3rd MAW F-18s collide off San Diego

a reply to: Donkey09

Even though the ground troops have been essentially pulled out of Iraq, and reduced in Afghanistan, there has still been a lot of air power in the area. And the fight in Syria has been all air. So the operations tempo hasn't really dropped all that much.

forgive my ignorance, but doesn't the depot level maintenance thingee "zero time" the frame?

Or is my understanding of "zero time" wrong? (not that that would be surprising, or anything...)

a reply to: seagull

No, the total time on the airframe stays the same. The big time item that limits the life cycle is usually the center wing box. You can stretch the life cycle out, but you can't zero time it without a major component change.

Depot level maintenance basically tears the airframe apart, takes the skin off, etc, and fixes corrosion and any other issues, then replaces the skin and puts it all back together.

a reply to: Zaphod58

It must have been 20+ years since there was any real down time for them

a reply to: Donkey09

Some of them. Depot level maintenance is usually scheduled about every 5-7 years if not a little more.

According to the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Aviation, as of 18 months ago, the Marines had 12 squadrons of A-D aircraft, with 12 aircraft each, and 30 aircraft for training squadrons. Then they cut them down to 10 aircraft each, with priority going to deploying squadrons, and everyone else getting the leftovers and maintenance issues. Some squadrons were hit so hard they were getting 4-6 hours flight time per pilot per month.

www.combataircraft.net...

a reply to: LifeMode

That's who these belonged to.

This makes 8 F-18s lost this calendar year.