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F-18s Wearing Out Ahead of Schedule
November
20, 2006: Although the U.S. Navy has not been exposed to much combat damage in
Iraq and Afghanistan, many navy aircraft are wearing out faster because they
are being used more than they normally would in peacetime. The aircraft taking
the biggest beating are the early model F-18s. These entered service in the
1980s, and operate on U.S. carriers, and from land bases for the U.S. Marine
Corps and seven foreign nations. The carrier based F-18s were built to
last for about 2,000 carrier landings, at the rate of about a hundred a year.
These operations have been described, with some accuracy, as controlled
crashes, and they put enormous stress on the aircraft. Navy carriers have been
supplying air support for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, and
this has resulted in some of the older F-18s reaching the 2,000 carrier landing
mark sooner than expected. This is expected to lead to about a billion dollars
worth of extra costs to refurbish those F-18s that are now showing their age
earlier than expected. Other carrier aircraft are also taking a heavy beating,
but these are either on their way out (like the EA-6), or relatively new (like
the F-18E).
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