Air Force finds 'apparent wreckage' of missing F-22

Air Force finds 'apparent wreckage' of missing F-22

www.chicagotribune.com

The Air Force says they have found the apparent wreckage of the F-22 that went missing Tuesday night.

A rescue team is being deployed to the area approximately 100 miles north of Anchorage.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well this is what I guess most of us thought.

The Airplane crashed. I hope the pilot survived.

$150 million more tax dollars lost.

"The Alaska Air National Guard is leading the search effort, using three helicopters and a cargo plane. In a news release, the guard says the F-22 was flying with another fighter, which also lost contact with it."

how do you loose your wingman?



www.chicagotribune.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by SWCCFAN


i posted this in the other thread but you make a valid point. Apparent is a nice operative word for we are not quite sure.

and as far as your point... /agree HOW do you lose your wingman?

reply to post by SWCCFAN


Is it possible they were engaging something, and in an effort to cover it up, they just said they lost contact..? does seem odd, then again, I dont know how far away wingmen tend to get in certain situations.. nor have I flown anything.. I have an old friend who flies an F-22 though.. havent spoken in years though

maybe it's HAARP shooting down the plane by "accident" as they wanted to check if it was stealth enough ?

But badly for you, americans, it's your taxes...


OK ok, I"m french, and we just have one small aircraft carrier (and we have to share it with Great Britain), I won't say anything else about military forces and taxes....

reply to post by AbandonFaieth


There has to be a lot more to this. you don't just loose a $150 million airplane and not have any mayday mesage sent. I do know that they lost one during a departure test and crashed another one whe the fly-by-wire computer did a reeboot.

Likely a computer problem will be the cause of the crash.

Damn Windows 7

Originally posted by SWCCFAN
reply to post by AbandonFaieth

 

Likely a computer problem will be the cause of the crash.

Damn Windows 7

haha nah its gotta be running on vista still.

Come on guys, an American fighter pilot probably lost his life and you guys are making operating system jokes.

reply to post by Terviseks


Isn't France's entire air force worth about $150 million

just kidding.

I bet when the wingman made it back to base the command asked....

Where's you wingman?





That's a good question ...

Uh .... he was well ... Uh ..... I wasn't really paying attention.

We were watching youtube videos on the Flight computer.

All kidding aside this is a tragic accident for the F-22 program.

reply to post by Jeanius


Well we don't know that yet ....

But my guess is that alt - e nor Ctrl-alt-delete worked to eject.

Flying a modern jet fighter is more like playing a video game than actually flying.

When the Computer crashes and the back up fails, they fall right out of the sky.

Originally posted by Alaskan Man

Originally posted by SWCCFAN
reply to post by AbandonFaieth

 

Likely a computer problem will be the cause of the crash.

Damn Windows 7

haha nah its gotta be running on vista still.

Oh wait ... This is the Goverment we are talking about here. most likely windows 2000.

Thats what the New Subs run on.

Originally posted by Alaskan Man

Originally posted by SWCCFAN
reply to post by AbandonFaieth

 

Likely a computer problem will be the cause of the crash.

Damn Windows 7

haha nah its gotta be running on vista still.

Aint that the truth!!

LOL.

There is a pilot quite possibly dead, I think the issue of cost should be secondary. Finding this pilot, dead or alive, should be priority, as I'm sure he had a family, possibly even kids. We can hate the idea of ungodly amounts of tax-dollars being blown on the military-industrial-complex, but apparently this guy is just a pilot who wanted to serve his country (and fly cool fighter jets). I wish him and his family all the best.


--airspoon

Originally posted by Jeanius
Come on guys, an American fighter pilot probably lost his life and you guys are making operating system jokes.

Its hard for me, or probably a few others, to take you seriously with that avatar.. If its not you, whats the purpose?


fighter pilots are smart, the pilot most likely had a decent percentage of being able to eject in time.

Originally posted by Myendica
fighter pilots are smart, the pilot most likely had a decent percentage of being able to eject in time.

Yeah but when the F-22 crashed last year, the ejection is what killed the pilot, like it killed "Goose" in the movie "Topgun".

So ejection may not save the pilots life especially if the jet is traveling fast.

At least they found the wreckage but you'd think they'd know the fate of the pilot almost immediately on finding the wreckage, they probably can't tell us until they notify the family though.

reply to post by Myendica


You are Absolutly correct. It is likely that the Pilot had the chance to eject.
However there are several unknowns:
Speed
Altitude (above terain)
and the Position of the plane at the time of ejection.

The F-22 is a very advanced aircraft and can automaticaly recover if a pilot passes out. However due to the design of the airframe without the computer system keeping the craft stable in flight, it is prone to departure (loss of control)

If the Pilot flew into a mountain the wingman would have likely noticed the resulting explosion.
That could also explane the lack of a mayday call.

One site placed the price tag of F-22 to be 339 million. How could we really know?

One must wonder. We used to get Soviet aircraft from individuals who chose to come over. I do not recall any of those who came over, with their MIG's to be Soviet, rather from bloc countries, or North Korea. Wonder how $ much those guys really got. Be reasonable to assume that at some time, the Soviet, now Russians, would end up with a more modern design of a US military craft, from pilots from countries which buy this same numbered US aircraft. It is not a secret that what the other side would really want is the Avionic systems, which the US does not sell to most other countries who buy US type military aircraft. Wonder if those electronic systems are actually made in China?

Ejection? I thought the US airforce had to use chainsaws to cut open F-22 canopies in instances of system failures.

But I digress. Was there a blizzard by chance in Alaska, because there sure was one in BC. Complex American aircraft that are highly dependent on sensors are prone to atmospheric interference in extreme climates (for instance, that B2 that crashed upon takeoff because of ice messing with the computer control systems).

I read about this the other day... It is very strange. I also don't understand how you loose a plane, weren't they tracking with radar or communicating via radio or what ever.

But I feel bad for the pilot, it would suck to be stranded in the middle of nowhere especially if it is Alaska.

Originally posted by Topsy_Cret
I read about this the other day... It is very strange. I also don't understand how you loose a plane, weren't they tracking with radar or communicating via radio or what ever.

$150m jet with no GPS?

Something's not right here.