Comienza a ensamblarse el primer B-21:
https://aviationweek.com/defense/b-21-p ... trajectoryEn dos años debería ser el primer vuelo.
Artículo extenso y muy interesante de The Heritage Foundation sobre las FFAA de EEUU. El apartado sobre la USAF por aquí:
https://www.heritage.org/military-stren ... -air-forceSobre el inventario actual:
También es interesante el número de municiones que gastaron el año pasado frente a su reposición:
Llama la atención que no compren más bombas guiadas solo por láser.
Cómo varió la disponibilidad:
Parece que el año pasado los furtivos tuvieron números muy modestos en este aspecto. En concreto, y sobre el F-22:
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Fulfilling the operational need for air superiority fighters will be further strained in the near term because of the F-22’s low availability rates and a retrofit that always causes some portion of those jets to be unavailable for operational use. The retrofit is a mix of structural alterations required for the airframe to reach its promised service life, and the process
takes six F-22s off the flight line for the retrofit at any given time. The retrofit is forecasted to
continue through 2021.31
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The Raptor’s 62.8 percent availability rate means that of the 138 combat-coded F-22As on active duty, approximately
72 are available to fly combat sorties at any given time.32
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That low mission-capable rate means in turn that even with their superior technology, and adding in the Guard’s 20 jets, the total mission-capable inventory would be 85 jets, which likely would not be sufficient to fulfill the single-MRC wartime requirement for air superiority fighters.
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Sobre el número de pilotos, parece que no le dan los números:
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Another area of concern is pilot manning levels. In March 2017, Lieutenant General Gina M. Grosso, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services, testified that at the end of FY 2016, the Air Force had a shortfall of 1,555 pilots across all mission areas (608 Active, 653 Guard, and 294 Reserve). Of that total, the Air Force was short 1,211 fighter pilots (873 Active, 272 Guard, and 66 Reserve).50
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The numbers continued to fall, and at the end of FY 2017, the Air Force was short more than 2,000 pilots. Although the Air Force stopped breaking the numbers down into Active, Guard, and Reserve numbers, the total pilot shortfall appears to remain at 9 percent.51
Recovering from that shortfall will depend on how well the Air Force addresses several major issues, especially the available number of pilot training slots, an area in which it appears that some progress is being made.
In 2018, the Air Force graduated 1,200 pilots. The projections for 2019 forecast increases to 1,300, rising to 1,480 in 2020. Those projected numbers rely on a graduation rate of nearly 100 percent for every pilot training class, and the service is already close to that mark. In 2016, the graduation rate was 93 percent; in 2017, it was 98 percent; and in 2018, it was 97 percent.52
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At the same time, however, the expectation of high graduation rates during years of significant pilot shortfalls puts quality at risk, and it is hard to fathom how the pilot production pipeline is going to ensure that all of those who earn their wings will be as competent and capable as they need to be in the years ahead.
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Sobre el entrenamiento:
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The associated training requires sortie rates averaging above three sorties a week or more and flying hours averaging more than 200 hours per year. Despite having made great strides in sortie production since 2014, the Air Force is still falling short of those thresholds because of its low fighter mission-capable rates. (See Table 8.)
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Otra tabla interesante: