High-Flying Troubles - United States Air Force safety record (F-16)

Hey there,
Thought I'd comment on my beloved F-16. I was a Crew Cheif (see Airframe, Hydraulic, Powerplant Mechanic) on the airframe for 6 years in the USAF. I've gone on since to work on many other air frames but I can tell you, in my time in the Air Force, I never worked on a more 'smartly' designed jet.
The systems, sub-systems, and redundancies to those systems seemed to make sense. The safety features such as, Hydraulic Isolation systems, 10 min Hydorzene power supply and redundant hydraulic systems help to pack alot of safety in an already cramped air frame. I doubt you'll ever see more wire bundles in such a small area.
The saying, the more moving parts the more potential for failure applies, but with the rigurours safety standards and stringent quality assurance programs in place the pilots stepping to fly these birds rest assured they are in good hands when they take flight.

www.f-16.net...

Read up and discuss your problems here, then get schooled by crew chiefs specs and weapons troops around the world.

I call bullshi**.

As an F-16 crew chief I can honestly tell you that they don't crash as much as it seems, and it is a pilot error, or mechanical error due to BAD maintenance, which is every crew chief's nightmare to launch out a jet go inside work on forms and hear HIS jet crashed.

He is in a world of stress for a while.

Before you even try to discuss this, go against the real experts, not other civilians that hardly know what they're talking about.

And plus you're talking about LUKE, LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, ARIZONA. No duh there's going to be crashes, it's a AETC base. AIR EDUCATION AND TRAINING COMMAND. A training base, these are B (Basic) course students from the USAF, Singapore, and Taiwanese Air Forces. Of course there are going to be crashes, in the same way there are crashes with 14 year old girls going behind the wheel of a Corvette or Mustang for the first time. It's called logic people.

Originally posted by iskander
reply to post by Jezza

 

how about comparison stats against other single
engined aircraft.

It’s been done.

F-16 is the first full FBW with out a redundancy backup, thus the side mounted controls.

When your panel lights up llike a Christmas tree becaseu wire chafing short circuited your entire system, it just drops like a “lawn dart”.

Same with the engine. Once it goes out, the chances of restarting it a null, and since main power is lost (electrical/hydraulic), maneuvering to safety is out of the question. The only hope is ejection.

MIG 21 – the source is listed above.

MiG-21 vs Mirage – run a search there have been plenty forum discussioins on that.

Corsair - The F4U? I would not even know where to begin comparing a WWII rotary piston powered ground pounder with a Mach 2 pure bred fighter.

Here’s on the Voodoo;

The Voodoo

Following his tour in the Korean War, Lonnie returned to Florida where he served as Chief Test Pilot at EglinAir Force Base. He relished in his family, hardly believing that he could have been so blessed to have children as dazzling as his Dancer.

Each day was enjoyed with total fullness and appreciation by the Dancer and her Jet Ace.


And the finale;

www.doubleace.org...

Here’s the worst AMX had to face so far, but as far as I now it fared pretty well;

The Italian air force grounded its AMX form February 4 to the end of May 1992 after an accident which was traced to the separation of a turbine disk in the Spey engine.
The third production batch was authorised in early 1992, one year late. It included 56 aircraft for Italy and 22 for Brazil. Italy and Brazil did cancel the planned production batches 4 (51 aircraft) and 5 (53 aircraft). At one time in the late 80s, numbers as high as 317 aircraft had been mentioned.
From January to 22 March 1996, the AMX fleet was grounded after a crash due to engine problems. A second-stage low-pressure compressor blade had gone off.

www.flug-revue.rotor.com...

Harrier – I’m not even going to go there. Considering what a difficult craft to fly, I give any Harrier pilot my respect and if the crash was do to pilot error, let it b so and I hope the pilot is safe and sound. Harrier is completely out of the typical aircraft category, and I will not apply standard measures to judge its crash rating.

A-4 Skyhawk - I have a whole lot of respect for that plane, much as for the A-6 Intruder. To me they are the true work horses, engineered and built for war.

Both aircraft were designed with redundant system and could absorb massive damage and still make a carrier landing. F-16 has nothing on those birds.


Mod Note: No Quote/Plagiarism – Please Review This Link.


[edit on 1/23/08 by FredT]

[edit on 1/23/08 by FredT]

What are you talking about? The FLCC is a quadruple redudant system that can correct itself from any errors almost 99% of the time, during ACFT launch it performs a BIT (Built in Test) to test for any errors. If there is a error during launch a pilot can retest and see if there are any errors again, if so we shut down and he goes to a different jet and the first jet receives the proper maintenance.

Originally posted by Willard856
Well, given the rate of effort of the F-16s we flew with in the Gulf, and the fact that we didn't lose any to mechanical failure, I don't think it is that big a deal. Flying fighters is inherently dangerous. Sucks for the family yes, but ask any fighter pilot whether they would stop flying their jet because of a 1% chance the aircraft might catastrophically malfunction, and I can tell you what the answer will be. Well worth the risk.

The F-16 isn't usually refered to as a Lawn Dart by the F-16 community. Usually this jibe comes from the 15 guys. And I've heard the MiG-21 refered to as the Flying Coffin, so I'm still not remotely convinced that it has a better record than the F-16. And as for the article you referenced, why would you reduce the loss numbers based on the heat and altitude effects? If you buy an aircraft that doesn't meet the environmental conditions you want it to operate in, then make sure you have a good SAR capability.

There is no way the F-5 would still be a relevant frontline fighter today. Whereas the F-16 has evolved, and still remains a potent multi-role platform. And if you think the Iranian aircraft is any sort of comparative threat to current western fighters, you are seriously delusional. It is what it is - a magnet for AIM-120s. Now if the Iranians got serious and got themselves some J-10s, or decent Flankers, then we could talk. But this piecemeal indiginous crap they keep on churning out shows they have given up on winning the air to air war.

Same way we 16 guys refer to the 15s as twin-tailed fa**its. You gotta love maintainer world.