F-22 Pilots Told Not to Talk

I was recently underneath one of these bad boys, I was looking around and saw something gold that caught my eye. As I got closer I'd realized I'd seen this object before. I was eye to eye with it now, it said Made in China.

All jokes aside, the last I heard about these aircraft's is that they retrofitted new oxygen systems on them, making them safe to fly again. I've also seen multiple videos of them flying, there's a video of them flying in Alaska.

Originally posted by XLR8R
reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL

 

This plane is 100% all fly-by-wire, right? What if they came up with a new UAV and it was just like the F-22 by design. Keep the plane and replace the pilot by a CPU. Cost effective, they're already built. Make up a cockamamie story about pilots not wanting to fly it due to safety issues. Put it out in the MSM and you have public approval. Then, *BAM* you have a whole new fleet of stealth UAV's.

edit on 8-5-2012 by XLR8R because: (no reason given)

Whoa...

That is the first Idea that actually uses all the pieces.

Of course they could just be badly designed.

You guys remember the osprey??

But then again did you guys ever come across the fact that they grew human brain tissue in a peatry(sp?) dish and then hooked it up to an F-16 flight simulator and it started learning how to keep the Jet level, and even steer to a degree?

Wonder if the next excuse is our planes need to turn faster with more G's and we have reached the level of human limits. We need brains encapsulated into machines with ways of preventing G forces. We can design these, but the human body has inherant weakness, so we just need the brain.

haha I can go in many directions with this.
What Do They Want ME to think???

I think it's a design flaw though. I really do. Gotta save face until we fix them. Their main use is that they are better than the rest psychologically. Gotta paint the right picture for China to see ya know?

reply to post by Dustytoad


Thanks, I have my moments. Yeah I' heard that with the brain cells. I also heard it with rat brains controling a small robot. You're right, there would be definitive advantages to not having humans because of G's.

The defense industry makes it's big money and our government makes partnerships based on foreign sales. You can't set aside the fact that the F-22 is in competition with planes from other countries for sales to our allies and sales /gifts to countries we want something from.

Of course they're going to try and keep it quiet, especially with lawsuits underway.

There is a history of this sort of thing. One fighter had a defect in the fuel system that would cause fire or explosions if the plane was inverted (great fighter, just don't fly it upside down, ever). I can't even list the number of incidents we had with fly by wire systems and software bugs that resulted in lost planes. I'd have to split it across several posts to list them all.

It does happen in the aircraft sphere, civilian and military where a sub system that has worked perfectly suddenly develops a fatal defect. The most common cause for this is a change in procedures with unforeseen consequences or suppliers providing defective parts, consumables, etc. My guess on this would be a problem with the LOX supplied or some other consumable part in the life support system or a change in procedures that led to a problem. You would be amazed how the most simple / small thing can result in a huge problem.

reply to post by jahn369


They're probably afraid because of some built-in system allowing the military to take remote control of the aviary vehicle and do whatever they like with it, which could very well include shutting down the ejector seat and slamming the vehicle into a residential area or something.

The pilot, for all intensive purposes, appears to have flown straight into an urban community with the intention of crashing. The military gives an official statement, and no one is wiser.

Why would the military do this? For the government. Why would the government want this? That's anyone's guess. But I'm pretty sure the government has a long, gruesome track record of being fully willing to sacrifice a soldier or a civilian for the cost of getting something done, no matter who opposes it.

Originally posted by chevy369
This is what happens when the cheapest manufacture wins the contract.

Yeah, this always makes me laugh..."But its Mil-spec!"
More like, cheapest bidder!

"After a lengthy investigation, an Air Force Accident Investigation Board could not find the cause of the malfunction but determined "by clear and convincing evidence" that in addition to other factors, Haney was to blame for the crash because he was too distracted by his inability to breathe to fly the plane properly."

Well there's your problem!

It was his fault because he was so selfish that he had to breathe.

No one knows blindness more than a patriot.

Originally posted by NuclearPaul

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL
The life support system has been designed for over decades and refined and for them to get it wrong on the best fighter...does not make sense.

That's the first thing I thought too.

Can't they just pull one out of an F-18 or something?

No, they can't. The raptor is a stealth aircraft. You can't just open up the window and let the air in. In this system they suck air through the engines and cycle it back through a re-breather apparatus before it is pumped to the pilots. Somewhere in that cycle they are either a) losing O2 from the mixture, or b) picking up a contaminant that mimics hypoxia. I'd put ny bet on a), but so far, they have not identified the issue. They have taken airplanes completey apart and not found the issue.

Maybe because the F-22 is just too awesome? It uses a OBOGS similar to the F/A-18 which has similar problems.

“We have some recent data that we are starting to believe we are coming to closure on that root cause,” said Wolfenbarger during a May 8 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We’re realizing that we operate this aircraft differently than we operate any of our other fighter aircraft, we fly at a higher altitude, we execute maneuvers that are high-G at that high altitude and we’re on that oxygen system at those high altitudes for periods of time.”

“I’m not ready to say yet that we’re ready to declare a root cause,” she added.

Source

I am not really concerned. One thing the military can do, is figure out a way to make it work, things like this has happened before on other equipment. For example, the M16. When that rifle was introduced it was laden with problems and the thing barely worked when put into the field. With the right hands on the problem, they turned the rifle into one of the best rifles ever made.

I think, given the time and the resources they will get the issues worked out on this. However, I am not sure exactly what the complaints are, other than the oxygen issue. Unless the whole thing is a piss poor design then it should be scrapped.

Why don't military people actually whistleblow on things that actually matter?

reply to post by RealSpoke


That has to be done very carefully. If the person does not have all their ducks in a row, they will be lunch meat. A military person has a lot at stake. Anything they do along these lines could very well mean a dishonourable discharge, which pretty much destroys your life after that. The weight of military justice coming down on some ones shoulders is a lot of weight for mere mortals to deal with.

Originally posted by RealSpoke
Why don't military people actually whistleblow on things that actually matter?

This actually matters. People have already died from this. They have cover from their congrerssman. There's a "special" military whistleblower law designed to cover these sorts of situations. The thing is, these guys love flying the plane, which is awesome. It's just this hypoxia thing that has them rattled.

reply to post by ZeroReady


hawaii is one of the most strategic islands in the pacific.

remember pearl harbour. apparently you forgot.

reply to post by schuyler


yea... I can hear them already

"the plane is awesome, I just cant breathe inside it, which is a minor nuisance, other than that, awesome plane! It also drives like a 2 ton pickup. If we get them in a terrain like north korea, or iran's mountain range, the topography will make us fodder for 1981 mig 21s or a mirage f1 and they can pick us like cherries, other than that, awesome plane!"

useless piece of high tech junk...

Originally posted by Outofcontrol
reply to post by schuyler

 

yea... I can hear them already

"the plane is awesome, I just cant breathe inside it, which is a minor nuisance, other than that, awesome plane! It also drives like a 2 ton pickup. If we get them in a terrain like north korea, or iran's mountain range, the topography will make us fodder for 1981 mig 21s or a mirage f1 and they can pick us like cherries, other than that, awesome plane!"

useless piece of high tech junk...

You obviously have not watched the 60 minutes video where they talk about it. I enjoy sarcasm, when it's based on reality. In your case, it's based on the fantasy of what you think they may have said. Go watch the video, THEN come back here and talk about what they think.

Come on now. How much did they jack up another projects price to pay for some other more technical project (Black Project if you will) that they didnt want anyone to know about....Stealth Fighter anyone?? So, I think the reason this issue amongst others which just jack the price up more and more, dont be surprised if a lot of that "extra cost" is going to some other "Blacker Project".

This is the same story with every sophisticated new piece of hardware. I remember 60 minutes doing a piece on how bad the Bradley sucked. Yet, it has proven to be a nice track. The Osprey was disastrous, but now it seems to work. The A-10 was a waste of money and on the verge being decomissioned when Iraq I broke out. Then it proved to be an indestructable bringer of death to entire brigades. The same will be the case with the F-22. They'll get the problems ironed out and it will probably be a great plane.
I can think of a couple of total flops. The Harrier has been a dangerous rig to fly and that Stryker is getting a lot of criticism for breaking and getting stuck on wet grass.
Every weapon goes over budget doesn't it?

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by jahn369

 

I'm having a hard time catching my breath..... I knew these were expensive, but... OMG.

Last week the Air Force officially received the last F-22 Raptor from defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, completing an order of 187 planes that cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $79 billion -- meaning that including research, development and production among other costs, each plane has a price tag of more than $420 million. Despite being the most advanced fighters on the planet, none of the planes have been used on a combat mission since they went combat-ready in late 2005. Critics told ABC News that's because the jet was designed to fight rival, sophisticated fighters – an enemy that doesn't exist right now.

(From OP link...Emphasis Mine)

(cough cough) (choking)...does that say 420 MILLION U.S. Dollars PER PLANE? For Air Superiority Fighters?? A billion a copy for a B-2 Bomber makes sense if that cost is what makes it invisible to the systems it has to be. A front line fighter?? At almost half a billion? I really hope we never face an enemy that can shoot down an American F-22. We'll have a legitimate reason for a day of mourning on the Airplane alone, after the Pilot ejects and gets back safely. It's enough to go Half Staff if we lose a Pilot as well!

That's means these plans cost every American citizen roughly $200.00 (or about $568 per actual taxpayer). Planes that we haven't used and will probably never use. Just think, could have covered your groceries for your whole family for 3 weeks or more... And that's just the planes. Not on all the other military junk our government spends money on that they never use.

The amount of money the USA spends on military is just sickening.
en.wikipedia.org... We spend more on our military than the next 17 countries COMBINED. Almost 7 times what the next country, China, spends. The USA's expense on military equals 41% of the entire world's expenditures on military. WHY? Seriously.

I don't have a problem with us being the most powerful country in the world, but we don't need to be this damn powerful. Unless we plan on half of the world's military ganging up on us and declaring war on us all at once. Hey, if we keep going around pissing the world off like we do, maybe they will!

reply to post by WP4YT

Well put, all the way around!

Around $200.00 per American eh? I hadn't run the numbers down that far..Thanks! Now I know I have a reason to be mad. I only suspected before.

Well I don't feel like I'm getting my $200 worth. How about you? I believe I'd like a refund! I noted someone here even compared the Raptor to the original craptastic rifle they called the M-16. (without a piston, I don't believe it's gotten much better, either...but I digress)

I'll bet hearing a comparison like that, and how they'll eventually get the bugs out is the kind of thing to make the pilots feel real warm and fuzzy at take-off. (actually, it sounds like an apt comparison in some general ways..and that's what makes it so bad) Eeeek,,, I'd heard such wonderful things about these planes years ago too. Back before people got a chance to find all the bugs anyway. I'd sure call failure to breathe one HECK of a gremlin. That sucker is the big guy with the White Stripe from the movie!