US Air Force grounds entire F-15 fighter-bomber fleet on safety concerns

The U.S. Air Force temporarily grounded its fleet of Boeing Co. F-15 fighter-bombers, including those flying missions in Afghanistan, the service said, citing "airworthiness concerns." The grounding of more than 700 aircraft, which includes F-15E fighter-bombers that carry the largest U.S. precision guided weapons, took place after the crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C fighter on Nov. 2. "All F-15 aircraft have been grounded, not just non-mission critical flight ops," the Air Force said. "The grounding will remain in effect until conclusions are made" by the safety investigation, the service said. Aircraft assigned to Afghanistan and patrols over U.S. airspace will be on ground alert in case of a major emergency, the service said.

The F-15, introduced in 1975, is no longer in production. The plane is the primary U.S. air-to-air fighter, and the "E" model is capable of carrying the largest laser-guided bombs. The aircraft are part of the aerial arsenal of F-16 fighters, A-10 ground-attack aircraft, B-1B bombers, aircraft-carrier based F-18 fighters and drones supporting ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"When they say all the F-15s are grounded that means America's top-of-the-line fighter is not flying," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Virginia-based Lexington Institute. "The F-15 is getting so old that we could endanger our global air superiority" because of advances in Russian and Chinese fighter planes, Thompson said.

The U.S. is phasing out the F-15 with the new Lockheed Martin Corp. F-22 fighter. The Pentagon has limited the Air Force to buying 183 of the new aircraft instead of the more than 300 the service says it needs. The F-15 groundings and focus on the extent of its aging may buttress the case for more F-22s, Thompson said. "This is going to force the Pentagon to rethink how many F-22s it wants to replace the F-15," Thompson said.

- Guess that would mean more orders for the Lockheed Martin F-22. You know, each of these costs up to $200 million by some accounts, and $84 million by other accounts (perhaps if it were to be ordered in bulk, say in lots of 300). Not that I'm complaining. I never forget who I'm working for.

You know, one of the things one needs to do as a fund manager is to look for possible trends and correlations. Just about a month ago, they were talking about ordering twice the jet fighters compared to what was proposed earlier. Jim Puplava was talking about fiscal stimulus being where some of the additional money supply would be ending up. Put them together. Bingo.

If you were a fund manager, what would you do. Would you make a call to buy Lockheed? :)

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