Posted on 06/09/2005 5:26:40 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
6/8/2005 - LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) -- A flight control system problem caused an F/A-22 Raptor to crash on the runway at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., on Dec. 20, according to an Air Force report released June 8.
The pilot ejected and sustained minor injuries. The $133.3-million aircraft, assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis, was destroyed when it crashed. Additional damage was limited to an arresting cable, runway guide sign, runway light and the runway itself.
The flight control system malfunction was caused by a brief power interruption to the aircraft’s three rate sensor assemblies, which caused them to fail. The assemblies measure angular acceleration in all three axes: pitch, roll and yaw. With three failed assemblies, the F/A-22 is not able to fly, investigators said.
When the pilot shut down engines for maintenance servicing, he left the auxiliary power unit running. Based on technical order guidance, he believed the power unit would supply continuous power to the flight control system. However, there was a less-than-one second power interruption to the assemblies during engine shutdown.
There is no automatic warning of this condition. To discover it, the pilot would have had performed a diagnostic test. The pilot accomplished a successful test before engine shutdown, and because the power unit was on, he believed a second test was unnecessary. (Courtesy of Air Combat Command News Service)
Fly by wire and computers are great when they work.
Sounds like they need to go to CompUSA and get a UPS unit and wire it in.
The lower figure is usually 'replacement cost' while the higher figure that you quoted is the project cost divided by the no. of units to be procured. All that engineering cost has already been 'sunk', so the only figure that is relevant is the replacement cost.
Sorry, I should have used a /sarcasim on my post.
I've been sticking it to the anti-F22 crowd for overstating the actual cost of the aircraft. They want to make it seem like if we don't buy 4 of them we save a billion dollars, which is raw BS.
We'll probably end-up building more F22's than current plans call for. The reason: Democrats LOVE a weapons system that is actually being produced, because it means JOBS. Part of the reason that it's so tough to get a new weapons system online is that it must compete with the old stuff. The bottom line is that nobody knows what the total cost of a single F22 because nobody can tell you how many we are going to eventually make -- only how many we PLAN to make right at this moment.
RTFM?
It's a new aircraft with totally new systems integrated in them. At least thankfully the pilot made it ok. When this bird comes online.......untouchable :-)
The inside word is that it can take on 5 F-15s and the
F-15s only know they have been downed when the pilot of the F-22 tells them. The F-15s report they never even saw the F-22 on radar or otherwise.
Like you say - untouchable.
Have a feeling we will go for about 400 planes. We'll do a period of full production, followed by a period of low production levels so we can decide to build more in a hurry, or export to the UK or Oz. Sort of the way we are building F-15s right now.
The F-15 Eagle is a great plane - teamed with the AWACs they are tough - I'm curious on how the F-22 looks on a AWAC's radar - how close before they get a return.....
That SuperCruise - able to go supersonic without afterburner along with the stealth is simply amazing. You have to break a few eggs to make a omlete - I hope they learn allot from this hardware failure.
Don't know about an AWACS picking up an F-22. My guess is that it would be too late to stop an F-22 AMRAAM.
Supercruise is actually a good egress capability. Once you nail the suckers, they have a rough idea where you are, so the faster you get out of there, the better off you are.
BTW - it was a software error. It was a parameter put int he program that was wrong. Apparently the fix was easy and done very quickly.
That would seem to be an overload on the Liberal mind.
It wasn't a computer malfunction, but a sensor malfunction, apparently due to a problem with the system handbook.
All new weapons systems have issues, I get that. (When the Harrier was new, they were crashing all over the place and look at what a great plane it turned out to be for the Marines.) With all the money that has been pumped into this plane, why have those issues dogged the plane for it's whole life? I'm not saying we should dump the F-22 but some of this stuff really bugs me.
That's right, you can get out of there without providing a huge infrared target with afterburner. Definitely a plus. This plane has some issues but I think it's going to turn out to be a really great plane.
I find that odd. You would think such a significant failure would pop some kind of FCS caution. I also wonder would the same thing happen if you had a dual generator failure or had a large electrical spike (lightning strike).
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