Anybody lose an F-18 fighter jet?
 

For those who served on a carrier or other ship, that carries planes and helicopters, how often does this occur?

$70M Navy F-18 fighter jet falls into Red Sea off the USS Harry S Truman

The F/A-18 Super Hornet was aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, which has been operating in the Red Sea amid attacks on shipping by the Houthis in Yemen

https://www.foxnews.com/us/navy-f-18-fighter-jet-falls-red-sea-off-uss-harry-s-truman

We lost an A7 and its plane captain as it was being re-spotted. Happened at night, big seas and the tow bar broke. Was storming and the canopy was down. Plane went off the elevator (flight deck level) and we weren’t able to recover him,,, just gone.

Losing aircraft and personnel is a semi regular event on a carrier unfortunately. At least it seemed so in the 4.5 yrs I was aboard the “E”.

Supposedly the Truman was making a hard turn to evade some incoming Houthi attack, which is what led to the plane and attached tractor going over the side. Glad both of the crewmembers were OK. But if I'm Houthi, I'm scoring that as a "kill."

WTF can a Houthi dingy do to a 95k ton carrier? And where were the escorts?

Someone is going to be fired tomorrow.

China is watching US Navy vs Houthis and thinking “hmmmm yup Taiwan”.

Back in the late 70s, my sister had a friend who was an officer on a carrier. He told her they would lose a plane on each deployment.

Our entire country has become a reality TV farce to entertain the Chinese. Ratings are the highest ever.

We always lost a jet or two during flight ops while in Viet Nam. Cold cat, fire on the flight deck, Bomb hung up under a wing when landing. All kinds of fun stuff. Amazing to see an A-3 whale landing on the carrier. Almost always took the last arresting cable, just short on the end of the angle deck. About 10 more feet and off the deck it goes..

I lost a Harrier for lack of enough points.

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The article I came across did mot specify the nature of the attack. Somehow, I assumed it was some sort of missile or drone, but you may be correct that it was sea-based. Either way, it's a bit embarrassing for the US Navy.

To Navy folks and Tom Clancy fans out there: Is the concept of the aircraft carrier still viable in this day and age ?

I know little of modern warfare, but it seems to me in an age of satellites (it's not like we're sending PBYs to find the Soryu), the carrier locations would be widely known to enemies, and they would be very vulnerable to a saturation of modern long range missile strikes, long distance air attacks, subs, and especially a very lucky houthi on a dinghy on a stormy night, or cheap a$$ drones sent in thousands, costing less than a round of phalanx (if that still exists)... Shoot, the brits who are good at navy stuff lost a ship against an old argentine Etendard plane armed with an Exocet missile in the falklands, imagine now.

I get the projection of power aspect in peace time, but in war time I "feel" Carriers are a giant target and would be the first ships to be sunk (or disabled).. I'm probably wrong, please enlighten me.

The article that I read said that it was an air-based (missile/drone) attack.

We let China slowly creep up and take the power from the US. They are in control. Watch out.

Interesting to think about how China could invade Taiwan and if the US could hit the invasion fleet and at what cost to the Navy.

But China may not need to invade Taiwan if it can choke off shipping to Taiwan, cripple Taiwan’s economy, and keep Taiwan in an economic depression until a Hong Kong-like agreement looks preferable to permanent misery.

Since the Navy can’t stop the Houthi attacks on shipping, it can’t stop China from doing the same.

I was on the USS Kitty Hawk in the early 90's, and we lost a couple F14's. I don't remember if it happened on the same West Pac or not. Still scary. We also had two guys sucked into air intakes......yikes.... but, somehow, the pilots shut down the engines quick enough? Seems crazy quick to me. The two men only had broken bones from what I remember.

Chris

I was hoping someone in the know would pick up on the above Q re: viability of a carrier nowadays... I was just watching something about Ukrainian marine drones that just a few days ago took down one - possibly 2 - russian SU30s. Basically a canoe with 2 sidewinders taking down a multi million $ jet...Earlier versions jsut ram ships and blow up... The Ukraine theater is showing that the old model (fighters, bombers, tanks, big ships) are very vulnerable to modern drone tech, from the crude stuff dumping grenade in a trench or flying into an armored vehicle, to more sophisticated ones, all with a much better ROI - why risk a carrier or a modern fighter vs a cheap drone (or 5 or 100). The other concern with these marine drones, per the analysis I was watching, was the future potential for terrorist attacks against airliners wherever an airport is close to water because that tech eventually becomes more widely available... Scary times, looks like traditional war is going to become a game of drone economics..
Talking about Taiwan, guess who sits close and is a master a deploying drones ? Starts with "Chi" and every new year they show coordinated drones by the 1000s doing pretty pictures in the sky, surely they have military versions of that..

Everything I've read about wargaming a China-Taiwan-US war has US carriers sitting far offshore, trying to stay out of range. Given the limited combat radius of fighters, not sure how much of a factor the carriers could be? Also given sheer numbers - China can send more shore-ship missiles than the carrier group carries in air defense missiles, when the escort ships' missile cells are empty, the group has to run.

Well, I’m a bit biased based on the ship I served on and I’ll admit that just because I served, that doesn’t make me a brilliant military tactician. Having said that, I believe Carriers are still very much viable. Got to remember, the carrier travels with a complete task force including subs that effectively increases the protective range of the Carrier itself. The range of the aircraft is no different than land launched and with in air refueling, is quite substantial. There is also the matter of overflying other sovereign nations with military strike aircraft. Depending on the target, coming in from international waters is a plus.

Try forward deploying several land based squadrons (not talking super heavy, long range bombers) in short order to respond to world events. Also, our Carriers are capable of delivering nukes with short delivery time to target. No early launch detect using conventional satellite or over horizon radar.

I’m glad to hear this.