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If a figher plane has a lifespan of 30 years, does this mean that at steady state, the air force would have 1500 - 2400 fighters of 30 different types? Did Hay
by twic 6y ago
If a figher plane has a lifespan of 30 years, does this mean that at steady state, the air force would have 1500 - 2400 fighters of 30 different types?
Did Hayao Miyazaki take over Air Force procurement, or what?
EDIT: Ah, they also reduce the lifecycle to 10 - 15 years. Still wild!
- jacques_chester 6y agoI don't think you should be downvoted, it's a reasonable misunderstanding. The goal is to create a constant pipeline of new planes with short lead times, so that they don't need to have extended lifetimes with expensive maintenance. Personally I feel that's a better approach overall for many mobile capital-intensive systems: military hardware, public transportation and so on. As the interview points out, smaller, more-frequent procurements reduce the risk to suppliers as well. Currently every weapons system project is a existential risk to contractors, so they quite naturally try to push as much back as possible. And so we wind up with parts being built in every Congressional district at vast expense and added complexity.
- dredmorbius 6y agoUSAF has just over 5,600 aircraft in service total, about 5,000 manned, per Wikipedia. There have been about 1,200 F-15s (all variants) built, 555 F-35s, 195 F-22s, and 4,600 F-16s. Not all built aircraft remain in service, nor are all in the US armed forces. Your count at least seems reasonable.