F22 touch 'n go accident, 35 million dollars worth of damage

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.newsherald.com/articles/tynd ... robes.html

Military probes F-22 mishap at Tyndall Air Force Base

June 05, 2012 08:04:55 PM

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE — The Air Force is not calling a “ground incident” involving an F-22 Raptor last week a “crash.”

The F-22 was in a “touch-and-go” practice session at about 5 p.m. Thursday when it was put out of commission.
The “ground incident” put the plane on the sidelines and benched the pilot, officials said.

Base officials would not comment on how the plane made contact with the ground, nor would base officials give any indication of whether the “incident” was mechanical or pilot error.
The pilot was not injured in the incident.

“Everything around this is in freeze frame right now,” said Herman Bell, chief of Tyndall’s 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs.

Bell said the pilot had been flying F-16s and had little experience with the F-22. “It was his second flight in the F-22,” he said.

Tyndall Air Force Base is the home of the 325th Fighter Wing, whose primary mission is to provide air training for F-22 Raptor pilots, as well as maintenance personnel and air battle managers.

The F-22 is one of the most advanced and expensive aircraft every constructed for the military. According to the Government Accountability Office, the per plane cost is $412 million.

[Rene Klok]

The per plane cost is $412 million? I seem to recall that earlier this week the Dutch DoD stated that the JSF cost for the Dutch AF had rissen a bit to some $61 million per plane (or was it Euro). So either the F-22 is extremly expensive or the General Accounting Office is maintaining different calculation methods. Do they include total development cost in the per plane calculation?

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... ht-372787/

A Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor from Tyndall AFB, Florida, was damaged last Thursday evening during a training flight, the US Air Force confirms.

While the pilot is safe, the aircraft suffered more than $2 million in damage-which classifies the incident as a Class A mishap.

The full extent and cost of the damage has yet to be determined, but the service expects that the aircraft will be repaired.

The aircraft was being flown by a student pilot transitioning to the Raptor from another aircraft type at the time of the accident. It was the pilot's second sortie in the jet after completing academic and simulator work.

The USAF is not able to offer any additional details due to an on-going investigation into the incident, but the mishap does not appear to be oxygen-related.

"There is no indication at this time that the life support system was related to the incident," the USAF says. "However, the investigation is on-going."

The USAF is not saying which tail number was involved in the incident. But the 43rd Fighter Squadron, which is the USAF's Raptor formal training unit, has 29 early production aircraft assigned to it.

[PNegri]

Tyndall F-22 mishap report cites pilot error

By Brian Everstine - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Nov 15, 2012 14:57:12 EST

A pilot in training failed to advance an F-22 to “military power” during takeoff and prematurely retracted the jet’s landing gear, causing a mishap May 31 at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., according to an accident report released Thursday.

Without enough thrust during the touch-and-go training, the F-22 “settled back to the runway” and skidded along the ground to a stop, causing $35 million in damage to the stealthy jet. The pilot, assigned to the 325th Fighter Wing’s 43rd Fighter Squadron, exited the plane with minor injuries.

The pilot had recently transferred from another airframe and was on his second training flight after 10 simulator training exercises and more than 100 hours of academic training, the Air Force said at the time of the incident.

The squadron at Tyndall was part of Air Education and Training Command at the time of the crash, but has recently transferred to the authority of Air Combat Command. Another F-22 squadron is transferring from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., to Tyndall, but the move is on hold while Congress and the administration hash out an agreement on the fiscal 2013 budget.

While most accident investigation board reports are released in full within 24 hours of the announcement of findings, the report in this case is only available through a pending Freedom of Information Act request, AETC spokeswoman Dianne Moffett said Thursday.