Warbird Information Exchange

But haven't the AF already stated that there will be no F-4 HFs for 2013?

Mike, water under the bridge at this point. They had no F-4 demos before the US Congress granted the Collings Foundation their aircraft. They introduced them solely to try and take appearances from Collings. It worked to a degree, but the problem was it'd only work for a short time until all the F-4's were used up. Now that they're used up, Collings will be able to finally get a chance to show their plane more often, but in the end the USAF may win because many shows can no longer afford a big jet like an F-4 with the current economic situation. While I'm sure the USAF didn't want an economic slowdown and recession like this to win the "war", it certainly plays into their hands. I feel Collings will be able to last through this and get their plane on the circuit where it belongs, but it will have taken them a long time and a lot of lost revenue to do it because certain members of the USAF and politicians didn't want a "dangerous" aircraft like the F-4 being flown by civilians.

BTW Rick - I hope you guys, WHF, and Art Nall can start doing some really cool joint appearances in the coming years with your Skyhawks, Phantom and Harrier. Would also be really cool to see a full-on Vietnam Air Power demo at AirSho one year too including the Skyhawk, Phantom, and the goodies that already perform at AirSho every year. Nothing like a recreation of the Apocalypse Now wall of fire...

this was posted on fencecheck a few days ago

"Well it looks like we will have F-4 Heritage Flight after all. ACC is allowing one of the civilian pilots at Tyndall to be our F-4 Heritage pilot."

No source or anything listed, just a what a member said.

This is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. If the DoD and the rest of gov't (from County to Federal) would ever find a way to budget without feeling the need to spend every dollar budgeted before the end of the FY, then we could have a meaningful discussion about where to make worthwhile cuts. Until then, it is completely misleading to say that unit X won't be sending an airplane on a weekend cross-country to an airshow when, in fact, unit X will be sending the same plane and crew out to drone around in August & September just to be sure the budget gets zeroed out. Net change in the cost to the taxpayer = zero ... unless you wish to factor in the reduction in airframe life and maintenance generated by the unnecessary hours flown or the fact that the airshow was going to provide rooms & rental cars vs using gov't funds.

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

The the spending issue is due to the way the US Government budgets work. If they don't spend their budget, they have an automatic reduction the next year and may not be able to fund everything they need to fund that year. This is one of the problems with our current budget system, it's biased to growth and not responsible spending. The honest discussion needs to start with the budgetary system being reworked to a real budget, not a system that grows by 3% a year unless something drastic happens and where saving money when you don't need to spend it is punished.

The government's budget shouldn't punish departments for coming in under budget. It should punish departments for coming in over budget. Right now, it works opposite. Fix that, and you'll fix a lot of the departmental spending problems.

Since there is always someone looking to make points with "the system", a budgetary process needs to be crafted where an organization is neither rewarded or punished. One example is that a panel looks at what a unit spent for three years and establishes a baseline. If they come under next year, no big deal. And, if there are circumstances that cause them to go over, then there should be a mechanism which permits a certain percentage over without too much hassle. Three years later the panel looks at the data and resets the baseline. I'm no economist, but I've seen way too much of this first hand and the current methods are UNSAT.

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

I can't speak for the AF, but in the Navy we are way beyond cutting fat. To put it in physiological terms, the Navy wants to amputate a few limbs to protect the body, but Congress won't let us....so we hack out huge chunks of bone......we are becoming a very hollow force.