Ouch

Not quite this bad...but. Mike Ramirez weighs in on the F-15 stand down, with a cartoon that's bound to delight the F-16 community.

In Monday's edition of Investor's Business Daily, the great Michael Ramirez offers his take on the extended grounding of the Air Force's F-15 air superiority fighters. With much of the Eagle fleet on the ground, he suggests, the nation's air defenses (and the fighter that forms its backbone) are little more than junk. Ouch.

Fortunately, the air defense situation isn't quite that bad--at least, not yet. While more than 400 F-15s undergo safety inspections, Air National Guard (ANG) F-16s have been filling in at locations normally staffed by F-15 units. Vermont Air Guard F-16s, which normally sit alert at Langley AFB, VA are also pulling duty at Otis ANGB, Massachusetts. Vipers from the Illinois ANG are on alert in New Orleans; the California ANG is covering the entire west coast, and members of the Minnesota ANG got the best deal of all: with the Hawaii guard's F-15s grounded, F-16 pilots and support personnel from Duluth are now sitting alert near Honolulu.

So far, the additional duty hasn't created any excessive hardships for the ANG F-16 units, although the expanded alert commitment forced the California guard to borrow jets from units in Indiana and Arizona. A spokesman for NORAD told the Associated Press that air defenses have not been compromised, though "you're spreading resources a little thinner than we'd like." However, he insisted that "We can be anywhere at any time."

As the inspections of the Eagle fleet continue, ANG F-16s are expected to maintain their expanded air defense duties for several more weeks. And, given the rivalry that exists between the F-15 crowd and the Viper community, the Ramirez cartoon of a "junkyard Eagle" is bound to make its way onto a few F-16 squadron patches, complete with such mottoes as: "When the Other Guys Fall Apart...We're Still in the Fight," (or) "Defending You When Others Can't."

Still, the Ramirez jibe is tame compared to a legendary insult from the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), which handled the alert mission for years at Langley AFB. Long after Langley's 1st Fighter Wing had converted to the F-15, the 48th FIS was still flying 1960s-era F-106s and providing air defense for the entire mid-Atlantic coast region.

Mindful that his area of responsibility included Langley AFB, an enterprising 48th FIS commander decided his unit needed a new slogan, and had it painted across the doors of his alert "barn," in letters big enough to be seen by the F-15 jocks across the runway. It read:

"DEFENDER OF THE EAGLE's NEST"

That motto lasted all of one day. It created such a howl that the 48th FIS commander was directed to remove it by none other than the four-star general who ran Tactical Air Command (forerunner of Air Combat Command), also based at Langley. The general, who was a bit partial to the Eagle, didn't take kindly to such insults, especially from an air defense unit.

Ironically, the 48th FIS eventually converted to the F-15 and flew that aircraft until it was inactivated in 1991. Ironically, the Eagles from the 48th FIS were transferred to the Missouri ANG--the same unit which suffered the November F-15 crash that triggered the current stand down.

Staying Sharp

Today's Air Force Times has an interesting read on one of the biggest problems created by the F-15 stand down--keeping those grounded Eagle pilots sharp.

With more than 400 air superiority F-15s grounded by safety concerns--for the third time in two months--hundreds of Eagle drivers are losing currency in the cockpit. Full-motion/high-fidelity simulators (available at active duty F-15 bases) can provide some training, but it's not substitute for actually flying the jet.

As the Times notes, the first qualification that pilots stand to lose is one of the most basic--landing the F-15. Air Force regulations require that "inexperienced pilots" (defined as those with less than 500 hours in the jet) fly and land an F-15 at least once every 30 days to remain qualified. While most pilots were able to log sorties between stand downs in November, the 30-day limit is now fast approaching for many inexperienced Eagle pilots.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Every day that the F-15s remain on the ramp creates an even bigger backlog of overdue check rides, incomplete upgrades, and delayed training classes. Before the Eagles return to the skies, unit commanders, instructor pilots, training program managers and scheduling officers must find some way to straighten out the mess, and prioritize training for all those F-15 pilots.

Officially, there's no word on when the stand down might end, but most F-15 units are assuming that they'll be cleared to resume flight operations next month. Work on revised training programs and flight schedules is already underway; in fact, it never stops. Still, we wouldn't want to be a training manager or "scheduler" in an F-15 squadron over the next couple of months. Those folks will certainly earn their paychecks.

In the interim, the new commander of Air Combat Command, General John Corley, is urging F-15 pilots to remain patient, and do what they can to "stay sharp." The (polite) response to that message goes something like this: "Yeah...right" and "How?" The impolite response can be viewed in "Doofer" books in every fighter squadron.

On a more serious note, we're wondering how the F-15 training/currency dilemma will impact unit readiness, or C-ratings. Since training is one of three major categories covered by C-ratings, a prolonged F-15 stand down would affect readiness scores in that area, and for the unit as a whole. C Ratings range from C-1 (fully mission ready) to C-4 (least prepared). The system covers three areas, training, personnel and equipment. A unit's overall score is dictated by its readiness in those categories.

However, as we've noted before, the C-rating system allows commanders to "adjust" their scores higher or lower, based on their assessment of the situation. It would be interesting to know how the commanders of F-15 units currently view their training situation and overall unit readiness. In most wings and squadrons, there are probably enough qualified (and current) pilots to support at least a C-2 or C-3 rating for a couple of months. Beyond that, a prolonged stand down will push the training grade to C-4, with a corresponding impact on overall readiness.

In that kind of environment, it's going to be awfully tough to "stay sharp."

Milestone

An F-22 Raptor on the ramp at Langley AFB, VA (USAF photo)

After a three-year conversion process, the Air Force's first F-22 wings have achieved full operational capability (FOC).

According to a press release from Air Combat Command, the active-duty 1st Fighter Wing and the 192nd Fighter Wing of the Virginia Air National Guard, have "fulfilled all performance and operational requirements and that the entire program — including the aircraft, pilots and maintenance crews — is ready for all operations, including war deployments." Both units are stationed at Langley AFB, in the city of Hampton.

The announcement comes at a critical time for the Air Force's air dominance mission. Due to rising costs (and the fiscal demands of the War on Terror), the Pentagon has slashed its acquisition plans for the F-22 Raptor. Currently, DoD plans to buy only 183 of the fifth-generation fighters, while the Air Force would prefer to double that number, citing the potential threat from advanced Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Without a larger Air Force "buy," Lockheed-Martin will end production of the F-22 in 2011. Members of the Georgia Congressional delegation are lobbying for the purchase of more Raptors, hoping to preserve 2,000 jobs at the Lockheed-Martin plant in Marietta, where the fighters are assembled.

Ironically, efforts to buy more F-22s may have received an inadvertent boost from on-going problems with the Air Force's fleet of older F-15 air superiority fighters. More than 400 F-15 A-D models have been grounded three times since early November, after a structural failure caused the crash of a Missouri ANG "Eagle." Most of the F-15s in question are at least 25 years old, and fixing the older jets may be expensive, particularly if the repairs will provide only a few more years of service life.

The F-15 grounding has also created major operational headaches for the Air Force. Other jets --notably the F-16--are performing missions normally handled by Eagle squadrons, increasing maintenance costs for those units. In other cases, the U.S. asked Canadian Air Force (CAF) F-18s to pull some of the air defense missions assigned to F-15s, and the Eagle air defense mission in Alaska is temporarily in the hands of newly-arrived F-22s.

Against that backdrop, attainment of FOC by the Langley Raptors couldn't come at a better time. The two squadrons of F-22s assigned at the base already have a busy operational schedule, and that itinerary could become more crowded in the coming months, particularly if the F-15s remain grounded.

A total of 40 F-22s are currently based at Langley. The aircraft are part of the 27th and 71st Fighter Squadrons, part of the 1st Wing. Members of the 192nd--an associate wing--fly and maintain Raptors that are technically "assigned" to the active duty units.