Posted on 10/16/2018 2:01:55 PM PDT by Beave Meister
that may be the dumbest thing I’ve read on the internet in months. and that really is saying something.
“Probably because they weren’t airworthy.”
17 out of 195 built. And that’s just at one AFB, unless that’s where they send them.
Why? Depends on why they were not flight-worthy and that gets into supply-line and a lot of other factors.
How do they get one to the depot?
Yep. The squadron I work at will have one "hangar queen" that's long-term down and used for parts. This aircraft will rotate every few months. We'll put it back together and another will take its place. Additionally, at any given time we'll have another aircraft going through a scheduled maintenance inspection and it's taken apart and pieces are on shelves all over the hangar. So out of nine aircraft, at least two of them aren't in any shape to fly anywhere anytime soon.
Removing and replacing wings are not routine maintenance items. The only situation, that I can think of, which could warrant wing removal is severe over G. In that case, wing maintenance would conduct an over G inspection, in accordance with the aircraft tech manuals. If the aircraft passes that inspection, then the aircraft is returned to flight status.
If the aircraft fails the over G inspection, then the depot would deploy a team to further inspect the aircraft to see if it is safe enough for a one-time flight. If it is, the aircraft is flown to the depot for repair.
If the aircraft is not safe to fly, the depot would send a team to the base to remove the wings, horizontal stabs, vertical stabs and package everything for transport...most likely via C-5.
Depot maintenance is scheduled based on total airframe hours. I don’t know that actual numbers for the F-22 but for this discussion we can assume 2000 hours. At 2000 airframe hours, the aircraft is flown to the depot for a complete overhaul. The aircraft is completely disassembled, inspected and reassembled. Depending on internal damage (normal wear and tear) this process could take 3 months or longer.
Highway transit would be tough to depend on, especially if you throw in late evacuations and so on. Rail, however, should be a possibility. I suspect that Tyndall has its jet fuel delivered by rail spur - I know the old L&N (now CSX) tracks run through the Florida panhandle just north of Panama City. Even if all they did was roll the hangar queens down to the Gulfport, Mississippi freight yard, that would be far enough to avoid a direct hit.
I suspect, as one of the other posters pointed out (wardaddy45?)...”Sh*t happens” and that will be it. Nobody will be brought to task. Maybe they shouldn’t be.
However, I like to think that, if they said in a message to people with large machinery and means at their disposal: “These planes are worth $130 million each. To anyone who can get these planes out of harm’s way in a short amount of time where they could protected enough to be successfully restored to flight status afterwards, we will award you 5% of the cost of each plane successfully restored to flight status if the cost of doing so does not exceed X amount of dollars of additional maintenance beyond what it would have cost if there hadn’t been a hurricane.”
I will bet there would have been people coming up with so many different schemes it would have been difficult to pick out any moderately viable ones from the flood of ideas...
Money has a way of doing that. I suppose it would have provided entertainment if nothing else...the power of Captialism.
I was angry at the appalling waste of money when I first read it, but I suppose as others have said...there wasn’t much to be done. I’m over it now. It is just money.
ditto that Sky, I have been following Tyler Rogoway ( best dang aero writer out their IMHO at the moment, guys like Budd Davidson are good too, in the Gen-Av arena ) on this, this is heartbreaking. To think maybe these 22’s have been scavenged for spares and 10% of the fleet is down because of Obama and what he did too spare parts spending is a sin. I don’t want any more info or pictures, what is going on here is in the category of “loose lips sink ships”. I want them to fix this without our eyes or ears in on any of this. I don’t want to know, fix it!
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