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VFA-204 F-16s
- Thread starter Jules12
- Start date
Based on when we're sundowning our Charlies at NAWDC, probably 2023-2024. I saw a brief about adversary recap, but I didn't pay close attention to the timelines for 204. The VFCs will probably have some mix of F-16 and Boeing's new T-7A.
They will also fade away. Their training value is minimal, frankly.
I'm sure the Marine Corps will hang on to them forever as a joint training capability in their continual search for relevance- only to be the brunt of the joke that every other legit aviation service makes.
Where would F-16s for 204 come from? Don’t imagine hand me downs from AF or new from Lockheed... maybe the trade in from an FMS partner route?
Interested to see what y’all think about the T-7 option, from a performance and capabilities perspective. Certainly the only conceivable route the Reserve TACAIR community has at brand new jets, excluding VAQ-209.
Interested to see what y’all think about the T-7 option, from a performance and capabilities perspective. Certainly the only conceivable route the Reserve TACAIR community has at brand new jets, excluding VAQ-209.
USAF and FMS. We were looking at buying back some from Greece, before that deal fell through.
VFA-204 getting rid of their Charlies and replacing them with Vipers makes sense from an aircraft availability point of view. When I first came back to Fallon, we were earmarked to replace our F-16's with Block 40 Vipers from the Wisconsin ANG who was supposed to be get F-35A's. After the delay in production, the ANG decided they weren't going to let any aircraft go until they had the JSF in their hot little hands. Maybe that spigot will open back up.
204 remaining in New Orleans makes even less sense now. They could justify staying there because they could train for their "blue" mission in Louisiana since they are a VFA squadron and not a VFC (even though the majority of their flying is in the adversary role). Now they are going to have to det to provide the full functionality of their squadron. An old argument, but they need to move to the West Coast to support Lemoore squadrons.
204 remaining in New Orleans makes even less sense now. They could justify staying there because they could train for their "blue" mission in Louisiana since they are a VFA squadron and not a VFC (even though the majority of their flying is in the adversary role). Now they are going to have to det to provide the full functionality of their squadron. An old argument, but they need to move to the West Coast to support Lemoore squadrons.
The reserves and their model for where they put their units has gone back and forth over the years. Do you put the reserve units where the people live or do you put them where their mission is? Do they exist to support the fleet or is it to maintain semi-ready forces? Of course it's both goals, but if you concentrate too many reserve units in fleet concentration areas then fewer and fewer people from middle America participate in the reserves. But there's no question that spreading them out, away from fleet concentration areas and into the places everybody else lives, that comes at a cost too.
Just food for thought.
In the 1980s, a lot of augment units would drill at their local reserve center every month and then go train alongside their active duty units for those proverbial two weeks. Nowadays a lot of those reserve units have their homes at super NOSCs in Navy towns (Norfolk, San Dog, Jax, etc.) but half their people are scattered throughout various local NOSCs, geographically separated from their leadership and from coherent training plans.
I'm not sure one model is clearly superior to the other, it's just the way things are and it comes back to the question of what you really want the reserves to do and why you want them to exist.
The old "World War 3" mobilization model had a timeline for all the reserve sailors to get from their inland homes and reserve centers to their ships and squadrons. I suspect it was all fanciful because the op plan timelines would have got sped up, the ships and airplanes would have left without their reserve augment personnel, and soon after that things would have gone nuclear. That's simplifying it a lot, but...