NEXT GENERATION F/A-22 RAPTOR: Stealth fighter crashes

Las VegasReview Journal ^ | 12/21/04 | Brean

[investigateworld]

These are complex machines. During WW2, out Navy lost more A/C to accidents than to the Japanese. Still, we know the outcome. Just happy the guy is OK!

[xrp]

Whew, thankfully the pilot ejected safely.

...while a quarter billion taxpayer dollars goes up in flames.

Our military definitely needs less expensive warplanes.

[Tallguy]

Our military definitely needs less expensive warplanes.

The $250 million dollar price tag for this airplane includes a lot of project development costs which have already been sunk. The cost to replace the aircraft is far less. Still a lot of $$$, but less.

I think that pilotless aircraft are the wave of the future. But the pilots on this site will tell you that the air combat mission is probably the last task that drones will able to achieve.

[xrp]

Pilotless aircraft? YIKES!

HK from Terminator movies.

[Mad Mammoth]

Our military definitely needs less expensive warplanes.

Don't buy into that crap. That scam was proposed by noneother than former Senator Gary 'Monkey Business' Hart, who urged that our armed forces should rely less on high technology, and simplify everything to the point where our pilots would be flying somewhat more modern versions of the F-86 and F-100 jet fighters.

Yes, the planes (and other military equipment) are expensive as Hell, but what price do we put on our armed forces who defend our freedom with those weapons, and at what point do we declare the cost of victory over our enemies to be prohibitive?

We're at war, damn the deficits, we need to be on a war-footing industrial production wise, and that is one of the few issues I have with our esteemed President.

[xrp]

Good points, I take back my comment.

[JeffersonRepublic.com]

"during testing an F22 having a strange instability on takeoff where it went up and down in sort of a sine wave"

You are correct there was a crash, which was cause by the software that controlled the fly-by-wire: The space shuttle had the same problem. It cause the pilot to over steer.

[jettester]

Actually, TG, the largest majority of reasons why aircraft designs look the way they do has less to do with creating a platform to deliver weapons effectively than to build a vehicle that can survive battle and bring a pilot home again. This supports your first statement about the wave of the future which I agree with.

However, aircraft designs would depart radically from existing ones if they were created to search and destroy other "flying targets" without the benefit of a pilot on board. A pilot provides the highest level of intelligence (on site) whether to shoot or not shoot - engineering has not as yet found a suitable replacement that gives the same level of assurance.

This is similar to the argument about why commercial airliners are designed with the cockpit up front. Engineers, if they had their druthers, would probably put the pilots as near the engines/control surfaces as possible to minimize the equipment between input and output devices. I heard it argued that the "only reason" the planes are built this way today is because the flying public has greater confidence knowing the pilot is in the front and would "hit" whatever first, thus believing flying is safer because of this design.

[Tommyjo]

Tom Morgenfeld was the pilot. The aircraft in question was too badly damaged. It was used as a ground instructional airframe before it ended up in the USAF Museum, Dayton, Ohio

[tophat9000]

It's not good news for the Raptor program because the crash is likely mechanical since it barely occurred after takeoff. In fact, my source was taxying on the runway when it happened.

This is why I am inclined to think this may have been caused by a maintenance issue/mistake i.e something was not squared away right to fail at takeoff, maintained crew no up to speed on the new design service issue...

Inherent design issue failed this late in the game usual happen in an unusually or unforeseen event not on a simple takeoff.... that stated... I could very well be full of it :>

[aspiring.hillbilly]

A proto B-29 crashed, and the type went on to distunguish itself as the bomber that ended the Pacific War by dropping 2 atomic bombs on Japan.