Aging fleet
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By Shane Farver
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
sfarver@standard.net
Hill deals with more maintenance issues as Air Force jets get older
HILL AIR FORCE BASE --Military members are finding themselves flying the aging skies.
Aircraft used by the military are getting up in years and, as a result, causing more money and time to be spent on enhancements and repairs.
It has been more than 30 years since the F-16 Fighting Falcon took its first test flight. The average age of the F-16 is 17.1 years and it's one of the military's newest aircraft.
Far older are the KC 135 Stratotanker and B-52 Stratofortress. Each has an average age of more than 40 years.
The youngest KC-135 with the Utah Air National Guard is 42 years old, two years older than Maj. Nate Nelson, the operations officer who oversees them.
"We fly some of the oldest jets the U.S. military has," he said.
As aircraft get older, mechanical and structural problems need to be fixed with more frequency.
"What you find is that its reliability becomes a little less," said Col. Robert McMurry, F-16 program manager for Hill Air Force Base, in reference to aging planes. "The supportability becomes a little bit less."
Hill Air Force Base's Ogden Air Logistics Center has the challenge of keeping some aging aircraft, like the F-16 and the A-10 Thunderbolt II, airborne.
"We think of it both in terms of keeping the aircraft as a functional airplane, but also providing relevant combat capability," McMurry said.
Hill implements the Structural Augmentation Roadmap program, also known as Falcon STAR, to make sure F-16s reach their expected life of 8,000 hours in the air. They are currently expected to be used by the Air Force into the mid-2020s.
Once F-16s approach 4,000 hours of flight time, parts that have been identified as being prone to breakage or weakness are repaired or replaced, McMurry said.
Hill's 388th Fighter Wing pilots also have the challenge of keeping the F-16s they fly operational.
"Overall, the F-16 seems to be aging a lot more gracefully than a lot of the other aircraft," said Lt. Col. Michael Moore, deputy maintenance group commander for the 388th Fighter Wing.
The F-16s currently used by Moore's fighter wing have been there since about 1989 or 1990. Not only do the aging aircraft demand more time in the shop, war also ages them more quickly, Moore said.
In just a four-month period of deployment, the 388th will usually put a year's worth of flying miles on F-16s, Moore said.
Even older is the A-10 Thunderbolt II. It first appeared in the military lineup in the late 1970s. At that time military officials assumed each plane would fly about 6,000 hours before being retired, said Col. James Ratti, Hill Air Force Base's A-10 system program manager.
Now, each A-10 is expected to spend 16,000 hours in flight before being retired. The increased demand means a lot of inspections and repairs. Hill is integral in keeping the A-10 safe and relevant.
"We spend quite a bit of time staying ahead of the structural issues we have," Ratti said.
There are 356 A-10s still flying in the U.S. Air Force, Ratti said. Hill has about 30 of those at any one time -- inspecting them, repairing them and sending them back out to battlefield commanders who need them.
"We will never be able to put them out there as fast as the war fighter wants them," Ratti said.
Hill is constantly looking at faster ways to inspect and repair planes so they can be shipped back to the war theater as quickly as possible, Ratti said.
Some A-10s in the Air Force's fleet are currently undergoing wing replacements to make the wings sturdier.
The KC-135 Stratotanker is another aging plane that could be around until 2050, Nelson said. Used by the Utah National Guard, it has already been around for about half a century.
"That's disturbing to me," Nelson said.
Nelson, Ratti and McMurry say they are not sending pilots out in dangerous aircraft. If a plane is deemed unsafe in any way, it's grounded.
"We take a pretty conservative approach to what we deem safe to fly," Ratti said.
Hill Air Force Base also works to keep aircraft relevant in combat. F-16s and A-10s are currently undergoing modifications to keep them technologically relevant in the modern era.
The older a plane gets, the more difficult it is to locate replacement parts, McMurry said.
In addition to that, planes spend significantly more time in the shop rather than in the air.
"You spend a significantly larger portion of time and money trying to get it back into the air," McMurry said.
Nelson said he has a lot of faith in Utah Air National Guard maintainers, but the day will come when a new tanker for the military will be needed. He estimated that a new tanker will cost $160 million to $240 million per plane.
"We can do so much to keep these things as updated and relevant as possible, but at some point the public's going to have to pony up," he said.
Moore believes the introduction of fifth-generation fighter jets like the F-35 Lightning II is critical to keeping air superiority.
"I think the American public probably expects us to be No. 1," he said.
Funding for the F-35, which is expected to replace the F-16, has recently been called into question. A supplemental war funding bill came out of the U.S. House of Representatives' defense appropriations subcommittee Thursday sans funding for the first two F-35s, said Steve Petersen, senior policy adviser to Utah Rep. Rob Bishop.
Democrats said the funding for the two planes belongs in the regular appropriations bill that will be voted upon this fall, Petersen said. Six more F-35s are planned in the regular appropriations bill.
Information from McClatchy wire service was used in this report.
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