June 22, 2006:
The U.S. Army and Navy are both experiencing a backlash against the expense of running their respective air forces. For example, the navy has some 3,800 aircraft making it, all by itself, one of the top ten air forces in the world. It's an expensive operation to run, with each aircraft costing about $1.1 million a year to operate. About half of the 352,000 personnel in the navy are devoted to running naval aviation. The rising price of oil and spare parts has increased the cost of operating aircraft. The principal carrier aircraft, the F-18, costs over $5,000 an hour to fly. Carrier aircraft have expenses land based aircraft do not, mainly the added maintenance required because of the stress put on the airframe from carrier landings, and the corrosion from all that salt sea air. The rest of the navy is not happy about these financial arrangements.
The army has an even larger air force than the navy, although nearly all of them are helicopters. But these are expensive beasts to operate. A CH-47 costs more to operate, per flight hour, than F-18. The largest bone of contention is that half the army's training budget is consumed by the aviation community. The ground troops point out that less than one percent of the casualties in Iraq have been aviators. The helicopter loss rate in Iraq is less than a tenth of what it was in Vietnam. As a result, even the aviators are admitting that the ground troops should get more of that training money.
Neither service has been able to get more money from Congress for aviation, so it has had to cut flying hours and maintenance costs. Flight simulators take up some of the slack, but otherwise, pilots have to get more done for every hour they are in the air. Same with people on the ground, where time-honored procedures have been revised and performed more quickly and efficiently. The accident rate has not gone up, nor has the proficiency of the pilots noticeably declined. But, then, American naval aviation has not had to face a formidable opponent in a long, long time.
Aviators, especially in the army, use flight simulators a lot more, even though the pilots would prefer to be flying the actual aircraft. But the simulators cost less than a tenth as much, per flight hour, to operate. The current simulators are of recent design, and quite realistic. Simulators can also do things flying real aircraft cannot. For example, the simulators can recreate the sand storms, and other nasty weather native to Iraq, but not found in U.S. Army aviation training centers. The Simulators can realistically recreate a wide range of emergencies, many of which you would not want to play with in a real aircraft while in the air.
While the pilots are correct in pointing out that flight hours have historically produced the best pilots, it's also true that American pilots fly more than any others on the planet. It's all relative. Everyone has to deal with the rising cost of fuel, spare parts and other expenses incurred when you take flight. U.S. pilots also have the best flight simulators, and, finally, the lowest accident and combat loss rates in history. The non-aviators in the navy and army are simply asking for a fair share of the limited money available, and insisting that the aviators recognize that the there are limits.
