Posted on 10/13/2018 5:40:05 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
Sitting in the ruined airplane hangars of Tyndall Air Force Base, which was shredded on Wednesday when Hurricane Michael swept across the Florida Panhandle, may be some of the Air Force’s most advanced — and most expensive — stealth fighter jets.
Tyndall is home to 55 F-22 stealth fighters, which cost a dizzying $339 million each. Before the storm, the Air Force sent at least 33 of the fighters to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Air Force officials have not disclosed the whereabouts of the remaining 22 planes, other than to say that a number of aircraft were left at the base because of maintenance or safety reasons.
An Air Force spokeswoman, Maj. Malinda Singleton, would not confirm that any of the aircraft left behind were F-22s.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Thanks, I always wondered what happened to those poor things.
You want to get an accurate reading of how pampered the flyboys are? Watch what happens to the wing commander and ask a Navy vet what would happen to him if those airplanes were ships. This wasn’t a tragedy, it was a failure.
Just erect 22 sets of tailfins beneath the decrepit hangar roofs, and truck out the others, let nature do the rest.
Yes, and from inside this twitter feed, the following:
“Yes, I read the article. It’s not accurate, sorry. I was stationed at Tyndall, and have friends stationed there. Out of the 55 F-22’s, 6 were unable to fly...not 22. And it would take over a week to dissemble an F-22 b/c of the stealth coatings.”
6 not 22 left. and 6 that could not fly.
I was about to post the same thing. People went to bed hearing cat 2, woke up to carpet 3, and it was cat 4 just hours before it hit. Plus it was projected to hit at 3, but hit just after noon. Crazy how fast it ramped up.
Those heads are probably long long gone. They are the heads of the people who contracted for, built and accepted hangars in hurricane country that could not withstand a hurricane. But that is the dirty political underbelly of defense contracting. Probably goes back to a senator or two.
Yes and it was very close to a cat 5.
However, according to the Facebook Air Force Forum page, four F-22 Raptors from the 43rd Fighter Squadron were unable to fly out of the way of the storm and may have been damaged. Three Raptors were in one hangar that had significant damage, according to the forum, and a fourth rode out the storm in a separate hangar that seemed to sustain less damage, based on imagery on the forum. The Air Force would not confirm that the F-22s were damaged in the storm.
Photos shared with Defense News on social media also showed a heavily damaged QF-16 aerial target aircraft, with its front nose-cone sheared off, as well as a hangar with an F-22 inside and its roof largely missing. A separate source told Defense News that as many as ten F-22s may have been damaged by the storm.
If the 4 F-22s were damaged while undercover in the hangers, it’s likely to be only superficial meaning repairable for future use.
The usual lead time on Trump-bashing for an oncoming oncoming tropical storm or hurricane is two weeks. The media were so involved with Trump-bashing over Kavanaugh that they were caught flat-footed when Michael hit!
Wait for the LSM to decry that Trump didn’t tell them about the storm/hurricane was coming so they could bash him over it!
So, just for grins. Is there a reason the US military stations its most rare and expensive fighter aircraft in the heart of the worst hurricane prone region of the USA, rather than in Nevada or some such?
Just wondering. Seems like you would want to keep uber-rare billion dollar aircraft in the desert west where natural disasters are rare. But hey, that’s just me.
And yes, hindsight is 20-20. But still and all, everybody knows Florida is ground zero for devastating hurricanes. Seems kind of bone-headed to station your most expensive and rare hardware there.
The aircraft in that video were QF-16 drones. The flyable drones were taken to Louisiana and the ones remaining in that hanger were not airworthy.
Walter Short, the Army General in charge of Hawaii was run out of the Army after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Different times.
America's most effective and literally irreplaceable air superiority fighter was left in the path of a major hurricane with days of warning.
Will Generals and Colonels be demoted to Airman and sent to Fairbanks to de-ice airplanes?
You know they won't.
What I don't understand is why the USAF wouldn't build some hardened aircraft shelters that could withstand a cat 5 hurricane.
The shelter above is typical of the shelters in Europe and could easily withstand cat 5 winds.
If aircraft maintenance shows that 20% of the F-22 are down for maintenance, then Tyndall should have 11 of these shelters.
To answer your question about stationing aircraft in the south...airspace. Pure and simple. In the late 40’s into the 50’s Americans complained about sonic booms destroying their windows, china, glasses. The DOD had to pay claims to reimburse for these occurrences. In order for mach1,2,3+ flight to occur for training the best pilots as in the world, it must be done over water, away from population centers. The FAA controls the air corridors around the country above 10k feet. Many jet routes conflict with military operating areas (MOAs) over land. But over the water, there is more space with fewer civilian aircraft in the Warning Areas off the Gulf Coast, Atlantic coast and Pacific coast. Fly, fight, Win. Go AirForce. Aim High.
General Short was reinstated (posthumously) and an apology given his family for the terrible injustice done him by the government. Intelligence services and the General Staff withheld crucial information which left him blind to the imminent Japanese threat to Hawaii. Know the facts before you accuse.
Looks like a Raptor to me - even the thrust-vectoring exhaust nozzles are visible.. There's an aerial photo of another hangar with part of the roof peeled back, too - one aircraft in that hangar appears to be an F-22.
I was doing surveys all over the Homestead base the year after Andrew. IIRC they had just completed a huge upgrade to the tower right before Andrew. Wiped out. Walking in the fields and woods we would come across plane wreckage.
I wonder if those huge choppers that they use to lift stuff could handle and F-22? I think I’ve seen pictures of them carrying tanks. I would think a fighter jet would weigh less than a tank?
Ever been to Florida for any length of time? Those bunkers wouldn’t do well here. I was stationed at Tyndall for 16 years in NORAD. Those kind of bunkers are very expensive. Tyndall opened its doors on Dec 7, 1941 and this is the first hurricane to hit us directly. We survived Andrew, Opal, Ivan, Charlie. Michael got us. We will build bigger and better. P.S. I still live in the area. This was the first one I ever ran away from.
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