Forum: F-16 News

DefenseAlert - Daily News wrote:

Air Force Plans Massive, Early F-15, F-16 Retirements to Save $3.4 Billion
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Oct. 14, 2008 -- The Air Force is planning dramatic cuts to its fighter force in fiscal year 2010 in an attempt to find $3.4 billion to bolster other combat aircraft, munitions inventories, ISR and manpower efforts, InsideDefense.com has learned.

In all, the service plans to retire 137 F-15s, 177 F-16s and nine A-10s in FY-10, according to internal Pentagon documents detailing the stand-down of Air Force jets in the 2010 program objective memorandum (POM).

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Some good info there. What they don't say is that even if the USAF does cut the costs only Congress can push more money into the F-35. So they could be cutting there own throat.

One can only wonder if the 'massive' legacy cuts will be limited to FY10? Or will this be only a phase 1? The analysis is good, but I think it's assuming it stops at FY10. The 'gap' therefore could grow massively to fund further modifications, RDT&E, munition procurement and especially new aircraft in the following years. Moreover, it is assumed that F-35A procurement will be on schedule and in the 110 range (both which could change of course, over the next 4 yrs). Also, one could figure significant AF budget cuts over the next 4 yrs to boot. USAF should start looking farther out (I'm sure they do, but if not...), even beyond 4 yrs, imo, when planning future requirements and strategy/allocation. Hope these guys have their thinking caps on though, and do in fact change the way things are done in the Pentagon (probably will be by default, like most things).

p.s., while it's interesting to see apparent confirmation of emphasizing the anti-maritime JASSM and procuring JASSM, I haven't read any status emphasizing JSOW and especially -ER variant testing in any budget related press.

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Forum: F-16 News

Early F-16 Retirements