Sequestration Redux…

Posted on by October 21, 2014

The chickens are coming home to roost in military aviation…

This is just one of the many examples that are now leaking out from the military via various means…

The F/A-18s needs spare parts and in too many cases they’re being taken from brand new jets. This is a risk to national security and pilots’ lives.
The U.S. Navy’s elite cadre of fighter pilots—made famous by Top Gun—are not flying nearly often as they would like. Instead, many of the Navy’s elite Boeing F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter squadrons are sitting on the ground with only two or three flyable jets available. The rest of the jets are awaiting maintenance for want of critical spare parts—and some of those parts are being cannibalized from brand new jets in an increasingly vain attempt to keep squadrons flying.

The full article from the Daily Beast is HERE…

It’s not ALL bad news, just most of it…

Thankfully the USO and entertainers are continuing to support our troops whereever they may be.

And a special thanks to Chris Daughtry and his band for giving up the time and money to come do a USO tour.

Comments

Sequestration Redux… — 12 Comments

  1. Hmmmm? Where to begin?

    “Pilots don’t get to fly as much as they would like”, no pilot has or will ever get to fly as much as they would like.

    The linked article explanation of design life is flawed. Design life is based on a mission mix and flight hours. Change the mission mix, pods, bring back, ACM… the hours change. Fatigue Life Expended is the measure and TAC count on engines is another measure.

    OH no, parts shortages, been there done that http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-771/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-771.html

    Let’s face it the boys at sea get all the toys. Not going to change. Not sure I ever heard forward deployed folks on the Midway or Independence called “Elite”. A lot of other things though….when I was there we had two extra jets to make 10 to deploy with.

    Depots vs Commercial repair, Title X laws pretty much got us here. A topic of another discussion.

  2. I find myself wondering more & more often, how much longer is the military going to put up with deliberate neglect?

  7. AFCM- You’re correct, but we’ve never beat the home cycle guys/girls this far down. When the home sqdn gets down to three birds, something is seriously wrong. And I remember the parts shortage… Lived through that too. Needed an engine in Atsugi for the P-3, closest engine was in Jacksonville… THREE days on a 141 to get it to us.

    Rev/WSF- Not long… The pushback has finally started. NMC is becoming the new norm. (Not Mission Capable).

    Fargo- Yep he was pretty good!

  8. They say that the National Health Service in the UK ate the Royal Navy. I hope our military can escape that fate. But when we have a President who seems to want to change the USA into a European country…

    Due to a family comment, I got interrupted after the second chapter of Your Book the First, then finished it in two nights. Outstanding. The only fault I found with it was that I couldn’t put it down and stayed up too late both nights. Damn you, Old NFO. 🙂

    I always apply the Charley Reese test…if a book, TV show or film does not both entertain you and teach you something, it is not worth reading or watching. Your book hits the X-ring on both accounts. Now on to Your Book the Second, although, having learned my lesson, I will wait until Friday night to start reading it.

  9. GR6- Thank you sir, and you’re dead on about NHS… The Brits STILL have not recovered, and may not ever.

  10. Damn…you sure this isn’t the Clinton years? I remember very well back in the late 90’s stripping Hornets coming off of cruise so that we would have spares for the deployed squadrons…sounds like the bad old days.