View 580 July 21 - 27, 2009 (original) (raw)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

I first put this in mail but decided the matter was of general interest an importance.

Force Levels, Strategies, and National Goals

Air Force Association on F-22

<http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2j1>
<http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2k2>

Daily Report eNewsletter

Friday July 24, 2009

Sustaining Old F-15s Takes on New Urgency: The Maco <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2l3> n Telegraph has it right that the Senate vote�and subsequent reaction <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2m4> �to kill a provision to build more F-22 Raptors than the Administration-prescribed 187 has "particular consequence <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2n5> " for the Air Force depot charged with sustaining the service's legacy F-15 fighter force.

The Air Force, with such a small F-22 fleet, will have to depend on the F-15 Eagle that the Raptor was to replace for a longer period of time. Currently, USAF is in the midst of trying to determine just what it is facing now and will be facing in the future as these fighters continue to age. There was some urgency expressed after an F-15C broke up in midair <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1eg5i> in late 2007 to conduct stress tests <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1v3xe> and to tear down an F-15 to see just what effect the years and prolonged high operational tempo have produced, and the Air Force is engaged in that project now <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2o6> . There's also the matter of simply keeping the F-15 upgraded to meet current needs. Technicians at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, reports the Telegraph, are working on part of that right now developing a plan to replace wiring in most of the fighter. They expect to begin that work this fall. Other work will likely surface as the depot completes structural analysis of flight critical components.

Senators Blink, Again: Work on the Senate version of the 2010 defense authorization bill continued Thursday, with a retreat by the lawmakers in the face of another Administration veto threat�this one targeting the long-held Congressional desire to keep in play an alternate engine for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. For several years, the Pentagon has tried to quash the General Electric-Rolls Royce F136 program it began a decade ago to compete with the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine that now powers the F-35, and each time Congress has restored funding for the F136. However, on Thursday, Senators voted unanimously to support an amendment from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), in whose state P&W builds the F135, to cancel alternate engine funding in the defense policy bill. In a July 23 statement <http://r.listpilot.net/c/afa/4797pxj/1x2p7> , GE officials state that "the funding battle � is far from over," noting that House lawmakers and the Senate Armed Services Committee favored the alternate engine. They also state that the F136 development program "is 70 percent complete [and] has been executed on schedule and on cost." All will have to await House and Senate conference negotiations.

I was at one time involved in such matters, but it has been a good while, and I can claim no special expertise beyond the generalizations given in my Megamissions paper (which I think is still worth reading.)

The British at one time had a naval policy of having a fleet able to defeat the next two fleets in the world; but at that time Britain had an Empire and relied on it for a number of things. The US is not an empire, and we don't seem to be learning how to be one. The question becomes.; how large a force does the US need to defend our legitimate foreign policy goals We already spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined. This may be excessive, depending on what we think we must do with that military.

I'm not at all convinced that we need NATO now that the USSR is gone. I am not sure what good it does us to have pledges from Germany to go to war if someone attacks us. I am thoroughly unaware of why we might need the Georgian army to help us if we are invaded. I can see that our commitment to them is valuable to them, but I am not certain I understand the value to the US of the US guarantee to Germany and potentially to Georgia.

The size of the Air Force is dictated to a large extent on what we intend to do with the Air Force.

I am more and more convinced that a revision of The Strategy of Technology adapted to the post Seventy Years War times is needed. I'm trying. Really I am. Thanks to subscribers I have been able to do some work on such projects, and maintain this place.

But even a strategy of technology will be different for a Republic than for an Empire. And until we know what we want to be it is difficult to devise a proper strategy.

It is always better to have overwhelming force: this prevent wars. But overwhelming force is expensive. How many of these aircraft does it take to deter a potential enemy? And deter him from what?

The world is not really paying the US to be the world police; and it is doubtful if we can afford to be that now. These are the times that require a complete rethinking of our national goals -- and that must be done by the citizens at all levels, not merely be left to lobbyists. Of course just because something must be done does not mean that it will be. Methinks the lobbyists and politicians will prevail again. Still, we retain the forms of a republic, and the means to transform ourselves into a Republic. We also have the smarts to become a competent empire, but I doubt it can be done with the present leadership or the present attitudes of the American people.

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There is mail, including some remarks on science and CO2.

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David Smith sends this.

http://americandigest.org/
mt-archives/myths_texts/moonrise_1.php

Moonrise

-- for Apollo. An illustrated poem.

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