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The US Air Force's F-15C fleet was upgraded under the Multi-Stage Improvement Program (MSIP) in the early to mid-1980s. However, the USAF's F-15A/B force is understood to be experiencing some availability problems due to ageing electronics.
Technology Explained- Fighter Upgrades Pt I
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Fighter Upgrades
The end of the Cold War, or perhaps more accurately, what could have been World War III, has seen a rapid decline in defence expenditure in the Western democracies, not unlike the period immediately following World War II. As governments slash defence budgets, force sizes shrink and fleets are reduced while air forces do their best to maintain their capabilities. The partition of most of the world’s industrialised nations into a Communist Bloc and Western Alliance, and the carving up of allegiances in the Third World into Western aligned or Soviet aligned, created a situation where most of the world’s air forces have acquired essentially monolithic fleets of either Western or Soviet origin. This situation was encouraged during the Cold War if for no other reason than committing the party in question through supply of spares and support and operational skills.
The world of the mid-1990s is however quite different politically and we thus see several distinct trends in the management of military aircraft inventories. The first trend is the decline of the military industrial base in the former principal Cold War players. The reduced demand for new equipment has collapsed what has been a very stable market for at least four decades, and the shock waves of dislocation are still being felt today. In the United States this has been most visible in mergers and acquisitions within the military aviation industrial base. Lockheed’s acquisition of General Dynamics Fort Worth, and Grumman’s takeover by Northrop are good indications of the trend, as manufacturers consolidate to hang on to the ever-diminishing pie of new equipment acquisitions.
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