Part of it, at least. And that leaves an enormous gap in our air to air coverage–something on the order of nearly 200 air supremacy fighters. Granted, there’s no serious air threat at the moment, but one wonders how potential adversaries will react to this snafu. Here’s the report:
Received this email today from an inquiring mind:
Me: No (and I don’t think Iran “embarrassed” us, either). If Russia is smart they’ll keep their Tupolevs in their own airspace. The last thing they want to do right now is give Congress a reason to buy another 200 Raptors. The F-22 scares the bejeebus out of Russia and China, and the two are working feverishly to develop some sort of aircraft that can match it. I think the million billion dollar question is whether or not the Air Force is going all drama-queen on us and overstating the seriousness of the F15’s structural flaws, kind of like how an NBA player will deliberately fly backwards after a light shoulder check so he can draw a charging foul. The Air Force wants more Raptors, that’s no secret. So what better way to state your case–that the fleet is too old to be effective–than to prematurely retire the bulk of your interceptor force? The counterpoint to that theory lies in the Air Force’s risk-averse nature. In the three decades or so since they’ve taken serious casualties (Vietnam), the USAF has developed an unnatural fetish for safety. Mountains of paperwork accumulate if an Airman falls off of a ladder and sprains an ankle, so God knows how badly an F-15 falling apart in midair rattled the Air Force leadership. Easy as it may be to smell a sinister F-22 acquisition plot here, I highly doubt the Air Force would significantly degrade America’s defenses simply to add a few more fighters to the inventory. For more on the F-15’s structural problems, see Stuart Koehl’s analysis here.
