Slashdot Mirror
Air Force Foresaw Fatal F-22 Problems; Rejected $100,000 Fix As Too Expensive
McGruber writes "The Associated Press is reporting that years before F-22 stealth fighter pilots began getting dizzy in the cockpit, before one struggled to breathe as he tried to pull out of a fatal crash, before two more went on the '60 Minutes' television program to say the plane was so unsafe they refused to fly it, a small working group of U.S. Air Force experts knew something was wrong with the prized stealth fighter jet. This working group, called RAW-G, was created in 2002 at the suggestion of Daniel Wyman, then a flight surgeon at Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base, where the first F-22 squadron was being deployed. Wyman is now a brigadier general and the Air Combat Command surgeon general. RAW-G proposed a range of solutions by 2005, including adjustments to the flow of oxygen into pilot's masks. But that key recommendation was rejected by military officials reluctant to add costs to a program that was already well over budget. Kevin Divers, a former Air Force physiologist who led RAW-G until he left the service in 2007, believes the cost of adjusting the oxygen flow would have added about $100,000 to the cost of each $190 million aircraft."
On one hand you can say that arguing this now is ridiculous now that we know it is actually a problem, there are probably 100's of other things that were budget slashed and worked out fine. On the other hand the entire reason the plane costs 190 million is because every single transistor and bolt in the aircraft is backed by millions of hours of testing and fail-over systems and with such a high priority placed on safety and reliability it seems ludicrous that they would skimp on safety to the pilot. You have to draw the line somewhere though, turns out someone was wrong and is now a higher up, and in true CYA fashion the problem is buried rather than fixed.
Not even including the life insurance policies that most pilots would have. Back in 1996, it was about $250,000 when my father passed due to Benzene induced leukemia (since the USAF was Benzene happy at the time). That didn't even include the MGIB chapter 35 benefits and Tricare benefits I and my sister received. A quick look at the current policy shows it as $400,000. You could retrofit at least 4+ jets for the cost of killing one pilot.
The pilot training costs dwarf insurance payouts. This article says it costs $2.8M to train a fighter pilot.
What if this (extreme and unlikely scenario) occurred: an enemy force launches an extremely large flight of propeller-powered fighter/attack aircraft. Sure, our F/A-18s and such might blow them away until they run out of missiles. The dynamics between propeller (slow but extremely maneuverable) vs jet (fast but makes bigger turns) might prevent a gun-range, outnumbering dog-fight from playing out in our favor.
There was a short story something like that - some modern jet fighter slips back in time to WWI, and could not engage the enemy planes due to the speed difference, and the inability of the fighter jet's radar to get a lock onto the paper and wood enemy planes. It turned out that he didn't need to fire weapons at the warbirds of the era. All he needed to do was to buzz them while supersonic. They didn't have the speed or maneuverability to get out of the way, and their airframes were so relatively fragile, that they couldn't handle the shockwave. The planes would snap like twigs in the wake of the jet. And being supersonic, he could travel up and down the entire front lines in a matter of hours.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!