Want more fodder on the danger posed by operating with an increasingly old aircraft fleet, read this May 27 article filed from Iraq by David Wood of the Baltimore Sun. Wood paints a vivid picture of the tenuous state of the Air Force’s aging aircraft fleet, opening with a recap of the flight of a Kennedy-era C-130 that landed with a load of ground troops just as one of its engines flamed out. That’s not all. Earlier in the flight, the aircraft’s flight computer crashed, there was a radar malfunction, the navigator lost audio, and the air conditioning conked out. Wood writes that it’s USAF crews that keep these aircraft flying. However, Wood lays the blame for this antique fleet on “fundamental miscalculations” that forced the Air Force to hold onto older aircraft because newer aircraft cost more than expected. Nowhere does Wood note that it is Congress that has continued to prohibit USAF from retiring its older, increasingly maintenance-costly aircraft.
U.S. Air Force F-15C Eagles have roared out of Barnes Air National Guard Base, Mass., for the last time. The 104th Fighter Wing’s last three F-15Cs departed the base Oct. 23 for the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., ending the aircraft's era on the frontlines of homeland defense.
