On 9/1/04 3:24 PM, in article , "John
Carrier" wrote:


SNIP

1. Naval Aviation is dying on the vine. The USN's soon going from 12
airplanes in F/A-18 squadrons to 10. From 17 pilots to 15. That reduces
the number of pointy nosed aircraft on the ship from 48 to about 40 while
increasing pilot admin workload. A carrier that used to deploy with over
90
aircraft when I started now goes to sea with about 70. Reduce that by 8
more soon. It's harder, and there's less tooth to tail.

Long term, the fleet is going to have less jets. Of course, the commitment
will be unchanged. This has already come out through official channels,
roughly a 30% reduction in combat aircraft on the boat. A mix of F-18E/F
and F-35C. The solution is to keep op ready rates way up there with the
improved maintainability and emphasis on the maintenance/logistics effort.
I wonder if the geniuses who devised this plan realize the bean counters
won't take the increased utilization into account as far as the support end
or pilot manning is concerned.

I couldn't agree more. F-35 has some great maintainability features along
the lines of AIMD and logistics. I like the way it's going. It has some
CV/O-level issues that still need to be addressed.

Gee Woodie, 15 pilots for 10 jets? How did you manage? My last cruise we
had 11 1/2 crews for 10 jets. Borrowed CAG ops to get to 12 even. Made for
an interesting schedule when the CARGRU wanted 27-28 lines plus alert 5/15.

Life has changed since the days you flew single-seat with Ely from the
BIRMINGHAM, my friend. (Couldn't pass it up.) A single-seat strike fighter
squadron works pretty hard with just 17 pilots. As a 2-seat medium attack
JO, I watched those guys slave to learn the A/A (AIM-7 Blue Collar BVR only)
and A/G missions while I hung out as an AQ branch O writing a few evals
during movie night and studying gravity technology in my spare time. Since
then the tactics have become more complicated with AIM-120, JDAM (easy, but
not without quirks), JSOW, and the rest. Add to that the SFWT syllabus and
all of the added NEW administrivia that the Navy has piled on in the last 18
years, and you've got a pretty tough nut for the JO's to crack.

SNIP
Great deal for sure, and the reserves weren't half bad either. Of course,
they're paying the piper now. The one weekend a month and two weeks a year
thing have become a considerably greater commitment. Not too bad for the
aviators (tanker guys locally rotate in and out every month or so), but the
troops in support units that are sometimes on hiatus from a high-paying job
for a year and pulling E-5 pay in a combat zone are getting hammered pretty
good on the economic front. And the guard family-support structure (which
had no reason for being for 50-odd years) ain't exactly the same as USN
family services, and various other formal and informal organizations
designed to make deployments more manageable for those left behind.


Yep, the grunts have it worst.

My observation is that the tanker guys and trash haulers deploy and work
harder than almost all aviation reserve/ANG units. VMGR's and USAF C-130
squadrons have been nearly non-stop for the last 2 1/2 years.

With regard to the current topic (why ANG over active USN), the USNR is
still a great deal (IMHO one of the best deals in aviation), but you need to
do the active duty thing before you can make it to a USNR VFA, so there's a
cost-benefit ratio to consider.

SNIP

Still, none of them have any CV landings...

I'll mail you five bucks and you can take it and your landings to Starbucks.

I'll send you a SASE!

--Woody