Seattle Post-Intelligencer
February 9, 2008
Pg. E1
Fighters' age may play role
By Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- The Air Force is still trying to determine whether The Boeing Co. should be held legally liable for defective parts on the service's F-15 Eagle aircraft fleet, a top Air Force acquisition official says.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, the service's top uniformed acquisition officer, said in an interview that the investigation is continuing. "At this point, there is no smoking gun that says, 'Aha.' "
The Air Force grounded the entire fleet of 665 jets after a spectacular midflight accident Nov. 2 in which the front section of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15 broke off during a high-stress maneuver. The pilot survived. An accident board determined that it was caused by poorly made "longerons" -- specialized metal beams that help stitch the aircraft together.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. manufactured the F-15 fleet; Boeing later bought the company.
All but 161 F-15s have been cleared to return to operations after they were inspected, said Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon. "Every jet is getting an individual review to determine the severity of the longeron issue," she said.
Hoffman said one mitigating factor in ascribing liability to Boeing is that the aircraft are old -- the average age of the planes is over 25 years -- and the aging process and length of service may be as much a factor as the poorly made longerons. The F-15 that broke apart was 27 years old and had about 5,600 flight hours out of a life expectancy of 8,000 hours.
Hoffman used a car analogy to explain the dilemma. If you take your car back to the dealer "because it is worn out and you say this part wasn't made the way it was supposed to, you'll have a lame argument there," he said.
Air Force officials said last month that determining legal liability will partially hinge on the nitty-gritty of the contractual relationship and obligations between McDonnell Douglas and the Air Force. Specifically, the Air Force is trying to determine whether the service accepted delivery of the jets knowing that some had defective longerons.
However, many contracting records that would show this level of detail have been discarded over the years because the aircraft are so old.
"There isn't a big file cabinet where you can go back and get all this information," Hoffman said. "We are doing due diligence to see whether there is any residual liability from the manufacturing process."
The Air Force has not decided what to do with the 161 jets that have faulty longerons. Officials are considering replacing the longerons; this would be a costly remedy because each longeron costs about $250,000 and each aircraft has several longerons.
The best-case scenario, said Cassidy, is that the planes might be returned to service but with more frequent inspection.
Still another possibility is that the service might decide the jets are too risky to return to service and retire them early.
The plane is also used by the air forces of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Japan.

I think this may have been a little bit of a cover up by the Air Force in a sense where there had an idea about it. On the flip side almost 5,600 hours out of the possible 8,000 of designed use isn't bad. Cut aide to a couple of nasty countries were shouldn't be sending aide to in the first place and buy 90 brand F-15s and be done with it. One new squadron for each coast and for the Gulf Mexico region and shift home patrolling & homeland protection duties to those squadron when even possible. I know it isn't 665 jets in fact it's not even close but it would help or at least help at home, making a little safer. 200 plus F-22 don't replace 667 jets no matter how you do the math use the F-22 in key locations for sure it's the best. The F-35 is still just far away the US Air Force could use 200 new F-15s and F-16s in a heartbeat I think higher ups are just being closed minded to this fact. Bring that 667 level down to 350 or 300 but make it new. Combined with our good training, AWACS, other assets and with F-22 coming online we could make 350 work. Another thing don't produce the C model build in a little air to ground into the newer models get a little more out of them. I'm not saying make them full fledge E models (higher cost) but more like the last two export customers. The production lines are running right now so there's not much extra cost.

Like I said, why don't they build the same jet?
Sounds a lot like Operation: Fingerpoint though.

Operation Finger Point XCII. The F 15 could be taken care off to the point that the existing planes could last forever. Like with the B 52, some of them are over 40 years old and still flying fine. It's just that none of the parts are original, basically every single little part has been replaced at least once.

these are old machines that get put through a heck of a lot more than B52's.

Good point Team Infidel they go through a lot more compared to B-52s that's for sure. The G forces alone put tremendous stress on fighters that bombers in general do go through so you can't compared the two. It's just not logical to think we don't need to replace a bunch of F-16s (squadrons) and at least 120 or so F-15s. There just isn't enough F-22s built or being built and there's going to be a gap in production. The F-35 are still just too many years away and will take years to build up numbers. Plus you know there are going to be add on orders to slow down production more. I think the US Navy maybe be going at this better then the US Air Force and will fall back on 300 or 400 shinny brand new E/F Hornets, until JFS are operational. The US Air Force choice to not to buy new Eagles and Vipers over the years is just hurting them period. I know it has to do with politics, budgets, and other factors I couldn't understand nor would be allowed to even know about. I got that but in private industry this is a oversight, plain and simple and upper management and/or CEO would roll. I don't care how they do it raise my taxes! Collect $10 dollars from every tax paying American but don't short change our forces. I don't want the guys on the ground waiting for a air strike with his life on the line to have to wait longer because a over used Viper craped out and a secondary package has to be arranged. For the guy on the ground right now doesn't care if a shinny new 5th generation fighter drops the bombs or not.

Yeah. B-52s just pretty much fly straight and level real high up where there's low drag.

and in war time, you should be on a C130... they drive those damn things like fighters.

Crazy... crazy...