What's with military pilots?

[Wing Nut]

Is it just me or have there been a lot of fighter planes crashing this year?  I can count five or six, not counting in Iraq.  Did they lower the training standards or something?  This may be my chance...  ;)

[Felix/FFDS]

More flying = more things that can go wrong, both with the pilot and with the airplane.

[C]

Its just one of those things. Most military accidents involved perfectly servicable aeroplanes - it involves some degree of human error to cause the accident. It just happens randomly, so sometimes you'll have a bad year and sometimes you can have a year where you have very few incidents. In the UK (Army Air Corps, Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force) lost only 3 aircraft in 2003, but in 1999 we lost 18 and '96 we lost 21...

Charlie

[edzmen]

In the UK (Army Air Corps, Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force) lost only 3 aircraft in 2003...

Yeah, thats because we train the best pilots though!!

[Craig.]

More like 90% of our planes are in no state to fly, and with the amount of time it takes to discuss fixing them, most of the years gone anyway And i can get away with saying that as my dad was among other things an engineer for REME. LOL

[C]

More like 90% of our planes are in no state to fly, and with the amount of time it takes to discuss fixing them, most of the years gone anyway And i can get away with saying that as my dad was among other things an engineer for REME. LOL

Where I work servicability is generally very good. The real reason is that we are flying a lot less (cos Gordon Brown can't give us the money, because he accidently spent it on something else) and flight safety is constantly improving (we are learning our lessons), and we a doing a little less low flying. The other side is luck, and sometimes it runs out, for example the Tornado in TELIC (a combination of a

[beefhole]

Yeah, thats because we train the best pilots though!!

Oh no he DI-IN'T!

[C]

[quote]

Oh no he DI-IN'T!

[Craig.]

just a few pointers not to get into it too much. The Eurofighter as late and problematic as it has been, has actually in various unplanned situations whooped every aircraft its encountered, the two yes i repeat two F-15's that jumped one on a training mission were both taken out in very quick time. There have been rumors a couple of tornados also tried to play games with a typhoon, they didnt fair to well either but Charlie might have something more conclusive on that as its only rumor. The number charlie gave were pretty much accurate, the way i saw them, were as such. the F-22 would shoot down 10 for every f22 lost. the typhoon 8 for every typhoon lost, then the rest were down in the 4 and below catagory. However these are all paper stats and never been fully tested in mock combat. Take out the stealth element of the F-22 and just have it participate in a mock dog fight and it would soon struggle with the typhoon. As much of a waste of money that its been, if you have ever seen this thing at an airshow your only seeing 70% of its ability, the agility on it is still not fully known but its beyond almost every other jet fighter in existance

[Hagar]

This thread seems to have wandered slightly off-topic. Britain is a much smaller country & has far fewer military aircraft in service than the US.

[Felix/FFDS]

and, no matter what the defense cust are, ozzy, NO, the UK will NOT bring back the Spitfire to service, so get that out of your head!  (OTOH, there are credible rumors saying that the MoD will bring back the Swordfish as its premiere maritime attack plane, and all SAR helicopters are to be replaced by Walrii...)

[ozzy72]

From what I hear the MOD are issuing cardboard wings!

[C]

From what I hear the MOD are issuing cardboard wings!

...which don't work in the desert, snow, rain or any slightly unfavourable weather condition...

Charlie

PS. Hopefully the F-22 v Typhoon situation will never arise. If it does, I'm off... To somewhere nice... Christmas Island perhaps, or the Falklands...

[C]

[quote]and, no matter what the defense cust are, ozzy, NO, the UK will NOT bring back the Spitfire to service, so get that out of your head!

[Hagar]

...which don't work in the desert, snow, rain or any slightly unfavourable weather condition...

Hmmm, nothing new there then. LOL