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Posted: 3/29/2006 12:56:36 AM EDT
So that's the answer to the USAF's stealth fighters…
split pins tied to ribbons! Small part sucked into engine damaged expensive new F-22 Raptor By LOUIS HANSEN, The Virginian-Pilot © March 22, 2006 | Last updated 12:23 AM Mar. 23 A small metal pin and streamer accidentally sucked into the jet engine of a new, Air Force F-22 Raptor caused $6.7 million in damage, according to an Air Force report released today. The accident occurred Oct. 20, 2005, during a night training exercise at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. No one was injured in the accident, but the engine was ruined, an Air Force spokesman said. The fighter jet comes from the first generation of stealth Raptors and is assigned to the 27th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base. “It was an accident,” said Lt. Daniel Goldberg, spokesman for Air Combat Command. “It’s a new plane. As we work along, we’re going to try to find out any problems.” The 22-page report blamed the accident on an inadequate and incomplete training manual. The manual failed to instruct mechanics to pull the nose landing gear pin before starting the jet engines. The Air Force deemed the Raptor ready for combat in December. Two squadrons at Langley Air Force base have received Raptors, which are slated to replace older F-15 and F-16 aircraft. Critics have said the plane is too expensive and has an ill-defined role in the national defense. The Raptor was designed during the Cold War to engage Soviet fighters in air-to-air combat. Reach Louis Hansen at 446-2322 or [email protected] http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=101837&ran=104685 |
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Thats a spendy little pin.
Still,gots be better than that Euro fighter. |
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This is how they do things. When something bad happens, the people involved sit down and figure out what went wrong, and make the approriate changes. This incident just happened to be a very expensive one. Chances are slim it will ever happen again...
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it was a simple case of a "Remove Before Flight" not being removed. The streamers are only held on by a light ring and are easily bent. Put a giant vaccum cleaner in front of it and OOOPS, where did it go. Thanks to that chowderhead, we are all having to re-up our FOD training here at the marietta facility
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Like to bet on that? The flag was on the pin because it has happened before. Maybe not to an F-22. It will happen again. It's the nature of the beast. |
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But arent engines tested against ingesting foreign objects? birds, dirt, etc...
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Frozen Chicken?… Check! Hail?… Check! Dust and Grit?… Check! Red Ribbon?… NO! not the Red Ribbon! |
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FOD KILLS!! Fortunately, it didn't kill anyone this time... (I'm in aviation maintanance with the Army... FOD = Foreign Object Debris, aviation-speak for any loose piece of shit that could possibly find it's way into an aircraft's machinery... This isn't, of course, the first time that someone fried a motor with a bit of FOD) Somebody's unit is going to get death-by-powerpoint for this one ..... |
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If you read the milspec for those ribbons, you'd wonder why we didnt build the M1 Abrams out of them.
Kharn |
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Dirt.. Check... Occasional bit of gravel... Check... Tools, nuts/bolts/rivets, pins, safety streamers, birds, pieces of mechanic's uniforms, mechanics themselves.... NO, you're fucked if yer bird eats any of the above.... |
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Not just aviation. I worked on Trident II guidance for GE Aerospace/Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin and you should see the procedures to prevent FOD in a guidance gimbal. On the other hand, I also worked on the BFV Turrent stabilization systems and hydromechanical transmissions and they had extensive FOD preventive programs. FOD is not your friend. Bomber |
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Don't the doors close off the centerline intakes and route the intake through the top of the aircraft?
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Wouldn't that drop down door simply catch the FOD only to release it into the engine when the doors are stowed after taxiing?
bomber |
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There are 'gills' in the bottom of the intake duct that open to allow the crap to fall through… ANdy DOH!!! It's DUCT not Duck! |
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Yup. And that's why you aren't supposed to wear hats on the flight line. Those little metal pins stuck in your hat will do the same thing.
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How do they get the bird to stay still? Is it a trained duck or will any farmyard bird do? Could you use a goose? Does it have to be aquatic? It seems cheaper to use chickens, and a Cornish game hen would probably be better in terms of weight, but then you might not get the same flow that say a swan might get you. |
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Why do they have to include these types of stupid comments in the article? Are they seriously trying to tell us that the most modern stealth fighter was actually designed some 20 years ago before the public had really even been made aware of stealth? That's just stupid. Not to mention the fact that I graduated college back in 1999 and my roommate, who was one smart son of a bitch, did everything he could to get a job at Lockhead Martin in Ft. Worth doing guess what...designing the Raptor. The last time I checked neither the Soviet Union nor the Cold War were around in 1999. |
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No, they actually sit down and shift blame from department to department, finally blaming the tech manuals |
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Newsies are famous for putting crap like that in their articles. Back when the Army was trying to field the M1, they said the M1 was a "bad tank" because it was so expensive. You could buy 5 M60A1s for what one M1 cost.
Never mentioned the Army did not have enough troops to man that many M60A1s. We would have had to train the cooks and mailmen and "laundry and bath specialists" to be tank crewman and we'd still have had tanks lying around without men to fill them. Newsies are a dedicated bunch of morons. BTW, I was out at Tyndall AFB a few weeks ago and got to see the F22s flying. Pretty cool looking airplanes. Also saw some F4s in the air. I didn't know anyone was still flying that critter. Cheers, kk7sm |
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They should take a lesson from the Russians and have breathing vents above the engines that open during taxiing, while the main intakes are closed.
EDITED: Oh, Vito beat me to it. Well, +1 on what he said. |
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This "small pin" is apparently 1" in diameter and about 6" long. Its a locking pin for the landing gear. There aren't many engines that would swallow one of those without ill effect.
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Umm, the requirements for the ATF, now known as the F-22, were laid out in the early 80s. The first prototype flyoffs were in 90 or 91, IIRC. The ATF/F-22 was in continual redesign during the Clinton era. |
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IMHO, it isn't worth the weight and extra crap on the jet unless you're expecting to operate off crap airfields (another reason why A-10 engines are up so high). A shield wouldn't have been needed here if the crew chief hadn't tried a shortcut. |
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The prototype YF-22 flew off against the prototype YF-23 in 1992, I remember watching a program on that flyoff on cable (Discovery channel?) in the early 1990s. If the prototype was flying in 1992, you can figure it was designed before 1992. Of course, there was a lot of work to be done finishing the design for production--but the design was far enough along to build a flying prototype when you were in about your freshman or sophomore year of high school. Jim |
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It was actually earlier than that!
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you should know by now.... EVERYONE is going to get death by powerpoint! |
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Everyone is probably going to have to attend a mandatory annual training session for this, followed with death by powerpoint. |
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No, they would have to use either a European of African swallow, carrying 2 coconuts South for the winter |
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I deserved that! ANdy |
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Did you know we won WWII without any powerpoint briefings? I'm still baffled as to how. |
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As a military technical writer, I know there are a few tech writers/equipment specialists working overtime on this right now.
Expect a safety sup in the next 24 hours if they haven't already released it. |
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Add another line to the DOPP checklist. |
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Yeah - aren't you supposed to be the guardian of the language as our token Brit? |
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Fighters don't do DOPPs. |
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Kharn |
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A good powerpoint ranger includes animation and sometimes movies. |
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… and not forgetting that other horror, the 'audio clip' of stirring martial muzak played in all it's splendour from the awesome 2w speaker on his laptop! |
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Actually, the balme doesn't rest on the crew chief alone. The pilot is supposed to do a preflight walk, and part of the walk is making sure all safety pins are removed, all panels are on and buttoned up, and the area around the intakes is free of any FOD. Pilots have the final responsibility of aircraft integrity when they go fly. That being said, the crew chief should get a talking to, as should the pilot. |
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Transparencies and dittos. |
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First thing I said when I read the article is WTF was the pilot doing. Maybe I'm just an anal pilot of an antique aircraft, but I sure as hell never missed a "remove before flight" tag. |
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He may have been suffering fatigue… An 18 hole round of golf can really take it out of you… ANdy |
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We had low power guys not do walkarounds, and a few of them sucked in intake blanks. I always did my walks when doing a maintainance turn. |
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Those F-4's are called "targets". |
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Strange that you would pull the landing gear safety pins before engine start.
It's not done that way in the Navy.... So "what if" the maintenance guys were doing some sort of a check that requires a simulated weight off wheels (ordnance squib check, landing gear electrical system check, external fuel tank pressurization) using some sort of a squat switch override and they leave it on, the pilot forgets to lower the landing gear handle, engines spool up, hydraulic pressure comes on line and boom, the landing gear retracts and there goes the Raptor to the deck. It's happened before. |
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