F22 crash?
 

I just heard that an F22 was just lost out by Edwards AFB....anyone heard anything about it? Don't we have a Pelican w/ a relative who flies one? Beautiful plane....saw one a few weeks ago come over our house on final to BAFB. Hope the pilot ejected and is safe.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/25/california.crash/index.html

Scratch a cool $150M. Glad the pilot was OK.

Ouch, that's a pricey one.

The price tag for the F22 ($150MM quoted above, that is the unit cost to acquire each additional F22, excludes all the development costs) got me thinking - about cost and attrition.

In the 1970s, my father helped design the Phoenix missile for the F14 Tomcat. I recall that the F14 was very expensive back then. So I looked it up: $38MM initial acquisition cost. The plane entered service 34 years ago. Assuming 4% inflation, $38MM then is $144MM today. So the F14 was every bit as expensive in the mid-1970s as the F22 is today.

We built appx 630 F14s, not counting the 80 or so sold to Iran. 160 were crashed in the 22-odd years before the F14 was retired. Hopefully we will crash F22s at a fraction of that rate, or in 15 years there won't be many left.

Great, another military aircraft that is probably too expensive to regularly send in harm's way. Looks like we are paying for an air force that is "a force in being". The drones will end up doing the real dangerous, dirty work. Reminds me of the German fleet in WWI: the battleships holed up in port while the then "new technology" submarines went out to take the fight to the enemy. Why is the military always about one and half wars behind the times?

I'm all for my tax dollars being used to design and build things like the F22.
It makes me feel sake knowing we have people that can think up some of the technologies and I would rather have planes than some of the other rat holes our politicians pour our money down
Plus they are about the coolest things going

Steve

The current issue of the Atlantic has a great article about the value of air superiority and how we are losing our edge. More to the point, the continued reductions in the planned F-22 fleet is going to create an irrecoverable hole. Basically for any conflict we've been involved with since Vietnam, we've controlled the skies which allows a degree of freedom on the ground that is quite valuable. But other 4th generation A/C and retrofitted 3rd generation A/C are presenting a genuine threat to the F-15. At some point, some punk nation with some cheap retrofitted 3rd gen A/C are going to try to show their strength.

We've never lost an F-15 flown by the USAF against another fighter. Simply amazing.

I hope the raptor pilot is okay and safe. My buddy the F-15 group commander is at Nellis, wonder what he knows about this...

The F-22 is the tip of our airborne spear. It will do the most dangerous and most important jobs (Air supremacy and SEAD) that allow the rest of the force to function properly.

Don- NO nation that flies F-15s has ever lost one in air to air combat. It has a kill ratio of infinity (i think it's 137.5 kills to no losses).

No US soldier has been lost to air attack since the Korean war.

Without Air superiority, the US cannot fight the way it fights. The US Army is simply not designed to fight in an environment of air parity. Army air defense is quite solid, but it's definitely by no means air tight.

"The F-22 is the tip of our airborne spear. It will do the most dangerous and most important jobs (Air supremacy and SEAD) that allow the rest of the force to function properly.'

Yeah, it will do a "bang up" job of suppressing the North Korean, Iranian, Al Queda and Taliban air forces. It may also be useful if the Kligons attack.

If we go to war with Russia or China air superiority won't matter for long; the nuclear tipped ICBMs will arrive on the scene far sooner that any jet fighter.

Is that really true? didn't we lose some pilots in Mig Alley in Korea?, and there were zero casualties from air attacks in Viet Nam?

Fwiw I don't know the answer, I just find it hard to fathom that in all the conflicts we have been involved in in the last 50 year...no US soldiers have been lost via air attack?

Pilots are not soldiers.

Soldiers serve in the Army.

Here is a more accurate statement: No US ground forces have been killed on land by air attack since the Korean war. Not a single one.

That's how good the US Air Force is.

ya.. semantics et al

Zero losses of ground troupes in Viet Nam From NV Migs...

Again I find that statement a stretch..

That statement is a fact.

Look it up.

M21 sniper;
No US soldier has been lost to air attack since the Korean war.

Tell that to the sailors of the USS Liberty that was strafed in 1973[?] by the Israelis.. [oh , theymade a mistake].. also > I think the North Koreans strafed the USS Pueblo - wounded or killed some of our people

Recognize your point though.. F-22 is a necessary piece of hardware in our arsenal... fantsatic platform...

We also had a slew of hawk missiles set up in South Vietnam during the Vietnam conflict.. would have been suicide for the NVAF to go south

He said soldiers on the ground.... ain't semantics great?

The pilot was not OK, he was killed. It was not my cousin, who heads the F-22 demo team and flies the plane at air shows. It's been a tense few hours.

Denis,

I am very relieved for you, very sad for the family of the pilot.

It is never easy.

Sailors are not soldiers.

My deepest condolences to the man and his family. :(

ok I did a search....

http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/EARS/Hallionpapers/airpowerinperip.htm

Don't take this a callous, but I'm surprised, that there have been no ground casualties from air attacks since the middle of the Korean War... I know we have had total air domination since Viet Nam

It is a truly amazing feat.

RIP to the raptor driver.

I'll post a link to the article on air superiority over on parf.

ho hum another boring day......when all of a sudden
 

a ROUSH built P-51 MUSTANG lands! HOLY BAT POO! am i dreaming??? WTF? this is 1 of 3 P-51's still flying on the planet that actually fought in world war II. the others are memorex phonies. this was mfg. in 1944, based in england and flew over normandy on june 6th 1944. hence the black white d-day ID markings.

they dont get any cleaner than this one !


i did ask " where are the .50 cals ?"


im still having multiple orgazms over this one!http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1238035034.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1238035070.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1238035109.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1238035144.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1238035180.jpg

The Navy typically performs their own defense against air assets while at sea. Sniper was referring to the air superiority provided to ground troops.

Tough break about tha test pilot.

Jim
Assume the potential exists that we might actually actually have a near peer war that does not go nuclear...With a 10-15 year development time, after hostilities begin..it is too late to find out the enemy has more capable weapons.

I saw one come through BAFB a few weeks back...I sure hope they have one here for a demo at their yearly airshow in May.

200 additional F22s is, say, $25BN. I think that would be a good use of money.

"have a near peer war that does not go nuclear."

All the near peers that could threaten air superiority have nuclear weapons - when in the history of war did the losing side in a near peer war hold back from using effective weapons? Why did we desperately and immediately resupply Israel when they appeared to be losing during the Yom Kippur war?

It is road side bombs and IEDs that are killing US troops not Taliban fighter planes or Russian submarines. Current military spending priorities don't meet current needs. 150 million dollars can put a lot of "boots on the ground" with proper equipment and support for the current mission.

There has yet to be a true near-peer war where both sides had sufficient nuclear weapons to ensure mutually-assured desruction.

Concerning ourself only about IEDs and the Taliban puts us into the same bind we found ourselves in in the desert...wearing jungle fatigues and driving tanks and lightweight humvees. We always seem to prepare to fight the last war, not the next. Unfortunately our enemies seem to change and they tend to adapt...

We can put more "boots on the ground"...but we have no one to wear them. Force multipliers are the only resort.

[QUOTE=charleskieffner;4568005]a ROUSH built P-51 MUSTANG lands! HOLY BAT POO! am i dreaming??? WTF? this is 1 of 3 P-51's still flying on the planet that actually fought in world war II. the others are memorex phonies. this was mfg. in 1944, based in england and flew over normandy on june 6th 1944. hence the black white d-day ID markings.

they dont get any cleaner than this one !


i did ask " where are the .50 cals ?"


is this really the place for this? i'm surprised you didn't make an advertisment for H&K while you were at it

[QUOTE=Embraer;4568208][QUOTE=charleskieffner;4568005]a ROUSH built P-51 MUSTANG lands! HOLY BAT POO! am i dreaming??? WTF? this is 1 of 3 P-51's still flying on the planet that actually fought in world war II. the others are memorex phonies. this was mfg. in 1944, based in england and flew over normandy on june 6th 1944. hence the black white d-day ID markings.

they dont get any cleaner than this one !


i did ask " where are the .50 cals ?"


is this really the place for this? i'm surprised you didn't make an advertisment for H&K while you were at it[/QUOTE

i didnt try to do this here. it just happened, as i thought i clicked "post new topic" while fumbling with my hk 21e safety and linking belts and reloading more ammo that arrived via the black 5 ton trucks.

it is aviation related, it is a fighter, and i am saddened as anyone if not more so about the loss of a high asset fighter and its pilot. the aviation community is a lot smaller than you even realize. as with all crashes be they civilian or miltary, sooner or later i will get the ntsb/faa report on it across my puter screen. ie. the day after the pilatus crashing in bozeman, montana killing all aboard, a pilatus owner and i both surmise that the pilot either had a medical or catastrophic failure of "something" that led to the crash. it sure as hell wasnt icing on the wings because of the bellows installed on leading edges of pilatus aircraft. their stall speed is roughly 61 knots and at that point it goes into "shaker" mode to alert pilot to impending serious problems. soooooooo..........there ya have it. crucify me.

no big deal....it just seemed out of place.

btw: i do realize how small aviation is. i'm an airline pilot/cka.

Considering that the stimulus is supposed to put Americans back to work (yeah right) it would be a damn good use of money. They are built here after all. Of course, our fools in Washington also seem hell bent on destroying general and business aviation, and we build most planes in America too.

Looks to me like $150MM buys only about 300 additional heads for the Army.

The Army projects it will need $40 billion annually above current spending levels once a planned 74,200 troops are added, according to a draft service report for the Obama transition team.

The report says the planned force of 1.1 million soldiers would require a budget of “$170 billion to $180 billion per year to sustain,” well above the 2009 budget of about $140 billion.

A draft copy of the 43-page document, labeled “predecisional” and dated November 2008, was obtained by Defense News, a sister publication of Army Times.

In early 2007, the Bush administration proposed swelling the Army, as well as the Marine Corps, by early next decade. Congress approved the plan. Army officials have hinted for months that a larger force will require a bigger annual budget. What has been missing, however, are specific cost estimates like those included in the transition paper.

Naturally, with the grow-the-Army plan, the U.S. will need personnel dollars and extra dollars for equipping, said one Army official familiar with service planning.

Independent defense budget analysts have estimated that just recruiting and training 10,000 soldiers costs $1.2 billion a year. The entire proposed increase is expected to cost about $80 billion through 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office and independent budget analysts.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/12/army_obama_memo_122208w/

the LAST TIME i made good bucks in aerospace was during the reagan era.............any questions???????

Pilot was David Cooley, test pilot for Lockheed Martin.
"David, 49, was an outstanding pilot who joined Lockheed Martin in 2003 after a 21-year career with the U.S. Air Force."

Condolences to his family and friends.

The NORKS and Iranians both have large pretty capable airforces.

In both Korea and Vietnam the losing side did not use nukes. In fact when the US was thrown back after the Chinese invasion when MacArthur wanted to use nukes he was not allowed either.

The guys still need air support. An F-22 drops bombs as good as anything else, and can actually get from it's on station location to bombs release faster than any other asset in the US arsenal.

Supercruise baby.