Posted on 10/05/2020 1:30:45 PM PDT by The_Media_never_lie
Thanks. Whew! I don’t know if my friends son is still piloting them but...
The F-35B pilot safely ejected
Whew!
No.
SA technology is mostly SA clues for a package or jets or an overview of the battle-space.
Agree. Tense moments when flying close to another aircraft, especially when re-fueling, have to make a conscience decision to “relax” so no complacency.
I used to ride in the back of the EC-130H Compass Call platform. We had a lot of electrical equipment back there. When we went for aerial refueling, all the equipment was shut down. One crew had a leak in the piping that dumped a couple of inches worth of fuel in the cargo bay of the 130. Had to hand pump to open the ramp and angle the plane nose up to dump the fuel out the back. That was, of course, after the emergency break-away.
Thankfully, none of my flight ever had a refueling mishap. We did practice the emergency break away several times, though. That’s enough to make ya puke.
Wiki is wrong.
Go to SAF/FM documents and search for F-35B costs. . .
“Well, let’s give them some time. It may be a career, maybe not. Unexpected things do happen that can bite even a good pilot doing all the right things”.
Thanks for the good, sensible post.
Not necessarily. The military is very short of pilots and accidents do happen.
If every pilot during WW II who made a mistake was booted out, we’d have lost the war.
I spent 33 years in the industrial side of the military industrial complex. In an absolute pull-out-all-the-stops-we’re-all-gonna-die emergency, we could probably turn around a weapon’s program in a year. It would be colossally expensive. But refurbishing an f-18 is possible, but it would probably take a year for each one. (Naturally, you would start on a whole bunch at once.) The normal cycle from development to delivery is ten years.
Most likely if we are getting attrited (yes, it’s a word) we would not need a huge number of fifth generation planes. Most likely what has happened is someone is building massive numbers of drones of all sizes and our size and technology advantage is not as great as it is now. That’s the nature of warfare. Someone develops armor which gets more expensive and elaborate and someone else develops a gun or the long bow and the armor, which previously ruled the battlefield, is now useless. Also drones will get cheaper and more capable and they are almost impossible to defend against.
If we’re talking planes I suspect the thing to do would be to ramp up the production of the very capable propeller planes the AF is buying for special purpose low intensity theaters now.
The thing that has made America a super power is not so much technology, but an economic model that consistently beats all the other models. Capitalism. The way to defeat the US is to destroy, one, capitalism, and, two, the family, and, three the education system. All of those destructions are underway. Trump is the fist president to fight back. I think from that perspective he is better than Reagan. Although, Reagan had other more pressing issues, which he handled well.
Good post.
The US Navy gave my Dad five PBYs.
Yup. Read an article last week about a navy f18 near Japan refueling from a tanker and the hose to the basket disengaged and beat the A/C and canopy. Shattered the canopy. Pilot got cold real quick had to drop down to 10K and divert Japan.
The basket was still stuck on the recepticle.
$#!t happens.
Wow. Your Dad was quite a man. I’d bet he was a young pilot, too. Those young men were gutsy and tough. Cool airplane, the Catalina.
...in your Daddy's Ferrari :-)
It’s ok, the Marine Corps is more interested in coed training locations than war fighting. They lagged behind in political correctness for a long time but now have it as their top priority. Disgusting.
I’ve seen the damage firsthand from basket refueling.
Windscreens and canopies are expensive
Along with the ejection seat smell......From the pilot.
The first four were “attrited”?
the “unit flyaway cost” of an F-35 for the Air Force’s version of the fighter, not including the engine, declined by $12.1 million to $57.4 million. The Air Force plans to purchase 1,763 jets, the most of the U.S.’s planned 2,456 aircraft. The Marine Corps version dropped to $72.1 million from $80 million, and the Navy model fell to $72.3 million from $79.5 million.
Twenty-seven. He was training other PBY pilots as a "Cadet" when Kaneohe (TH) was attacked—decimating the squadron he was to ultimately be assigned. (VP-11).
Book excerpt: Found inside –
Page 185 DATE TYPEBUNO BASE LOST AREA PILOT FATE Flannery, USNR; Co-Pilot ENS George S. Clute, USNR; ENS ... 11 August 1942. ... was now with VP-23 and sitting on NAS Pearl Harbor, Ford Island, Oahu, HI. ... LTJG G. B. KENNINGTON S 09/19/43 PBY-5 08327 BRISBANE AUSTRALIA SW PAC While performing night missions, parachute flares are dropped out of ... A. Christensen; LT Miller; AP1c L. A. Conter; ACMM G. L. Chase; AMM3c A. F. Sellers; ARM2c John C. Lawson, Jr.; …
Flares caught fire aft, plane burned and sank. No casualties.
AP1c L. A. Conter was on the Arizona, converted to "enlisted" pilot.
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