Forum: F-22A Raptor

idesof wrote:

Yep, yet more evidence of LM's tremendous engineering prowess. And still their profits shoot through the roof.

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Here's a dumb question: does the Pentagon ever buy weapons under warranty? One constantly reads about incidents like that above and various design flaws (such as with the Super Crapper, I mean Super Hornet) where it costs the Armed Forces millions if not billions of dollars to fix, with obviously the taxpayer footing the bill. Now, if in the case of the Super Bug and the above-mentioned incident, if it's an engineering issue or a manufacturing defect, why if it's a contractor's mess up do taxpayers have to pay for their incompetence and/or carelessness? If military contractors are truly part of the private sector, and are not to be regarded as the beneficiaries of corporate welfare, why don't these companies play by private sector rules when it comes to the products they deliver to the end user, namely the Armed Forces?

Just curious how you find fault with Lockheed Martin over the improper heat treating? That's Boeing's part of the jet IIRC. And those pesky computers with millions of lines of code? Well, that's why there's more than just one of 'em Wink

. These jets are a whole lot more fault tolerant than my little laptop I'm typing on Smile

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Seems like some of the others on the board have already answered your question about warranties, but let me see if I can put it a slightly different way than them that might be easier to understand.

If I go out and buy a car (I'm very familiar with this subject matter due to my 2+ years in retail automobile sales), I get a warranty. Something breaks, they fix it for free. Maybe I even get a rental. I never approved the manufacturing processes or designs of any part of the car - I'm just buying what they're selling.

Now, if I go out to a glass shop and say that I want some windows made for a building, but I don't have a clue as to how they need to be put together, what type of glass to use, etc. I'll have to hire someone to do this part for me. So the inspector signs off on the window being single pane, 3mm thick glass, held together with chewing gum. And the window's 20' by 20'. The window gets installed and it breaks when the wind gets over 10 knots. Not the builder's fault! My representative signed off on everything.

That's way oversimplified, but it gets the basic idea through.

To really find out why things work like they do in different programs, you'd need a good contract attorney. Yep, everything's spelled out in a contract. The titanium's not quite right? Well, what does the contract say?

So, yes, these companies are playing by private sector rules. Just ask Northrop about the A-12 Avenger (the flying Dorito, not the SR-71's older cousin). They're not on corporate welfare and they're bound by a legal contract.

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Of course its possible...but why would you want to damage more of the jet when you can confine the damage to the cockpit area??

Dwight,

Thanks for the reminder Wink

. I'd been thinking that if there was no manual release and the way things turned out that there might be no way to jettison the canopy without riding ACESII Smile

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More then likely true for this aircraft too (I don't know for sure, never been around it) but still if the canopy landed on the fuselage....serious damage would occur (least that is my spin on it).

Hard to tell which action would have caused less problems in the event...still firing the canopy off...not sure how that would have went down on this aircraft.

Good consideration though...makes me wonder but at least their action was controllable in this event

On the subject of manually raising the canopy. There is no way to raise the canopy manually from inside the cockpit (eg a canopy crank handle like the F-16) You can however crank it open from outside, its inside the nose wheelwell and a bugger to do. Yes you can just jettison the canopy from inside. Tom to my knowledge the canopy is flipped to the rear of the aircraft and never lands on it. Its a common misconception that the canopy lands on the F-16's left wing (I hate that egress video for that reason).

dwightlooi wrote:

I would think that most ejection systems are 2-staged. That is it is usually possible to jettison the canopy explosively without actually firing the ejection seat subsequent to that.

Still, won't that damage the jet more then just cutting the "glass"?

I had a buddy of mine "pop-the-top" on a 16 a few years back. It was one of those total freak accident things that probably scared him more than anything else, but here's what I know of the story:

He was replacing the left sidewall fairing. He was standing outside the jet, leaning in (meaning the canopy was fully open). I don't remember if he was on a ladder or a stand, but that is irrelevant for what I'm trying to say, anyway. He got distracted, somehow caught his tools (dogbone and screwdriver, I think) on the jettison handle and poof! He was lying on the ground. The canopy landed somewhere behind the jet (not by bouncing off of the wing, by the way). And, the air all around him was filled with what looked like chaff and smoke. Anyway, since they were TDY at the time, he got to spend the next two weeks digging all of the little metal shavings out of every little corner of the cockpit, replace all of the panels and components that were damaged, and perform all of the Ops checks involved. By this, I'm pretty sure that every panel was at least pulled to allow for the cleaning. The jet made her next flight, which was the one to leave and head home. I'm not sure what he said the exact amount of damages were, but he had figured out the amount that was at least spent to buy the new components. Oh, and he owed Egress a LOT of beer. I don't think they paid for anything for those two weeks...

All in all, I would have to say that just cutting the canopy was a better option on the -22 than ejecting it. This goes double when there is someone sitting in the seat that might get injured...