F-35B catches fire

[spazsinbad]

May we bring this to the attention of 'maus92' or would that be too rude? OMG quote from well known luvvers of F-35 bits.

"...fixing a faulty wiring bracket that caused a fire in an F-35B..."

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/12/33483/

[steve2267]

May we bring this to the attention of 'maus92' or would that be too rude? OMG quote from well known luvvers of F-35 bits.

"...fixing a faulty wiring bracket that caused a fire in an F-35B..."

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/12/33483/

I found the following to be quite interesting:

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on December 19, 2016 at 3:42 PM

F-35 ‘Not Out Of Control’: Prices Drop 5.5% For F-35A

and Pentagon IOT&E director Michael Gilmore — famous for his independence and his withering critiques of high-priced programs — has refused to allow work-arounds to save time, Bogdan said. The delays will add about $532 million to the cost of the program, but Bogdan said $100 million of that reflected past cuts imposed by the Pentagon to pay bills elsewhere...

So Gilmore won't allow Bogdan et al to work the schedule to recover time and money. But Gilmore doesn't mention to Sen McCain et al that his schedule intransigence is costing the good Senator and his checkbook hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also, $100M of that $532M came about because of Pentagon budget games elsewhere...

[XanderCrews]

May we bring this to the attention of 'maus92' or would that be too rude? OMG quote from well known luvvers of F-35 bits.

"...fixing a faulty wiring bracket that caused a fire in an F-35B..."

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/12/33483/

I found the following to be quite interesting:

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on December 19, 2016 at 3:42 PM

F-35 ‘Not Out Of Control’: Prices Drop 5.5% For F-35A

and Pentagon IOT&E director Michael Gilmore — famous for his independence and his withering critiques of high-priced programs — has refused to allow work-arounds to save time, Bogdan said. The delays will add about $532 million to the cost of the program, but Bogdan said $100 million of that reflected past cuts imposed by the Pentagon to pay bills elsewhere...

So Gilmore won't allow Bogdan et al to work the schedule to recover time and money. But Gilmore doesn't mention to Sen McCain et al that his schedule intransigence is costing the good Senator and his checkbook hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also, $100M of that $532M came about because of Pentagon budget games elsewhere...

It's great that Gilmore and the great "fiscal hawk" scooter mccain can team on to screw the taxpayers like this as they blame others

[SpudmanWP]

So Gilmore won't allow workarounds to save time & money on a program that Trump says that he will make them save time & money...

I think the transition team needs to have a sit-down with Gilmore with pink-slip in hand.

[blindpilot]

So Gilmore won't allow workarounds to save time & money on a program that Trump says that he will make them save time & money...

I think the transition team needs to have a sit-down with Gilmore with pink-slip in hand.

Actually, I'd be willing to bet that DOT&E was in the report the Pentagon commissioned to save $25B a year. My guess is that report will make the PEOTUS' desk.

MHO
BP

[maus92]

Gilmore is a political appointee, so he's likely going to be replaced when the new administration takes over. So the faithful can rejoice - (maybe.)

On to the fire. The USMC decided to continue flying its F-35Bs even after the program identified an issue with a support bracket within the weapons bays. A fix had been devised, but not yet installed in the mishap jet. The inspection program implemented to mitigate the risk failed to prevent electrical cables from impinging on hydraulic lines which lead to the fire. In hindsight, probably the wrong decision not to ground the fleet until repairs were made (which sound relatively simple.) The result was a Class A mishap that could have resulted in the total loss of the aircraft and pilot had it occurred over the Atlantic. They were lucky the incident took place in the pattern over the field. The program (semi) dodged a bullet:

Pentagon Knew of F-35B Weapons Bay Fire Problem
POSTED BY: HOPE HODGE SECK DECEMBER 20, 2016 | DefenceTech

"A Marine Corps F-35B caught fire during a late October flight because of a weapons bay defect that military officials knew about and were already working to fix.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the F-35 program executive officer, told reporters Monday at the program’s offices in Arlington, Virginia, that the Oct. 27 mishap occurred when a bracket that held electrical wires in the weapons bay came loose, allowing the wires to chafe and come into contact with hydraulic lines, causing the fire...."

"“The good news is, we knew what it was,” Bogdan said. “When knew about this problem long before that, and all of our airplanes were being retrofitted with a new bracket.”

The F-35B that caught fire had not yet received the replacement bracket, he said, but had been inspected as part of a stopgap regiment designed to prevent mishaps. Prior to the flight, Bogdan said, the bracket had seemed to be holding.

“We inspected, it looked fine, and it just didn’t look fine in the air,” he said."

http://defensetech.org/2016/12/20/penta ... -bay-fire/

[XanderCrews]

So the faithful can rejoice - (maybe.)

Says the guy who thinks F/A-XX is right around the corner.

Maus on a scale of good to super hornet, how do you think this compares with their constant oxygen problems?

Any comment on the recent grounding?

[marauder2048]

In hindsight, probably the wrong decision not to ground the fleet until repairs were made (which sound relatively simple.)

So by that reasoning, the entire Super Hornet fleet should be grounded until the OBOGS/ECS problems are resolved.
Oh sorry..the Navy hasn't yet identified the underlying causal issues or devised a fix. Carry on.

[XanderCrews]

In hindsight, probably the wrong decision not to ground the fleet until repairs were made (which sound relatively simple.)

So by that reasoning, the entire Super Hornet fleet should be grounded until the OBOGS/ECS problems are resolved.
Oh sorry..the Navy hasn't yet identified the underlying causal issues or devised a fix. Carry on.

Yup.

[spazsinbad]

To be fair the USN have devised some 'fixes' such as better monitoring of air quality in the mask - but not implemented fleet wide AFAIK at moment. It is a curly problem for sure.

[XanderCrews]

To be fair the USN have devised some 'fixes' such as better monitoring of air quality in the mask - but not implemented fleet wide AFAIK at moment. It is a curly problem for sure.

The point still stands that maus is saying "hey you should ground the fleet less something happen" but then with the Super Hornet there is miles of context, risk management, gray decisions, and imperfect solutions in order to not ground the fleet

Typical maus92 double standard

[maus92]

In hindsight, probably the wrong decision not to ground the fleet until repairs were made (which sound relatively simple.)

So by that reasoning, the entire Super Hornet fleet should be grounded until the OBOGS/ECS problems are resolved.
Oh sorry..the Navy hasn't yet identified the underlying causal issues or devised a fix. Carry on.

They did ground the entire Super Hornet / Growler fleet over the weekend because a Growler canopy shattered (or departed completely) and severely injured the flight crew - luckily the incident occurred on the ground. It appears that the ECS went hard over and over-pressurized the cockpit. Preliminary cause is a plane wash procedure gone bad. New procedures were disseminated, and the grounding has been lifted.

[maus92]

More detail on the F-35B fire:

F-35 Chief: Loose Bracket Sparked Fire on Marine Corps Plane
By: Valerie Insinna, December 20, 2016 | Defense News

"“We knew about this problem long before that [incident], and all of our airplanes were being retrofitted with a new bracket,” Bogdan said during a Dec. 19 briefing to reporters.

The engineering work for the bracket retrofit has been finished, but the aircraft affected by the fire, assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 501, had not been modified with the new hardware yet. Instead, aircraft with the original brackets underwent periodic inspections to check whether the bracket is still sturdy.

“It had passed its previous inspection, but the bracket still became dislodged,” Bogdan said, adding that a new inspection regiment has now been put into place as a result of the mishap.

The October incident was the F-35B’s first Class A mishap, which involve loss of life or damage of more than $2 million, reported Defense News sister publication Marine Corps Times.

Because not all aircraft have been modified, B-model pilots are flying with heightened levels of risk, Bogdan acknowledged.

“Yes, there are acknowledged risks, and that would be one of them,” he said. “And until you fix that bracket, every airplane in the B-model that doesn’t have that bracket is going to have to be inspected, and hopefully that bracket remains in place when it’s flying.” "

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/f-3 ... f-35b-fire

[cosmicdwarf]

In hindsight, probably the wrong decision not to ground the fleet until repairs were made (which sound relatively simple.)

So by that reasoning, the entire Super Hornet fleet should be grounded until the OBOGS/ECS problems are resolved.
Oh sorry..the Navy hasn't yet identified the underlying causal issues or devised a fix. Carry on.

They did ground the entire Super Hornet / Growler fleet over the weekend because a Growler canopy shattered (or departed completely) and severely injured the flight crew - luckily the incident occurred on the ground. It appears that the ECS went hard over and over-pressurized the cockpit. Preliminary cause is a plane wash procedure gone bad. New procedures were disseminated, and the grounding has been lifted.

But not over the continuing oxygen problems, which was the problem asked about.

[XanderCrews]

In hindsight, probably the wrong decision not to ground the fleet until repairs were made (which sound relatively simple.)

So by that reasoning, the entire Super Hornet fleet should be grounded until the OBOGS/ECS problems are resolved.
Oh sorry..the Navy hasn't yet identified the underlying causal issues or devised a fix. Carry on.

They did ground the entire Super Hornet / Growler fleet over the weekend because a Growler canopy shattered (or departed completely) and severely injured the flight crew - luckily the incident occurred on the ground. It appears that the ECS went hard over and over-pressurized the cockpit. Preliminary cause is a plane wash procedure gone bad. New procedures were disseminated, and the grounding has been lifted.

Yeah we noticed because you suddenly disappeared, then magically reappeared when their was bad F-35 news.


and again what about the continual oxygen problems?