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Air Force Says F-35 Glitches Mean the A-10 Will Keep Flying 'Indefinitely' (jalopnik.com)
The A-10 aircraft "is just too effective to get rid of," wrote one defense blogger -- especially in light of ongoing issues with the F-35.
schwit1 quotes Jalopnik:
Strategists have feared that the jet will be axed in favor of funding the F-35, but the U.S. Air Force recently confirmed that it plans to keep the A-10 flying "indefinitely." While the Air Force is theoretically supposed to be diverting the A-10's operating expenses to feed the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the people in charge are now planning to keep the plane running...
Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski told AviationWeek in a interview, "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." While the beancounters and product planners are trying to push the A-10 off the board, Materiel Command is going to keep on keeping the planes in peak condition, which will give the A-10 it's best chance of proving its worth over and over again. And it seems to be working -- the A-10 posted a 5% increase in its availability rate from 2014 to 2015, and the Air Force seems to keep postponing its demise.
In Congress one representative has even suggested an operational testing "fly-off" between the two aircraft -- a jet-vs-jet competition to determine whether any more A-10s get retired.
Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski told AviationWeek in a interview, "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." While the beancounters and product planners are trying to push the A-10 off the board, Materiel Command is going to keep on keeping the planes in peak condition, which will give the A-10 it's best chance of proving its worth over and over again. And it seems to be working -- the A-10 posted a 5% increase in its availability rate from 2014 to 2015, and the Air Force seems to keep postponing its demise.
In Congress one representative has even suggested an operational testing "fly-off" between the two aircraft -- a jet-vs-jet competition to determine whether any more A-10s get retired.
As background, here's how to avoid the sunk cost fallacy. In accounting one should evaluate the cost/benefits by weighing both choices going forward. Money spent in the past should be ignored in the calculations because that cannot be changed.
Human nature has a tendency to favor options that one has invested a lot of time or money in. But that's often a mistake, kind of like grading on effort instead of merit.
Thus, the question is, if we scrapped the F-35 now, would we get a better military for the same money than if we kept it. The fact that lots has been invested in the past should be ignored.
Table-ized A.I.
The F-16 is a lawn dart and the F-35 is the new lawn dart. The 16 has a horrible safety record. Look at this year alone! Hell, 5 bit the dust in the month of July! Single engine war planes are idiocy at it's supremacy. When you lose an engine in an F-15 or F-18 you go home. When you lose one in an F-16 or F-35 you grab the ejection handle. With all the complicated software and fly by wire systems software glitches are a killer in a war plane which are inherently dangerous due to extreme performance and it doesn't help that most of the pilots are young and cocky but relying on a single engine insures a high rate of loss. I think it's past time to scrap the F-35 and quit throwing good money after bad. We're to the point now anyway where the pilot is holding the weapon system back. They've got autonomous systems working up now and they are the future. Let's quit wasting money of yesterdays technology especially when it's yesterdays bad technology.