F-22A Problems

I had a thread about an undisclosed F-22A accident happening in November, but I think this should be branched out from that one. It turns out the accident was caused by a substandard adhesive used to keep the RAM coating on that was applied to the first 30 aircraft. From airframe 31 on, the problem was resolved, but apparently the first 30 are going to have to live with this adhesive on it that is substandard.

The accident aircraft was taking off from Nellis AFB, and a piece of RAM broke off and went through #1 engine, destroying the engine. Apparently there is a good chance of this happening more often to the first 30 aircraft because of this adhesive used.

The adhesive used is called C493. I don't know why it's not fixable, but apparently it is.

Any thoughts?

Problems with adhesive eh?

Takes me back to my airfix days.

There is no way 29 front line aircraft should be flying with any kind of known problem, and one concerning glue is a touch laughable considering how much that damm things cost to build!

Monkey

It's still 30. The one that had the accident landed safely.

It seem kind of obvious to say it but this sort of thing should not be happening on any sort of aircraft in this day and age, even amongst light aircraft like Cessna's, never mind the worlds foremost fighter aircraft.

What is to stop them removing the offending panels and rebonding them? Can it really be so difficult?

The last time a company had problems with planes coming unglued, literally in the air, it was De Havilland in the UK when they used bonded balsa (ie in the Albatros, Flamingo, Mosquito and Vampire) but the notalgia fest we have for our aircraft industry seems to overlook it. Probably because nostalgia is all we have left.

Going back to the subject, rather than saying it is only 30 aircraft the US should really be pulling out all the stops to rectify it. How will the pilots of those aircraft feel?

Might they 'ease off' a bit putting them at risk of losing a fight?

Worse still, if a pilot dies in one you can be sure we will see yet another lawsuit by the family and, though it pains me to say it, deservedly so in this situation.

I've only found a couple of sources that even mention this, and neither one seems to know why it's not fixable, but they agree that they're stuck with it (yeah I know, bad pun). To me it seems like they would be able to simply rebond them, like you said. It is really worrysome that this is happening to a plane we spent so much on, and is supposed to be so great. Now we have 30 that we're going to have to keep in reserve, or make hangar queens so that they dont' fall apart in flight and blow engines apart, or have structural damage on landing.

If you ask me LM should be pulling those 30 back to the factory and fixing this problem without the USAF paying a dime. They knew about the problem at some point, and it was their fault it go through QA, so they should be fixing it.

Actually, the 117 had a bonding problem in a wing - I forget if it was the left or right. Remember the video of the 117 at an airshow falling apart? The pilot got out safely at the very last second.

and

www.cnn.com...

Oct 8, 1997 (AFNS) -- The Air Force resumed F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter flying operations Oct. 2 after initiating a fleetwide safety inspection. The commander of Air Combat Command had directed a precautionary fleet stand down following the F-117 mishap at the Chesapeake Air Show, Maryland, Sept 14. Physical evidence found in the crash debris revealed a significant defect in a support structure in the left wing of the accident aircraft

looks like the wing failed on that one

reply to post by Zaphod58


as the saying goes there will always be a $1 Solution for a multi million dollor problam

in this case its more of a few dollors problem for a multi million dollor solution

Originally posted by bodrul
as the saying goes there will always be a $1 Solution for a multi million dollor problam

in this case its more of a few dollors problem for a multi million dollor solution

In my opinion i think it should be well understood that when it comes to guns and national arms expenditures in general more often than not there million dollar solutions to $1 problems. International peace would certainly be cheaper to organize ( each country could have weapon inspectors, etc- use your imagination) than international arms contracts but i suppose that is unlikely while big business can continue to offer multi million dollar solutions to national governments instead of national governments taking some certain sums to either pay weapon inspectors or just to donate to each other as signs of good faith and so forth.

I could go on but this has already gone past to two lines i originally intended.

Stellar