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.

[SkyPilot]

I don't know all of the particulars.

However, the F-22s and F-35s that were non-flyable for maintenance issues could have been rapidly readied to be loaded and transported onto C-5s and C-17s.

The reason (I suspect) this was not done was that the Wing Commander of Tyndall did not anticipate Michael being 1 knot of wind shy of a full Cat 5, and he didn't anticipate the base being almost completely destroyed (including the hangers).

The Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) at Scott AFB could have been contacted, and they would have diverted other missions, and generated new ones, to use outside cargo carriers (including civilian contract airlift) to gather the fighters from Tyndall, and this could have been very, very quickly. It's what Air Mobility Command does - for the entire US military, every day, worldwide.

I suspect there is already an investigation underway. You don't lost $1.5 Billion in valuable aircraft assets and say "My bad." And if the Air Force doesn't launch an investigation, Congress soon will (trust me).

[SkyPilot]

Thanks for the ping EveningStar.

[pfflier]

They already have them they are called Air Depots. That is where major overhauls are done on fleets and each depot specializes in airplane types.

For example there is one close by to Tyndall at Warner Robbins AFB Georgia. The specific air depot designated for F-22 support is Hill AFB Utah just outside of Ogden.

[PIF]

Loved that maudlin line about how commanders value -people- more than just some old airplanes. ... That secret skin excuse reeks of rationalization for piss poor execution.

---

Yes we all know that multimillion dollar stealth jets are far more important that the aircrews and their families - glad you are not in charge.

Nonetheless it is a reality they have to deal with, not a rationalization.

[PIF]

That number is the factory number not actual weight of the heavily modified plane

[PIF]

Give you full credit and you can take the heat and flames coming my way

[MuttTheHoople]

Base CO must've been General Ray "Schoolbus" Nagin.

[saminfl]

I was at Naha AB Okinawa in 1956/57. When a typhoon would come we would put as many of our F-86D’s in the hanger as possible. The remainder would have lots of sandbags around each wheel and on each wing. If the eye went through we would go out, remove the sandbags, turn the airplane and replace the sandbags.

[Jet Jaguar]

Ping

[sailor76]

They only had 48hrs (or less) notice it was going to be a bad storm. Give’em a break.

[golux]

This is my sentiment exactly: disgusted.

And I am not a stranger to the F22 project.

[rollo tomasi]

Not much notice, the only thing you could do was bury the ones that could not fly (At best with at most a two day cushion).



... because southwestern Caribbean Sea come up quickly and this one in particularly started really peaking 24 hours before landfall.

[rollo tomasi]

Sorry...because southwestern Caribbean Sea hurricanes...

[Secret Agent Man]

This is massively unacceptable. 15% of our f22s? wtf?

[GBA]

Wow! What a lucky break. A gift from nature!

Now they’ll have to start the line up again to replace such a YUGE loss of a critical component of our national defense.

Yep, such a shame this happened. What a terrible thing....

Forgive me for dreaming about the next model F-22, loaded with fixes, upgrades and all the new tech they’ve put into the F-35, along with some even newer stuff they’ve come up with since!

[rlmorel]

I understand aviation quite well. I did not say removing the wings was an option. And I didn’t say they were toys or were to be treated as such.

Towing military planes on roads is not unheard of, we used to tow them on highways to AIMD facilities some distance away. You aren’t towing them like a pop-up camper, and that wasn’t what I was implying.

And I certainly understand about aircraft not being able to just “fly a short hop”. I know all these were hard down aircraft.

What I readily admit I don’t understand are Florida highway traffic patterns, bridge structures and the like, especially in the path of a Hurricane. I know what weight limits are for the Interstate Highway System, but don’t know the situation on roads in and out of Tyndall. I agree that organizing, loading, and having a caravan of flatbeds on those two lane northbound roads is unrealistic.

But I do know I am damned mad about having an Air Force base like that on the Gulf Coast in the Florida panhandle. With inflight refueling so readily available and the super cruise capability of those planes, what possible advantage is there to having those planes in that location? That it irritatingly stupid.

[rlmorel]

Yes. People are angry about this. Losing a billion or two due to stupidity in a country that is trillions of dollars in debt does that to those who are asked to pay for it.

[TheNext]

The wreckage is the Defense Industry’s jobs program.

[rlmorel]

Well, I guess we aren’t deliberately shoving them off the decks of carriers like we did after WWII to make sure we had room in the fleet for new planes.

[DownInFlames]

The hell you say. NOAA had 5 days out when the strike was going to be. At that time it was a cat 3.