What is going to be done about these old F15 and F16 planes?

Question

I hear they are disintegrating because of the G's pulling on them when they make manuevers. Also, they are 20 years old and have execeeded flight hours by the thousands.

Answer 1

As previously stated, I believe that both "cycles" and hours are used to measure aircraft wear and tear.  Plus, high performance jet aircraft cannot exceed a certain G factor.

I haven't paid too much attention to the 500 F-15s which I would assume to be older F-15A and F-15B aircraft which were grounded about a month ago.

I think that the USAF wants to increase the F-22 procurement and may be playing its cards to get beyond the very minimal F-22 aircraft purchase as the USAF wants more twin entine, stealth, supersonic cruise F-22s to replace F-15s.  Of course the single engine, semi-stealth F-35 will replace the F-16 in due time.

The current aging when retired F-15 and F-16 aircraft will be sent to the boneyards to be smelted down.  Usually foreign allies do not get warnout jet fighters as they did in the 1950s when accident rates were largely ignored by all American military services.

Answer 2

Guess what. They don't really go by flight hours but by landings and take offs. Besides, we'll probably end up selling them to some third world country and go to war with them later this century just so we can show them how much bad asses we are and blow up our own old hardwars in the process. Kill 2 birds with one stone.

Answer 3

Aircraft are held to incredibly high standards, it is very common to see 40 to 50 year old civilian aircraft that are in nearly new condition. Every year aircraft have to have annual inspections, and they are also rebuilt every several thousand hours.

These fighters didnt fall apart, they actually hit each other and its a miracle both pilots survived.

I have a F-16 pilot in my family who was telling me that a generals son was killed in a collision like this, and that he survived the crash but he could not eject fully because a cable was cut that tells the ejection seat that the canopy had safely left the aircraft, so even though the canopy left correctly the chair would not fire. He ended up riding the aircraft down while the other pilots tried to help him figure out the problem over the radio, but there was nothing he could do. They now have 3 redundant canopy cables because of this.

Also, they are not exceeding flight hours by the thousands, these aircraft have incredibly long times between overhauls (TBO) and they have usually have been zero houred during one of them.

Answer 4

You heard wrong.

Every plane have G sensors. If you went over the G limit the aircraft will trigger the "over-G" warning. And the plane gets extra attention when it lands to check for cracks and whatnot.

At appropriate time, the plane is completely dismantled, frame refinished, or as they called it "zeroed" the airframe, and rebuilt from scratch, all the pieces replaced / refinished as see fit. Frames are examined with ultra-sound and X-ray for microscopic cracks and whatnot.

If they are completely retired, all the useful parts will be stripped out, and they'll be relegated to the "boneyard" out in the Arizona desert, like the F-14's and whatnot out there.