The highest-ranking American military officer, Air Force, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welshas spoke about the alarming state of the Air Force. He said the United States is close to a situation where no longer break the deadlock in the air, which will completely replace the land and naval forces, and operational capabilities, writes Tvn24.pl.
The fact that Syria has been sent to the latest military aircraft F-22 Raptor, "bombing" Islamic state "targets could seem like an expensive force demonstration. Nearly as expensive as experts calculate that cost even close to 80 million. dollars, which is more than the cost to India to launch a satellite into orbit Mars.
Concerns over the state of
But the truth is that the Raptor simply had to fly to Syria, as the United States Air Force lost a significant part of their capacity to deal with enemy air defense fighters and F-22 are the only ones that are hard to detect enemies and are able to easily maneuver the Syrian Air space, as the country's reaction to the United States was not known. So it is in the air make it increasingly losing American military forces were not aviation and technology demonstration, but a necessity.
"I worry about our preparation, training and status of machines" - said General M.Welshas speaking United States Air Force's 67th founding anniversary. Although the remarks were only the former and current military personnel, the information spread much more widely, and received a response in Washington.
The fact that the American Air Force during the least and the oldest planes in its history, has been known for quite a long time. But M.Welsho said, there's still worse things - to reduce the number of training hours in the air and change this simulator is correct, but the latter is lacking. "Quite simply deceiving themselves," - said General, referring to the reduction of funding in this area.
Budget decreases
M.Welshas a year ago said that if the military budget will be reduced by the air forces, the army will feel the consequences. They say that in times of crisis, all funds will be mounted, in order to overcome it, but other areas will suffer and it will be felt after a certain period of time.
And it's crunch time: Americans now need to deal with three. First of all - the fight against "Islamic state", the second - the support of NATO allies in Eastern Europe and the third - maintaining dominance in the Western Pacific, where China's growing military forces of the United States forces to strengthen the presence and teachings.
Add to this contribution and technical problems and grow the new F-35 fighter costs of new aircraft and the lack of a war with Congress over plans to stop using some of the machines. All this and determine the position of the United States for the first time in postwar history can no longer be able to make it in the air.
All of the United States Army for several years experiencing cuts. In 2011, the plan presented to the funding of the crop had to be implemented from 2015, but the state budget has forced it to start as early as 2012., When it was decided to leave out the two heavy brigades and reduce the dryness of the armed forces of 570 thousand. to 490 thousand. individuals (up to 2017 m.). Reductions may be more sounds of language that the army would be enough to 420 thousand. people.
Decreased from 170 to 109 billion dollars
Air Force budget currently stands at around 109 billion. dollars, and just five years ago was 170 billion. dollars. Aviation costs amount to about 22 percent. Total budget of the United States Army, which is 495 billion. dollars.
United States currently has the oldest aviation in its history. Average main and strongest military fighter F-15 and F-16 age of 30 and 20 years old, and bombers - even 40 years ago. The oldest is a big B-52, have already crossed the age of 50 years and will serve at least until 2020. Transporters are old and fuel-carrying aircraft.
All this leads to an average of only three quarter of the United States military aircraft are ready for use, and for the most commonly used aircraft - those not less. The worst situation is with B-2 bombers, which is almost half of the draw for the flight, even though the proportion of the 20.
