study. It seems most argument/discussion with respect to the Raptor ignores doctrine, training, and support. The better-trained pilot will beat the higher-tech, but mediocre pilot. Ask the Israelis.
Casey/
Oh, I agree with you about the maint. bit with the swing-wing and all–which is also the main reason the F-111 went away (besides the fact it had side-by-side seating–an anathema to “true” fighter pilots and despised for that reason alone within a significant part of the AF fighter community) despite the fact that, even unto this very day, there are some msn profiles that we STILL cannot fly/utilize without it.
Unfortunately I haven’t read the methodology of the RAND study so I might be wandering off the reservation here, but I *think* it had something to do with numbers of missiles (AMRAAM, AIM-9X, PL-12, etc.) each side could loft and it gave a huge technological advantage to the Pk of the US missiles (i.e. near 1.00 for AMRAAM despite it’s demonstrated nearer to 0.5 in combat) vice the Chinese missiles and then just sort of crunched numbers. Crude surely, but doctrine, training and support can’t give a Raptor extra missiles in flight and you can only down so many planes with your internal gun. By no means is this to say the RAND study is the be-all end-all, but just ask the Germans in WWII what effect enemy numbers can have.
The ANG flies a lot of F-16s. I think the AF got the better AC in the 15 than if they took the 14. I certainly didn’t see the 15 as a compromise.
It will be interesting to see if the ANG ends up with F-18s. I personally don’t see anything wrong with the bird. Refueling is certainly a drawback as compared with the rest of the AF inventory.
QM/
I wasn’t suggesting the Tomcat for ALL roles, only the AD role, for which, at that time (circa 1972) it was a far,far better AD bird than the F-15 as the AF had NOTHING to compare to the multi-launch/track Phoenix/F-14 long-range combo.
Not immediately it didn’t. The 15 was designed as an Air Superiority bird and, as such, was far ahead of the 14. In the type of environment the 15 was designed for the Phoenix was not suitable.
OM ‘ole buddy, you’re right as far as you go, but miss my point (not that MY point is necessarily the ONLY correct one) that what was/is wanted for long-range AD against things like the Blinder/Backfire
types is a multi-targeting long-range system like the Phoenix. ACT/ACM “dogfight” maneuverability is not the no.1priority/need in that scenario. Two engines over water, good loiter time and long-range BVR 100nm intercept is what is wanted if the “real” balloon goes up. And unlike Europe, the Balkans, Iraq,etc., the bad guys will be coming from only one direction and our side is sitting in only one place so that ROEs permitting BVR engagements are possible w.o. fear of blue on blue kills. To my way of thinking, for that time–circa early 70s–the F-14/Phoenix combo was, as I said above, the only wpns platform avail. to best do that job.
And while one can logically argue for the F-15 (even if I think the argument ultimately fails) to argue first (as the AF did) for the F-16 totally reveals, IMHO, the AF to be guilty of putting parochial service pride above the facts, logic and the nation’s security needs by advocating what they HAD TO KNOW (unless they were TOTALLY crazed–which I do not so believe) that they were opting for a sub-par/”less than optimum” system.
I lost a TON of respect for my service’s maximum leaders right then and there on that deal.
PS to QM: I forgot to add that, although the Eagle was the fair-haired boy favored by the big kids over the Viper, the plan at the time was to dump the max# of F-16s out of the reg AF inventory into the Guard and make 100% of the Alaskan and NW approaches AD msn an ANG responsibility opcon to NORAD (and thereby demonstrating that they didn’t take the threat of war with the SU seriously.) Congress forced their hand by insisting on making the Alaskan Command a major active duty AF command on par with PACAF, etc., which forced the big kid’s hands, as they were not about to eschew the F-15 if it was an active duty AF responsibility as opposed to the ANG.
You know, I wonder about BVR ROE even in the “best of circumstances” such as Alaskan AD. How does the oncoming blue CAP distinguish the offgoing blue CAP from incoming bandits? And if the offgoing CAP remains on station until the oncoming CAP arrives but red bandits are nearby do you really have the SA confidence to know who to shoot? Also, what if there are returning blue strikers? There may be simple answers to these (possibly very stupid) questions since I’m not aircrew and don’t really know about such things but BVR seems to require a lot of preconditions to be met, whereas the WVR dogfight seems to happen pretty easily and naturally.
why not F22′s for the air guard? no more old planes for the air guard!
why wait for the USAF’s castoffs?
I believe the Virginia Air Guard flies them today. IIRC they moved the squadron from Richmond’s Byrd field to Langley AFB a few years back to make the transition from F-16s to F-22s.
Yeah, they’re going to have a reserve unit flying the F22 here at Holloman (New Mexico) too, and the Hawaii guard will have them as well.
Ahhh . . . as a teenager I remembered wanting to do nothing more than fly the Hornet in the ANG. It was a great dream at the time save for the minor problem that the ANG didn’t fly the Hornet. Looks like things might be shaping up my way though . . . heh.
As for the looming DOD wide fighter shortfall I can’t help but think this is a self inflicted wound festering to Maginot-line sized proportions. The gold plated F-22 / F-35 all stealth force is looking just too expensive and slow in coming. Even when it arrives it may be a day late and a dollar short. Forget the use (or lack thereof) of either jet in the COIN, a recent RAND study had the future Air Force and Navy losing a hypothetical Taiwan air war to a China equipped with massive but affordable numbers of Su-30′s and J-10′s.
The proposed F-15SE on the other hand looks like a sharp idea, a reconfigurable and relaitvely cheap stealth design. For the early phases of the conventional war when air superiority is being contested it sacrifices a bit of range and payload for improved head on stealth. Once air superiority is achieved it converts back to a more or less normal F-15E. It seems to recognize the value of balancing numbers which provide strategic depth and margin for doctrinal error with the temporal advantages of stealth. It’s good on the first day of the war. After that (provided you win that day) it’s a drag on aerodynamic performance, maintainability, operability and cost, and therefore numbers.
Always wondered if you could make an affordable “variable” stealth geometry aircraft that could change it’s stealth/performance in flight. I’m imagining something that looks like a hornet but with a door in the LERX in front of the inlet, a variable dihedral butterfly tail at the end of a backporch coming off the wing, and a small internal bomb bay. In stealth mode the inlet door swings down and blocks the inlet from below while opening up an air path into the engines from above the LERX, thus blocking the engine face from a ground radar without a performance reducing S-duct inlet. Also the variable dihedral butterfly tail would fold up past the vertical so that both tails would cant inward like the original Have Blue. In this configuration it could only carry a couple JDAMs or a HARM in the internal bomb bay and would be incredibly un-maneuverable, but would be relatively stealthy from below and in front much like the F-117. In non stealth mode it essentially converts to a V-tail hornet with the inlet door folding back up into the LERX, and butterfly tail folding back to being outward canted. It would be very un-stealthy, but very high performing. Of course, as imagined it would also probably be a veritable death trap when converting between modes in flight short of miracle working flight computer . . .
I know, I’ll put my tin hat back on and go back to drawing unicorns
They will consider everything, but the F-16 would probably win if the final decision is for new-build 4th generation fighters, because the AF and ANG have the knowledge and equipment base for it. Bringing up the idea of buying FA-18s is probably to force discussion on the issue.
That said, how much design work would it take to put an AF-style air-refueling receptacle on a Hornet?
Nothing wrong with the ANG bubbas flying a twin engine multi-role aircraft instea dof the single enigne lawn dart. Certainly make $$$ on economies of scale – if we budget it correctly. Heck, some of them ought to qualify at the boat, and make proper use of the tailhook. Of course, we’d probably see more of the events like Lex posted yestiddy on “non-approved usage of the tailhook”. What is the mandatory retirement age of ANG guys anyway cuz Lex oughta be good for another 10 or so. As long as “Rythms” isn’t delayed any further. Byron and I are getting tired of asking at the B&N.
Nah, I can snivel a good while longer
This seems to me to be one more example of Congress being out of touch with reality. Does the Navy have such a plethora of FA-18s that they can sell them to the AF? Did they do that much better in the Clinton Budget cuts regarding Maintenance that their older models aren’t approaching EOL? Does Boeing have an excess supply of Parts to provide for the increase?
I’m thinking the answer to all the above is no and this is just another, more subtle, version of pork barreling by the inhabitants of the largest pig sty on earth.
Probably have to report me to flag@Obama.gov, Lex!
I’m old enough to remember the “fly-off” between the yf-16 & yf-17. Hell, I was there! Politics was the game in 1974; & it still is. But they rebuilt the yf-17; made it stronger; with longer legs. Viola! the F/A-18, By The By; where’s General Dynamics now a days. Three a day in Tampa bay. Old(er) man ranting.
Phantoms forever,
Tom
“Three a day in Tampa Bay”
Now there’s an old WWII AAF B-26-inspired saying that just may hold the record for longevity.
Anybody else out there got examples of any older ones still hanging around? (Besides still using “CAG” as title for the Air Wing Commander)
Kick the tires and light the fires. Let’s go flying!
VX,
I thought he was talking about F-16s from MacDill.
Juvat/
Hey now! You’re a bus-driver yourself, IIRC, let’s not talk out of school here!
BTW, I think the original was “One a day in Tampa Bay” if memory serves, the old Marauder was a hi-performance super high wing-load, hi sink-rate (for it’s day) “testy” ac for fledgling pilots to master. A great book to read about that ac’s WWII exploits is one entitled: “Flak Bait” which follows the exploits of an ac by that name (and covers B-26 ops in general) which held the distinction of having flown the most combat msns in the ETO. (later surpassed by a rival crew in same Wing in an ac named “Mild and Bitter.”)
VX,
True enough, but all my time was in fighters where single engine approach and landing was an emergency procedure, not standard operation. Having had to shut down one in flight a couple of times, I always seem to remember saying “Damn, I’m glad I’m not flying a Viper”.
Yep, yep, yep, the B-26 ( or JRM )Marauder had such short looking wings that it was called The Flying Prostitute, as it had no visible means of support. It also had the lowest combat loss of any USAAF aircraft.
The USN and the USMC flew them as JRM Marauders, using them as target tugs, in Chrome Yellow, and tri color blue ones as high speed photo planes.
Lex, as a former Hornet driver, do you think that the F/A-18 is cut out for the ANG mission? Might the F-15 be better suited?
Speaking of old terms – brown shoe/black shoe?
UP, I think the Hornet would be fine in that role, having flown both the FA-18 and the F-16. The F-15 would indeed be better suited, but it’s out of production and aging. With only 187 total F-22s, it seems a shame to waste them on the ANG – just my humble.
Brown shoes are aviators and chiefs and officers with aviation backgrounds, black shoes everyone else.
I do so miss the sight of Chiefs & Officers in Aviation Greens. That was a swell tradition.
Many of us younger-gen types are bringing back the greens and wearing them regularly. There’s a proposal and a white paper that have been endorsed by multiple stars to keep the AWG’s on as an official uniform past it’s 2010 die out date.
First time I ever saw the AWG I was at CSFTP(The artist formerly known as CSG-1(and previously as CBG-1)). A fellow walked into the office wearing them and I thought it was some kind of a joke so I asked him, “So Tommy, how are things on the Somme?”
After he ‘splained things to me I felt like a bit of a dick.
Still, and even from a SWO, it is a pretty slick uniform.
I want my SDK’s though… Told the wife that if they ever bring them back I am buying a WW2 Jeep and a corn cob pipe, putting them on and driving the damned thing to work ever day. At the end of the day, when I leave the base I will stop and tell the gate guard, “I will return.”
Yooper,
SDKs are back. The Chairman wears them almost all the time.
My fave (which I wore frequently) was AWGs, less the blouse, with the leather flight jacket.
And I loved wearing the AWG pisscutter with the bag in the winter. Especially as I became increasingly in need of more warmth on the dome – so to speak.
You would be surprised how many Air Guard pilots are former Navy and USMC aviators. I know of two locally with time in the Hornet in a previous military incarnation.
Maybe they could gucci-up a few of their Air Force Hornets and make them modified E/F-18′s to get the light blue side back into the EA role. That’s how they oughta be marketing this: “You’ll be getting a new mission set and more capabilities” vice “your planes are old; buy some Navy ones until we figure out how to buy you nice planes.”
I believe that any officer may now wear brown shoes and brown socks, if he feels like it.
Worked for a sub officer who always wore brown shoes. He caught no end of crap for it, too.
Maybe they could use a couple of those brand new jets congress just bought for themselves (when not in use by our elected officials of course.)
Babs, they NEED them to be able to travel to Australia and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef! Hands on, don’tcha know. What a bunch of lying, dishonest, self-serviing creeps. Not that I am biased.
Regards,