5th Sept 2017 Nevada crash

a reply to: face23785

Yes and no. Accident rates are up slightly, but mostly with Marine line units. The Air Force is holding fairly steady, but the Marine units are hurting badly on maintenance, and it's caught up to them in both majorly reduced flight time, and accidents.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Would it be safe to say these test crashes are unrelated to funding/readiness issues then? Just the kind of thing that happens occasionally with testing, risky business?

a reply to: face23785

Yeah. Testing is dangerous, and accidents happen. Sometimes it's a design thing, other times manufacturing problems. Sooner or later, someone is going to push past the edge of the envelope and it's going to push back.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's how I've always understood it, though I have no first-hand experience. I never got close to anything like that, the coolest thing I got to refuel was the F22 well after it was operational.

a reply to: face23785

Accidents have become pretty rare with test programs, due to computer modeling. When the 787 first flew, the pilots said it was no different than flying the same flight in the simulator. Sometimes though, things that they can't take into consideration happen. When the B-21 was still the LRS-B, and was in Scotland, they almost lost an aircraft because of one of those things they couldn't plan for. The F-22 lost an aircraft in testing, because a pilot cut power for a few seconds, and didn't reset the computer. The F-35 lost an airframe because an engine flexed about two inches too far, and came apart months later.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah those all sound like things that are just gonna happen no matter how well you plan and model. Now they know to watch out for those, but something else will eventually crop up. And there's always the unpredictable human element. Even with unmanned platforms, it's only as smart as the human that programmed it. I used to tell my Airmen that "real life is more imaginative than you are" when we had to straighten someone out after they deviated from a checklist. Just because you can't imagine anything going wrong, doesn't mean it can't.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Caughtlurking

The UAV that "went rogue" and was found in the trees in Colorado was an RQ-7 Shadow. If you're talking about the one in California, it didn't "go rogue", it crashed. It was at altitude flying from point A to point B, and it crashed along the route. It was not "rogue" and found in the trees. They knew where it was almost from impact, and it could have happened to any aircraft, manned or unmanned.

Military aircraft had three accidents this week, not one of which impacted people on the ground. I've sat and watched General Aviation have three or four accidents in one day, and kill people on the ground doing it. When are we going to worry more about them than military aviation?

When you are crashing over the NTTR, there aren't a whole lotta people to crash into.

a reply to: gariac

Which was exactly the point that was originally made, and being made by me. Military operations that result in accidents are generally occurring over areas like NTTR, where there aren't a lot of people.

The NTTR has more reptiles in it than people most days. That is part of why Nevada is used for testing. The conditions down there are harsh to say the least for people, but excellent for the extreme testing of military operations and testing airframes.

Thread successfully derailed by disinfo agent? (well it is a conspiracy forum right :cheers

a reply to: E92M3

Tread cautiously, folks. Some of our users are being 'named' in articles now...Sam.

theaviationist.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Zaph what do you make of the dissimilar A2A training theory? Would it have been F35A vs mig/su with the bad guy having the bad day since they've confirmed it was not a lightning that went down?

a reply to: anzha

Hell, he was rather amused by that. Heh.

a reply to: Bfirez

It could be. They're getting about to the point where they're working tactics out for air to air. They're getting 3F this month, so it's about that time in the process.

So did the two A10s crash in the same area as this mysterious crash, as well as shortly after? Hmmmmm.....

a reply to: TheGoondockSaint

The A-10s were brought down by a midair between the two aircraft. That's really not that hard to do when doing their job, and flying formation.

Update:

- Jamie Hunter says Flankers are AFMC-owned.

twitter.com...


... and:

- On other boards, rumors the F-117 has been flying a lot recently. But this was "some guy" knowing a guy who lived in the area, so who knows.
- Apparently Janet flights were suspended that afternoon for a classified test. I have no idea how credible that user is.

My questions are:
- What makes the F-117 so special, now that the F-22 and F-35 are operational?
- I assume that the USAF gets no support from Sukhoi to support its aircraft. I'm wondering how well it's maintained and operated, especially the life escape systems.

a reply to: C0bzz

The F-117s are used in tests to support the F-22 and F-35, and probably some risk reduction activities for the B-21.

a reply to: anzha

I'm fairly sure the author on The Aviationist regularly trawls this forum. Sometimes there are similarities between posts there and posts here, not that there's anything wrong with that. I trawl basically every aviation forum on the internet like a funnel, then come up with my own ideas as well.

a reply to: C0bzz

Sam sent him the pictures we took of the F-117s on our trip last summer for an article.