Forum: General F-35 Forum

Air Force F-35s, Drones May Square Off in Budget Battle Feb 2012 By Dan Parsons

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/ ... attle.aspx
OR
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/ ... .aspx?PF=1

"...For the Air Force, the biggest challenge is figuring out how UAV procurement relates to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, said Peter Singer, senior fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative. The Air Force’s desired procurement numbers have not changed for the troubled next-generation fighter while program costs have ballooned. At some point, Air Force buyers will have to make a decision on which platforms to buy and how many.

In a Jan. 5 press conference outlining the Obama administration’s new defense strategy, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials were tightlipped about potential cuts to the F-35 program. They deferred all questions about the costly aircraft until the fiscal year 2013 budget proposal is released in February....

...While the F-35 has been in development, the Air Force has added more than 300 strike-capable Reaper drones to its inventory. But the Reaper is flying and F-35 is not, Singer added. He expects an alteration in procurement numbers for the F-35 before 2020....

...The service currently has 1,028 UAV pilots and 743 sensor operators. It will need at least 2,110 pilots and 1,479 sensor operators to staff its projected fleet by fiscal 2015, said a September Air Force report to Congress on the future of its unmanned aerial systems.

The Air Force had 255 active Global Hawk, Predator and Reaper drones in its inventory in fiscal year 2011. That number is expected to grow to 420 by fiscal 2017, according to the report.

Remotely piloted aircraft have burst onto the scene much in the way other revolutionary weapons, like machine guns before World War I, did. The technology has outpaced its attendant doctrine and strategic uses, Singer said...."

This is a very long article - worth reading in full at above URL.

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Something doesn’t make sense. The article states "While the F-35 has been in development, the Air Force has added more than 300 strike-capable Reaper drones to its inventory." Later in the article it states "The Air Force had 255 active Global Hawk, Predator and Reaper drones in its inventory in fiscal year 2011" So even if the GH and Pred's amount to less than 50in total - where are the rest of the Reapers??
Has attrition been that high? Or does the article intentionally misrepresent the numbers?

ChippyHo wrote:

Something doesn’t make sense. The article states "While the F-35 has been in development, the Air Force has added more than 300 strike-capable Reaper drones to its inventory." Later in the article it states "The Air Force had 255 active Global Hawk, Predator and Reaper drones in its inventory in fiscal year 2011" So even if the GH and Pred's amount to less than 50in total - where are the rest of the Reapers??
Has attrition been that high? Or does the article intentionally misrepresent the numbers?

There are 50 reapers in US service right now, but in the next few years they will purchase 48 a year. If I remember correctly, its a combination of replacing current Predator units and standing up new ones.

OK - I must be suffering from an extreme case of the stoopids. Does the article not state "While the F-35 has been in development, the Air Force has added more than 300 strike-capable Reaper drones to its inventory"? So the way I read that is there are ALREADY 300+ Reapers in service. Did the author confuse MQ-1 with'9's???