Hurricane Michael Mangled at Least 17 F-22 Raptors That Failed to Flee Their Base

Yahoo.com ^ | 10/15/2018 | Kyle Mizokami

[Beave Meister]

The U.S. Air Force is assessing what damage more than a dozen F-22 Raptor fighters suffered when Tyndall Air Force Base sustained a direct hit from Hurricane Michael. Up to $2 billion in fighter jets were trapped on the ground because of maintenance issues and forced to ride out the Category 4 hurricane. Photographs show the hangars where F-22s were parked suffered severe damage.

First, the good news: Although Tyndall Air Force Base took a hard hit from the hurricane, all 3,600 military personnel and their families living on the base were successfully evacuated beforehand. The 93 Air Force personnel who stayed behind to keep an eye on the base are all safe and accounted for.

On the other hand: Up to 17 of Tyndall’s F-22s might have sustained damage or been destroyed during the storm. The aircraft, each of which cost $150 million, were unable to escape with the rest of the base’s F-22 fleet to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The jets left behind were parked inside hangars and officials hoped for the best.

[Beave Meister]

WTF....if this is true, heads will roll.

[bigdaddy45]

Why would heads roll? This hurricane went from nothing to a Cat 4 in about 4 days. You don’t just put an airplane together at the last minute and fly it out.

[Snickering Hound]

Let's base America's most advanced and literally unreplaceable fighter on a Florida beach, what could go wrong?

[sailor76]

Maybe, but I think there is a good reason the planes didn't evac.

Probably because they weren't airworthy.

[EveningStar]

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[al baby]

I would hope 400 million dollar taxpayer owned jets would be stored and worked on in much much better hangers

[Pilgrim's Progress]

Looks like they won’t have to go far for spare parts.

[SkyDancer]

Here

[moovova]

Reminds me of Roy Nagin's Chocolate City school buses that failed to roll and carry the stranded N.O. citizens out of harm's way....

[afsnco]

Bingo. Planes break. Parts fail. What we used to do with B-52s was use one or two as “cann queens,” meaning cannibalization queens. We’d rob those birds to get other birds flying, and hope to eventually get the cann queen flying again. That number seems like a lot, though. If they’d done some more cannibalization, they could’ve gotten most of that 17 out of harm’s way.

[rlmorel]

With that kind of money at stake, you put them on flatbeds to drive them out, hook them up to a tow cart to tow them out over regular roads, get a Skyhook...or SOMETHING. Grrr, this just pisses me off.

How many millions of dollars is that, for nothing????

[rdcbn]

Thanks to Obama funding priorities and the abrubt termination of the entire F-22 when Democrats took full control of our government , the F-22 program has not been properly funded or supported.

These planes were either grounded due lack of spares or were hanger queens that were being cannibalized for parts to keep other F-22s flying.

Looks like there may be lots of spare parts aircraft available to keep a significantly downsized Raptor fleet flying

The mind boggles :-(

[PAR35]

So you don’t believe in accountability for poor planning?

[bkopto]

Well, there goes 10% of the Raptors built.

Thanks, Robert Gates.

[KC Burke]

The issue is that the AF was already getting reamed out for having such a large percentage of its top aircraft not combat ready the month prior. This many sitting awaiting repair and maintenance is stupid.

I would think that contingency plans would have been in order, it isn’t like this base is not on the Gulf Coast.

[pfflier]

The F-22 is a keystone in our tactical air superiority plan. A loss of 17 airframes is a substantial loss to the fleet. Right now it is irreplaceable. Some may be reconstituted from Davis Monthan or on site at Tyndall, but their infrastructure damage may prohibit the second option.

Time to reopen the production line.

[rlmorel]

Yes. Worst case scenario for me is you bring some oversize flatbeds in.

Or you hook them up to a tractor and tow them out on regular roads if you have to.

I simply can’t believe they just said “Oh well.”

And for what it is worth, I have had to brake ride a hangar queen on a public road.

[Ingtar]

No, you take off the wings and truck it out.

[Snickering Hound]

Bingo. Planes break. Parts fail. What we used to do with B-52s was use one or two as “cann queens,” meaning cannibalization queens. We’d rob those birds to get other birds flying, and hope to eventually get the cann queen flying again. That number seems like a lot, though. If they’d done some more cannibalization, they could’ve gotten most of that 17 out of harm’s way.

F-22 was bleeding edge stuff when built and has horrendous readiness.

Squadrons are actually smaller than other fighter squadrons because of the maintenance requirements.

At any time, there are about 80 ready to go out of the entire fleet.

[PAR35]

More important than cost, that’s right at 10% of the fleet. Since the planes can’t be replaced at any cost, the charges should probably be based on treason, not wastage.

But, to answer your question, it appears that the financial loss is probably about $2.5 billion.