Tyndall AFB a "complete loss" amid questions about F-22s

[Gums]

Salute!

Local rags claim all the Raptors will be finished flying out this weekend. Most heded to Langley and at least one to Hill.

So I wonder why they didn't fly out to begin with, as sounds like it wasn't motors or flight controls but avionics or minor subsystems.

No way right now for Eglin to absorb the Tyndall planes or mission. The base has already created some problems with noise that the F-35's make, especially when using the rwy closest to Valparaiso. And that sucker IS LOUD! I am about 4 air miles away, and with SW winds it's really loud.

Eglin does not have the hangars that Tyndall has/had, and most of the Stubbbies are in cheap tent-like hangars. If the storm was 40 miles closer two weeks ago, I don't think many of them would have survived. Since 1985 we have had more storms than Tyndall and most have been west of us, giving us the worst winds and such. Tyndall is also much more secure than Eglin when they close the hiway bridge on the west end. Eglin has homes right off the runway on the east side and about a mile from the west side. There's not a lotta traffic going thru Tyndall on Hwy 98 to Mexico Beach, and once the debris is cleared there, it will be even less than before the storm.

Gums sends....

[wolfpak]

I have read with interest of all of the schemes to safeguard or move the F-22's. Bottom line the structure of the large hangars survived the storm and what failed was the roof and exterior wall panels. Arch type hangars were last built in the 50's. Plenty of years in a salty environment for fasteners and roof panels to corrode and fail when hit by high winds. Replace them. It would take a few million dollars. I can see having aircraft that aren't mission capable but find it difficult to see having a third of your aircraft not flyable especially during hurricane season. Sounds like either a dire lack of spares or a ineffective maintenance organization. In either case appropriate management of the fleet solves the problem. With a majority of the aircraft flying out by now it appears that spares may not be the issue.

OR they cannibalized parts from the written off/not flying for months jets to get the salvageable survivors back in the air. I would be willing to wager this has occurred to some extent.

New hangars will cost a lot more than that. One of the new hangars at Nellis alone cost north of $20 million. Then there is the fire suppression certification...

To clarify I'm not suggesting new hangars for a few million but merely the replacement of the roof and wall panels on the existing ones. The foam tests for the fire suppression certificate are a real hoot and generate quite a mess.

[Gums]

Salute!

Yeah, Wolf. The initial stuff was BS, and the helo flyby the next day clearly showed a lot of structures and such looking great.

When the mayor or base commander says that every structure was damaged, some of that is to get help down the road, and prolly every structure had a roof shingle blow off, many will have trees falling into a part of the house, and so forth. You can look at the photo recce from a few days later and the Tyndall housing area does not even come close to whatyou see at Mexico Beach, just 6 or 7 miles east.

Tyndall is a great location for reasons I pointed out before, and that ain't even considering the water ranges which are 5 minutes away while you have just raised the gear, heh heh. Did WSEP there years ago.

Gums sends...

[Scorpion1alpha]

USAF update on Tyndall:

Units to be located at Eglin AFB, Florida, with reachback to Tyndall AFB:

•The 43rd and 2nd Fighter Squadrons’ F-22 Fighter Training and T-38 Adversary Training Units will relocate operations to Eglin AFB. Academic and simulator facilities at Tyndall AFB will be used to support training requirements, as well as Tyndall AFB’s surviving low observable maintenance facilities.

Units with insufficient infrastructure to resume operations at Tyndall AFB at this time:

•Personnel and F-22s from the 95th Fighter Squadron will relocate to Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia; Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; and JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

[popcorn]

So the 95th is going to be spread across 3 different locations? A short-term solution given concerns about unit cohesion?

[Scorpion1alpha]

I don't think that is the concern at this point in time.

[Gums]

Salute!

Thanks for the update, Scorp.

Have to see when the local rags figure out the re-assignments. OTOH, you can imagine that the big news around here has to do with recovery.

Niceville and Fort Walton are hosting many of the refugees, and the traffic shows it as well as motel occupancy and lines at McDonalds, Wendy, etc. Some of the larger subdivisions at Panama City are only 50 or 60% habitable even tho electricity is back on and water is flowing. Roofs are the biggie, and you can imagine the backlog for the handyman business as well as the big conpanies.

I'll update later in the week when I start to see the Raptors zipping around.

Gums sends...

[madrat]

Recovery is going smoother than expected from what I gather from FEMA. They were able to consolidate community shelters down to a single high school being used in the Panama City area. Mexico Beach is more of a rebuild of about everything whereas much of Panama City survived with minor structural damage to most buildings. The worst hit area was devastated more from surge than wind damage as far as I can tell. People built too close to trees in some remote areas and unexpectedly paid for the creature comforts when the trees came down on their homes.

[Scorpion1alpha]

A month after Hurricane Michael, USAF stood up three task forces at Tyndall. Among them is Task Force Raptor:

Task Force Raptor, led by Col. Argie Moore, Air Combat Command combat aircraft division, is made up of more than 40 maintainers from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, who have been working 24-hour operations to make the F-22 Raptors flyable.

“With the jets almost all gone, we would like to downsize the Task Force Raptor team to 13 maintainers, so they can return to Langley,” Laidlaw said.

Task Force Raptor personnel


TY 079 leaving 5 November


Outstanding job all.

[marsavian]

All F-22s Have Now Left Tyndall, Air Force Secretary Says

https://www.military.com/defensetech/20 ... -says.html

All the F-22 Raptors that were left behind at Tyndall Air Force Base during Hurricane Michael have moved on to the bases where they will be housed until the Air Force determines their final future destination, the service's top civilian said Thursday.

"All of the F-22s have been flown out now," Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said during the annual Defense One summit in Washington, D.C. "All of the damage to them was minor ... They were repaired and flown out."

[hoghandler]

Great to hear the raptors are all repaired and flown iut. Any word on the QF-16s that were left behind? There were at least 4 in a hanger from pics i seen.

[Gums]

Salute!

No word here on the QF birds.

OTOH, local rag put out a pic of the drone base a few miles east of the main, and looks like a handful of the old drones are trashed, not the QF-16 and such. I am not up to speed on their ops, and not sure if they station the QF's over there or at main.

The drone base is pretty much bare bones, and I can see it being repaired quickly for limited ops. If the data recovery and processing is done over there, then that's a different story.

May have sighted two Raptors last Thursday. From my plans background, I would think the logistics will be the long pole in the tent. If they break out the WRSK, then the basic maintenance and back shop folks can sustain a low sortie rate. The T-38's won't be a problem, and the test wing has good support for them.

It's long range flying that will require a lotta support. We deployed the 4th back in the early 80's to Flesland and they flew a reasonable amount of sorties with the new jet. 'course the Norwegians had logistics in-place, right?

Gums sends...

[Gums]

Salute!

First flight of Raptors and some 38's got here this week. Looks like we'll get a whole squadron and part of another.

Seems the entire 38 fleet will be here, as well.

Biggest consideration is logistics and housing for personnel. The community is coming together in that regard, as is school system and so forth. Because we never got the original Stubbie numbers, there is a small amount of housing and such to use. Big problem is downtown rent costs, but TDY pay should cover some if USAF calls it a "remote" assignment which then provides "family separation allowance", per diem and other $$$. Then there' the gracious community that uinderstands storms and evacuations and...

I know one of the T-38 jocks, who is a reservist, so should get some intell while munching oysters and shrimp at Doc's Oyster Bar ( right outside the east gate).

Gums reports...

[Scorpion1alpha]

As Gums mentioned, some of the evacuated F-22s recently returned to Florida, six in total. From the video posted by SecAF Heather Wilson, the 43rd FS's TY 026, 031 and 034 can be seen in the short clip arriving in Eglin AFB to begin their operations there.

https://twitter.com/SecAFOfficial/statu ... 7052796928

Regarding the QF-16s:

Tyndall also announced in a Nov. 14 release that Boeing delivered a QF-16 unmanned aerial target aircraft to the 82nd Aerial Target Squadron at Tyndall.

“The arrival of this QF-16 brings us one step closer to resuming operations,” Col. Steven Boatright, commander of the 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group, said in the release. “It is vital to the warfighter that we resume operations when it is deemed safe to do so.”

[Scorpion1alpha]

Some photos of the six F-22s arriving at Eglin AFB:



TY 023



TY 026


TY 031


...& TY 034









Eglin just became much more lethal with these Birds of Prey.