This would be comical if it weren’t so infuriating. Langley Air Force Base’s entire F-22 unit is now useless after a pilot lost oxygen mid-air — the exact same thing that hit another pilot earlier and might have killed one a year ago. The plane clearly has a problem — three pilots without oxygen aren’t a coincidence. But read the Air Force’s statement on the grounding, and it sounds like there’s no problem at all:
“Part of our protocol is to allow units to pause operations whenever they need to analyse information collected from flight operations to ensure safety. That is what is happening at Langley at the moment, and we support that decision.”
“Pause operations” is a hell of a euphemism for not letting planes take off because they might crash. How long the F-22s at Langley will stay on turf is unknown — maybe it’ll be months, like last time. But I hope this might prompt an engineering impetus to actually fix the damn things for good, and not let anyone inside until that’s done. [Fox News via Danger Room]
Photo: Rob Shenk
Captain Picard
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 10:24 AMSo glad we bought the Super Hornets instead of waiting for these extremely expensive shit cans…
MotorMouth
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 10:44 AMThere was never a time when we were even looking at these, as the US is not selling them to anyone else. The Super Hornets have replaced our F-111s, which is a joke as they are far less capable. (F-111 has a higher top speed, four times the combat radius and carries almost twice the weapons payload.) Eventually the Super-Hornets will be replaced by the new F-35. There is a lot of negative comment around the F-35 but I think it is the right aircraft for us. It’s no F-111 but it will be a better fighter than the Hornets we have now and a better bomber than the Super-Hornet. It should also be able to run rings around the Sukhois many of our neighbours are buying.
Captain Picard
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:10 AMOh Ok, I thought I read somewhere that they were considering these things at the time they were trying to make up there minds what to get before the ‘JSF’s came on line. As for the F111′s yeah they were a great piece of kit, but they had some serious issues, not just there age, which is a big factor. Fuel tank liner maintenance is considered to be very carcinogenic and parts are getting harder to find. :)
Steve
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 8:33 PMNot really, it was a bunch of Aussie military advisors throwing their weight around, saying we should be trying to get our hands on the F-22, despite the US having a very hardline “No Sell” policy on these things.
James Mac
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:22 AMYeah, except that the jsf-35 has a much shorter operational radius.
We would have been better buying the next gen Russian fighter. Given how big Australia is, and the area we have to project our force to… the Russian jets are the closest modern (next generation) replacement for the f111.
Michael
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 4:20 PMIndeed Sukhoi’s would of been the way to go, far more reliable and capable machines. Although our America butt kissing government would never buy anything other than American steel :/.
Davo
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 10:36 AMteehee expensive paperweights!
moloko
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:09 AMWhy waste money on buying jets at all? Only need 1 for fly overs in major sporting events and thats it.
Jaezass
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:21 AMMemo.. Do not put moloko in charge of defence! :)
Stu
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 1:48 PMAgreed – You should really have at least two for flyovers, perhaps 3 if you want to really impress the kids….
Russell Rhodes
Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 11:30 AMi don’t think parts availablity was ever going to be an issue for the F111 – isn’t there about 100 of them in the desert, and the US prepared to sell them cheap to an ally
buying russian aircraft would be retarded – how many russian translators do we have in the RAAF technical departments? and “localising” russian jets never works (apart from german Mig 29′s)