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F-22 Pilots Refuse to Fly
Sign me up. There position is very just though. Especially after that crash back in December. There has just been too many problems and it has never been in 1 combat sortie.. (www.flightglobal.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Court martialed in 1925, I believe, just to promote his theroies on airpower. Prior to that had a friend or relative in the Navy flying air ships that perished following orders to fly regardless of weather conditions siting the limitations of his air ship in bad weather. After the Navy Captain's death in the storm trying to deliver the airship for an exibition, motivated Brigadier General Mitchell to commit insubordination toward the then War Dept.
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Another horrible example of how poor products are coming off the Lockheed stable thanks to the terrible management skills of the DOD and USAF. The F-22 program was stopped after spending (actually WASTING) ZILLLIONS OF DOLLARS and they still can´t hack a simple oxy problem. And the F-35 lemmon is not far behind as it is NOT meeting the specs, never mind that its unitary cost went up from $ 65 mill to DOUBLE that. And Romney is saying that if he is elected president (hope he does not) he is going to cut off health, education and other social programs so that more money can be spent (WASTED) in defense............
Obviously you are new to the DOD program cost issue. The DOD puts out a RFP for an aircraft design with a target program cost of Z$ based a set of requirements and $Y cost/aircraft on a quantity "X" buy; $Z/X = $Y. The contractor designs an aircraft to meet those targets and gets selected. Then the DOD decides it wants to change the requirements which requires a redesign and drives the $/aircraft up; $2Z. If the redesign comes late in the development and test cycle, then the need to retest can significantly skyrocket costs. The F-22 was originally designed to be an BVR air-to-air supremacy fighter and the motto for the designers was "not a pound for air-to-ground" since aircraft cost is directly proportional to aircraft weight. Then Congress decides it wants to reduce the quantity it buys; X/3. This then increases the $/aircraft figure; i.e $2Z/(X/3) = $6Z/X = $6Y! That is why a perfectly designed aircraft that met DOD requirement for performance and cost now has problems. That is why there are $600 toilet seats. Simple logic. And btw, Boeing was selected by the DOD to provide the avionics which is supposed to control and monitor the ox-gen system. So before you go off half cocked and blame a contractor, think about what really happened and why.
No, I am not unfamiliar with the DOD ways bussiness and it is precisely because that after an initial set of specs are issued and a contract is signed all the "brains" of the particular service buying that weapon system (pardon the sarcasm) jump into the bandwagon and ask for all the latest bells a whistles to be shoehorned into it, i.e. aircraft, rocket, ship, tanks, and millions of other pieces of equipment and the patriotic contractors are all too happy to oblige since they can name a price of the extras (i.e. $ 600 toilet seats) on a take it or leave basis and the service can only accept what they are tendered as DOD can not in most cases walk out of a contract and issue a new bidding hoping that other contractors might be less voracious. And quality wise it has been an awful experience with virtually most major weapon systems fielded in the past shall we say 50 years with a few excemptions. And yes I agree with you that Congress shares a good share of the blame for various reasons including forcing the services to acquire weapons no longer needed only because that brings money to the economies of the states that they represent and in the process pick up good will for the next election. And the contractors continue laughing all the way to the bank and the taxpayer ends up holding the bag.
I hope they do solve the problems with the F22. The money is already spent and when this fighter is flying, there's nothing in the competition it can't handle.
Have Blue!
Have Blue!
I worked for Lockheed and saw the production lines in the 90's in Marietta. I happened to be there for the inaugural flight when then Chairman/CEO Norm Augustine and (I think) William Cohen stood on the flight line to watch. While none of this qualifies me to opine on QC or flight safety, I can say that the buzz at the time of the award and subsequent endless and conflicting design requirements from the customer (DoD)contributed to delays and bad decisions. More importantly, the politics of procurement are really to blame for any inadequacies and cost overruns. Over 1,000 subcontractors were engaged at the direction of the gov't to produce this aircraft. Each one of them placed their overhead burden on their role.