First F/A-22 crash

Originally posted by Lucretius
that's 2 raptors crashed within 6 weeks of each other

alarm bells should be ringing, considering they are identical to the 40 raptors already built and currently undergoing pre-introduction testing

Wrong.
You didn't read the article - It says the second crash of "a fighter" in 6 weeks... an F-18 was the other fighter that crashed.

"This is the second crash involving a fighter in about six weeks at Nellis.
A single-seat F-18 went down Nov. 9 about 15 miles north of the base. The pilot of that aircraft also managed to eject." KABC, L.A.


I'm sure there are concerned parties and they will get to the bottom of this - but I'm pretty sure alarm bells are not ringing...






[edit on 21-12-2004 by intelgurl]

Where do you work OtS?

He's previously stated he works for Boeing.

As my father works for Lockheed (on the Raptor, in GA), seems he (OTS) works for the competition, hehe...

So far, pop's been pretty proud of the bird he's workin' on. They've also been testing a bazillion variations for these things, so it's possible one of these techno add-ons screwed the pooch so to speak...and may have led to a crash.

I am just speculating but I believe that it may just be fod or a bird strike that cased tthe crash. Why? It was on take off and the most hazerdous part of flight for FOd or bird strikes, like the Concored. Just my two cents, I hope its a bird/.fod because any teechnical problems could kill it and the JSF

Intelgirl, be nice, as I stated before, just bluntly saying "Wrong" hurts people's feelings...be considderate even though they are wrong

You could say: well that isn't completely true which is more subtle

Simple things like that can make this board alot more friendly y'know!

A friend of mine actually had a good impression of what went wrong on the F-22...

Me: why do you think that F-22 crashed?
Sauragnmon: software failure
Me: why did it break in half during take off?
unstable airframe, software failure probably knocked out fly by wire, tail hit Saurag: the ground, it slapped from there, the nose broke off and flew down the runway...if you look at the images of the two parts, one is the tail and engines and stuff, and the second part looks like the nose

sounds plausible no?

If he can tell why it crashed just from looking at the pictures of the wreckage he should be working for the AIB.

BTW 'not completely correct' means 'partially correct' doesn't it? Wrong is a much more accurate word and not rude at all, everyone who posts on here is either 'right', 'almost right' 'almost completely wrong' or just plain 'wrong'. Whats wrong with that?

Well did any one get hurt? No thats the important bit.
The data learned from it probably will stop that happening again, so in a sense its a good AND a bad thing.
Crashes are like deaths in combat, not wanted and hoped to never happen yet are to be exspected.

Yeah, my best wishes go to the pilot of this particular aircraft...

300mil...man, so much stuff I could have done with that

Originally posted by intelgurl

Wrong.
You didn't read the article - It says the second crash of "a fighter" in 6 weeks... an F-18 was the other fighter that crashed.

"This is the second crash involving a fighter in about six weeks at Nellis.
A single-seat F-18 went down Nov. 9 about 15 miles north of the base. The pilot of that aircraft also managed to eject." KABC, L.A.

My appologies, I misenterpreted the article... your right and i'm pretty sure that the incidents are unrelate so no need for an urgent review of the fleet.

Though for the American taxpayer that is half a billion dollars between the planes up in smoke

[edit on 21-12-2004 by Lucretius]

It happens a lot. Look at how many F-16's crashed when first operational. F-14 crashes short of the runway and caught on tape by the chase plane. My best friends dad was the F-18 pilot who ejected on takeoff in England because the ceramic fan blades blew up. Its a fact of flying life.

On the bright side at least the ejection seats are working...

Another example of British/American co-operation

Lucretius - How can you misinterprit an article which you didn't read?

And a hlf billion? Where did you get your costs from? The F/A-22 i'd say is around 150 million, and the F-18 around 40 million.

I don't think we should rule out human error instead of mechanical defect on this one.
I live here in Vegas and at one time across the street literally, from Nellis. I lived with two air traffic controllers as roomates at one point, and i can tell you that on many occasions the pilots and atc's enjoy partying and coming in to work with hangovers from popping pills, getting stoned, boozing up etc. I hung out with alot of those guys and they like to party because they get paid a lot and have no bills!
Also, for the record, both of my roomates were bipolar and manic depressive which led to my moving into a different pad. I always think about that and wonder how safe we are and how many of the other young men and women that protect and serve us are as equally f'ed up in their noggin's. Quite frankly after hearing these guys talk about crazy stuff at the bar all the time, the prisoner abuse in Iraq doesn't even surprise me, there's a lot of things wrong with Americans.


I'm not saying that the pilot or the plane is at fault, I'm just saying there are many more factors involved than simply mechanical failure. I don't think they would station a plane where it could fly over a city as large as Vegas unless it was thoroughly tested either.

[edit on 12/21/04 by Playgrounddiary]

Based on 1998-99 figures, the price per plane is 187.3 million.
F-22 Raptor Cost

This source (PBS) states that the cost range between:

The price tag: At least $70 billion. Depending on who�s doing the counting, each plane will cost somewhere between $70 million and $160 million, at least twice as much as the F-15, the fighter the F-22 is replacing.

THE F-22 DEBATE

And this edu site says:

the Raptor's high production price tag--$125 million per aircraft, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate

The Plane Truth: Fewer F-22s Mean a Stronger National Defense

Hehehe, I'd go for the "between 70-160 million"......



seekerof

heres some pictures of the crash and the destroyed F/A-22. Just wait for the pictures to show up.

jczs.sina.com.cn...

Originally posted by Playgrounddiary
I live here in Vegas and at one time across the street literally, from Nellis. I lived with two air traffic controllers as roomates at one point, and i can tell you that on many occasions the pilots and atc's enjoy partying and coming in to work with hangovers from popping pills, getting stoned, boozing up etc. I hung out with alot of those guys and they like to party because they get paid a lot and have no bills!
Also, for the record, both of my roomates were bipolar and manic depressive which led to my moving into a different pad. I always think about that and wonder how safe we are and how many of the other young men and women that protect and serve us are as equally f'ed up in their noggin's. Quite frankly after hearing these guys talk about crazy stuff at the bar all the time, the prisoner abuse in Iraq doesn't even surprise me, there's a lot of things wrong with Americans.


I'm not saying that the pilot or the plane is at fault, I'm just saying there are many more factors involved than simply mechanical failure. I don't think they would station a plane where it could fly over a city as large as Vegas unless it was thoroughly tested either.

[edit on 12/21/04 by Playgrounddiary]

Get paid alot? You are aware that many young airmen are on welfare? They have just as many bills as a civilian. I seriously doubt they are getting high as the first urine test would be a disaster.

From here, congress approved $4.6billion USD in FY2003 for procurement of 23 F-22 aircraft. This works out to be a unit cost of just a tad over $200million USD an aircraft. Definately not nearly half a billion, but its still an amount of money I wouldnt want to loose. Expect the unit cost to decrease as more aircraft are purchased tho.

Originally posted by RichardPrice
From here, congress approved $4.6billion USD in FY2003 for procurement of 23 F-22 aircraft. This works out ....

As with everything, the more you build, the less it costs.
That $4.6 Billion also covers a bit of the R&D of the aircraft.

Total costs of the ATF program will be around 65 billion bucks

Originally posted by Zion Mainframe

Originally posted by RichardPrice
From here, congress approved $4.6billion USD in FY2003 for procurement of 23 F-22 aircraft. This works out ....

As with everything, the more you build, the less it costs.
That $4.6 Billion also covers a bit of the R&D of the aircraft.

Total costs of the ATF program will be around 65 billion bucks

Of course it does, but that $4.6billion USD was for production versions of the aircraft. On top of the almost $20billion USD already paid for R&D of the aircraft. One wonders why the USAF has to pay twice for the R&D.

They have been working on the F-22 program (ATF) for over 20 years. They are constantly working on new technologies (software & hardware) for the aircraft.

Also, I googled a bit, and found this: www.usatoday.com...

According to USA today, they've spend 4.2 billion to purchase 24 aircraft, so thats only 175 million per aircraft.

Nothing will kill the F22 project at this point. They will learn and fix whatever the problem is if it needs fixing. For all we know the pilot is an idiot. Not that I am suggesting that, but the bottom line is we need to wait and see whats up.