50 year old airplane

[fannum]

How many expected a 50 year old airplane to have propellers?

 

[cammerjeff]

But isn't that a 65-70 year old aircraft?

 

[SaparotRob]

How many expected a 50 year old airplane to have propellers?

I know what you mean. Got a pic of a Super Connie?

 

[T Bolt]

I saw "50 year old airplane" and thought that's way too young for this site

 

[Crimea_River]

Could have shown a pic of an F-14 Tomcat

 

[cammerjeff]

Or a 747-100

 

[fannum]

But isn't that a 65-70 year old aircraft?

Which one?
F-86 proposed in '44, and first flew in '47 ... 77 to 80 years ago.
F-16 proposed in '69 and flew in '74 ... 50 to 55 years ago.

 

[fannum]

Could have shown a pic of an F-14 Tomcat

Could have, but the only "operational" ones are hangar queens in Tehran.

F-16 is still in production ... soon to be making regular flights into Crimea.

 

[MIflyer]

The F-15 first flew in 1972, so 52 year old F-15's are a real possibility. And we are still building new ones, which speaks volumes about the F-22.

 

[Crimea_River]

Could have, but the only "operational" ones are hangar queens in Tehran.

True but how many operational F-86s are there?

 

[BiffF15]

The F-15 first flew in 1972, so 52 year old F-15's are a real possibility. And we are still building new ones, which speaks volumes about the F-22.

I just saw online where a F15E just went through 15,000 hours flight time.

Long live the king.

 

[GregP]

The F-15 first flew in 1972, so 52 year old F-15's are a real possibility. And we are still building new ones, which speaks volumes about the F-22.

It speaks volumes about the COST of an F-22. We were stupid to let the production line close down at only about 187 aircraft including 8 test aircraft.

It's almost axiomatic that you have 1/3 of your airplanes in active service, 1/3 in maintenance, and 1/3 ready for maintenance. That gives us about 60 active F-22s with the balance waiting on or in maintenance. Let's look at it with rose-colored glassed and say we have 850 in active service.

Let's see, that's about 8 - 10 for the east coast, 8- 10 for the west coast, and the other 40 - 60 odd planes for the rest of the world.

No wonder we're buying F-15s with modern avionics for 1/3 the cost of an F-22!

I'm very definitely NOT a fan of the F-35, but we DO need to fly SOMETHING ...

 

[MIflyer]

No wonder we're buying F-15s with modern avionics for 1/3 the cost of an F-22!

The word is that the USAF is so disappointed in the Operating Costs of the F-22 that it is already looking forward to the Next Generation Fighter to fix that - soon after which it will take the F-22's out of service.

Back when I was working on them we had over 400 F-111's in service - and that program had been cut by more than half when the F-111B was cancelled and the USAF changed its mind about packing too many roles into one aircraft.

I wondered how the F-22 would turn out. For one thing, we packed even more roles into it than we did with the F-111. And at one USAF acquisition class a member of the F-22 SPO said that the SPO Director and his Deputy had decided to gain an appreciation of the efforts required by mechanics and had changed the engine on an F-15 to see what it took. As a result of that they were so disgusted with aviation safety wire that they decreed that NONE wold be used on the F-22. I am lousy at installing safety wire, but I wondered what that decision by a couple of untrained mechanics cost the US Taxpayer.