Forum: F-22A Raptor

Prinz_Eugn wrote:

shep1978 wrote:

wrightwing wrote:

I'm not sure I'd say all indications point towards the F-22 being a hanger queen. In all of the stats I've seen from exercises, etc... the availability rate has been considerably higher than 50%, and the rate continues to rise.

Indeed, wasn't there an deployment abroad by a Raptor squadron a while back where they had a 100% mission capable rate...? (I don't think I imagined it)

If its true than that is a worry for any opponent!

Yeah, but without knowing the full story, that statistic is kind of useless. Did they leave all the hangar queens behind? Did they take the best people or a huge amount of parts? There are a lot of factors that could make it non-representative for operational deployments. Fleetwide, they're shooting for 85%, IIRC.

Any piece of equipment can have low availability rates if you don't have spare parts. The takeaway from these exercises is the demonstration that high availability rates can be achieved.

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This thread amuses me very much - seems that there are alot of F-22 detractors here..

First of all the 27th from Langley and the 90th from Elmendorf have both forward deployed twice already and the 94th and the 525th are in the middle of their first deployment. The 7th FS out of Holloman will go IOC and will probably deploy in the next AEF cycle. The F-22 is operational and has gone on deployments for the last two years.

There are thousands of maintenance personnel in the air force and ten of thousands that have served in the fighter force - amazes me how one so called comment is dwelled on.

Theres are a handful of people here who work directly with the F-22 and there are alot who know how deployments work. The Air Force has deployed packages of 12-14 jets of F-22s which is the same amount for other US jets that are deployed.. what makes that number suspicious to the numbers crunchers here?

Another thing that I noticed - people have this facination with fighter jets or a particular weapons system and they read and read and read all they can about it. Theres something that some of these people dont read - basic flight. F-22 and every US Air Force pilot has to go through it first - VFR and IFR flight procedures, knowing how to navigate and knowing how to deal with your fuel requirements. Why not set aside time to read all about - perhaps it will give you some insight on why we hang external fuel tanks on jets or flight planning. Its not any secret or classified stuff!

I wonder of some F-22 detractors can place themselve in the F-4 or F-105 when the F-15 became operational.

I'll just keep my giggles going on for now.

But I guess I giggle at 3/4th of speculation and question threads. There are always rediculous things on these boards.

Anyone hear about the new issue they are having with the flux compasiter, and yesterday when we had to fill out a lost tool report, and FOD walk the ramp because some one lost the keys to the jet. Or the 9 inch crack in the intake?(that was a really hairy crack BTW

Siesta wrote:

...I wonder of some F-22 detractors can place themselve in the F-4 or F-105 when the F-15 became operational.

I'm quite sure if internet aviation boards existed 30 years ago, there would be "F-15 is a piece of junk" threads by cranky F-4 people. Go back 45 years and we'd have "F-4 is a piece of junk" threads, etc. Very Happy

Thank you for your input, get_lo. As you point out, as the jet matures and maintenance troops gain more experience with it, it should get more reliable and easier to maintain. One had better hope it does, since we'll only have 180+ to play with...

dred wrote:

Siesta wrote:

...I wonder of some F-22 detractors can place themselve in the F-4 or F-105 when the F-15 became operational.

I'm quite sure if internet aviation boards existed 30 years ago, there would be "F-15 is a piece of junk" threads by cranky F-4 people. Go back 45 years and we'd have "F-4 is a piece of junk" threads, etc. Very Happy

There were no websites back then, this was before the Internet! Aviation buffs did express themselves through their favorite aviation or military magazines, letters to the editor was the best way for a well written response to reach the masses.
The predecessor of the internet, the 'ARPANET' existed but, it basically was for the military, institutions of higher learning and, a few companies. It was around the time when ARPANET was interlinked with NSFNet in the late 1980s, that the term was used as the name of the network, "Internet" came about.
In answer to your comment... yes people expressed how they felt about the new fighter which cost so much money. The F-4 cost around $4M and the new F-15A cost over $20M! Some asked, what is it the F-15A can do that four or five F-4's or F-5's for the same cost can't accomplish?

My car might be a piece of junk, but not the F-22, when it is actually working.

Any repair that is LO intrusive takes a long time to repair. Some of the components, like fuel pumps, that were supposed to be highly reliable were designed to go behind panels that were not intended to be removed frequently. Unfortunately the Reliability program stunk! It was intended to address the exact environment that the components would see. It seams that what that resulted in was a minimal approach to a robust reliability design. In general, it is an excellent aircraft which is not really comparable to others. We used to think of it as being more of a space ship than an aircraft.

Forum: F-22A Raptor

The F-22 is a piece of junk!