Tyndall F-22s, Left Behind Before Michael Hit, Possibly Damaged Beyond Repair
airforcemag.com
airforcemag.com
> Wing Command Col. Brian Laidlaw said in a statement Friday the base was "better than yesterday, and that is how it is going to continue to be. We will continue to persevere."
I like it so much that I really just want to make it a motto to live by: "things are better than yesterday and that is how I will continue to make them."
More to do but heading in the right direction
which was widely mocked for being particularly uninspiring. I still quote it all the time - hardly a week goes by when it can't be amusingly slipped into conversation hehe. (Usually to helpfully complete someone's attempt to describe the state of a situation they're working on.)
Won't be easy.
Stuff corrodes, and somebody has to notice it. Hangers built near the ocean will corrode faster than normal.
Even the cheapest USAF jet trainer is more expensive than the building that stores it.
> somebody has to notice it
That's why we invented periodic inspections and mandatory maintenance even for those times nobody notices anything.
This hurricane was about as powerful as one from the 19th century... We're well into the 21st century.
(There have been, according to AccuWeather, 27 other category 4 hurricanes that have made landfall in the US since 1851.)
Someone would ask, "How's it going?" and I'd reply, "Today is better than yesterday, so we can't complain. We just have to keep making it better than yesterday."
No other state takes hurricane evacuation more seriously than Florida. This article[1] posits that Tyndall has 55 F-22s divided between two training squadrons. If only 4 were left behind, that's 93% brought to NMCM Airworthy status or better, which is mindblowingly effective.
[1] http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24204/setting-the-recor...
http://www.cargolaw.com/gallery.html
Most commonly encountered when talking about an insured asset. In the case of military owned equipment, there is no insurance company, so the DoD takes the loss themselves.
The article states how much it would cost to get the tooling back to make more of the planes and you would be looking at spending billions to make replacements.
There is no 'series production' going on and therefore that means that 'maintenance' is more like 'restoration' with these dubious machines.
I wonder if it would make more sense and provide as much utility if the Air Force just settled for a fleet of classic concept cars. It wasn't as if the Air Force was of any use whatsoever on that day seventeen years ago when action stations was actually needed.
Deterrence is a peacetime activity intended to preserve and extend peacetime as long as possible. One could argue that the fact that no two major powers have engaged in direct combat since ww2 is an existence proof of the power of deterrence.
Geopolitical rivals have similar tech to the F-22 entering service.
You may disagree with the wars being fought but this tech does what it says on the tin.
Likewise, we will never go to conventional war with those “geopolitical rivals”. Instead we go to war with countries like Syria and sub-national actors like ISIS neither of which have similar tech entering service, to put it mildly.
It was also the first plane to drop JDAMs which are useful regardless of the tech level of the enemy.
It’s a long range bomber that was designed to fly long distances and drop bombs that entered service and flew long distances and dropped bombs.
No part of that history is “revised”.
Furthermore, maintaining military parity with geopolitical rivals is why we do not engage in conventional warfare with them. The MAD doctrine has proven to be effective for decades.
I’m happy to hear reasoned criticism of American foreign policy but the B-2 and F-22 are both performing exactly the jobs they were designed for. Both as combat vehicles and as deterrents.
It’s deeply insulting both as an American and as a thinking human being to say the USAF did nothing on 9/11.
In FY 2017, the Congressional Budget Office reported spending of $590 billion for defense, about 15% of the federal budget.[1] For the FY 2019 president Donald Trump proposed an increase to the military to $681.1 billion. [2]
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
I assume you are being downvoted for failing to actually include your footnotes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=avi...
From the article: “We anticipate the aircraft parked inside may be damaged as well, but we won't know the extent until our crews can safely enter those hangars and make an assessment,” the spokeswoman said.
Anecdotally, a former life once allowed me the privilege of directing flightline ops during several hurricane evacuations. This isn't anything new to me, and I've seen far worse than what this article (and others) have depicted--to include an entire squadron of F-15s engulfed in storm surge saltwater flooding up to their cockpits during Wilma, none of which resulted in airframe loss.
$283 for top 1% highest-earners
$21 for remaining top 10% highest-earners
$4 for remaining top 50% highest-earners
¢38 for bottom 50% lowest-earners
If this cost was covered by income taxes.
Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-20...
Disclaimer: I'm not trying to imply anything here, I was just curious about the average cost to tax payer and then tried to get a more accurate picture.
IANAP (I am not a pilot/military) but the airbases near me in Scotland have bunkers like [these](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9e/24/8f/9e248f941d40fca8e947c4a57...) for storing RAF Tornados and Typhoons.
Hopefully this loss will be a lesson to the USAF
Some possibilities: 1) Nuclear hardened bunkers exist on base but were already full. 2) Nuclear response planning does not require planes to be stored in hardened bunkers. 3) The threat model for a nuke is different than a hurricane.
Excuses don't seem credible.
I'm not offering excuses. Hell, I'm not even suggesting the base design was satisfactory or that this damage is acceptable. I am offering possible explanations for why this amount of hurricane damage was sustained and why these specific air frames were not in "nuclear hardened bunkers".
"I saw some bunkers somewhere" is a pretty poor excuse for criticism of a military installation's design, or anything really.
It's not 72hours, but probably since ~ 1492 they knew that FL is hurricane country. They also know that x% of planes are always on maintenance and a certain amount of planes cannot evacuate to a safer base. And while not cheap, it's possible to make hurricane proof hangars. Someone dropped the ball and a lot of money was lost.
This was a strong cat 4 with heavy forward momentum and a significant storm surge, a 200+ year storm for the area. Nobody builds for highly unlikely events like this, they buy insurance.
Building better ones I bet would be cheaper than year after year insurance on billion $ items
Neither of us knows the detailed cost benefit analysis that went into hurricane preparedness at this base. No lives were lost and most of the F22s made it out, presumably a lot of the other assets did as well. Overall I’d say that’s a success.
If our plan for a 200 year storm is “rebuild” I’m ok with that if the alternative is “spend more than rebuild costs to hurricane proof the base”.
72h is a lot of warning?
But uh, is it really news that hurricanes roll through Florida with pretty regular frequency?
So, uh, yeah, it’s news.
It’s disingenuous to claim there was a huge failure in preparedness in an area with frequent storms while ignoring the efforts involved to evacuate and the severity of the storm. This evacuation successfully saved every person on base and a significant amount of hardware from a 200 year storm in... 72 hours.
It's about 71.5 more hours than they'll get from an enemy.
Not all of these planes were airworthy, of course, but that in itself is a bit of a problem, IMO.
PS: I have no knowledge in the subject, just curious.
Throwing jets on flatbed trucks? People don't realize how large of a flying machine a Raptor is. They are roughly 44 feet wide, 62 feet long, and weigh over 43,000lbs. They are not something you just throw on pop's flatbed and skidaddle out of dodge. Nor are they made to be transported that way in the first place. And to where? You are talking about a highly sensitive asset packed with classified material. Its skin treatment alone presents a national secret risk. These aircraft are supposed to sit in last minute hurricane traffic heading somewhere as they hog up multiple lanes? The whole notion is ridiculous. And if they can't seek refuge in time, you have a flying machine strapped to a flatbed. Good luck with that.
[1] http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24204/setting-the-recor...
No, these planes aren't just Lego sets that you can take apart and pour into a C-5. Removing wings on an F-22? That is a massive undertaking, let alone getting a C-5 in and loading it up to fly away to someplace. Once again, limited capacity in a limited timespan, and that is a long-lead type of project.
If these planes were so borked they couldn't be made airworthy then maybe putting new wings back on ins't that much extra considering you've risking the whole engine by leaving them behind.
but a moot point. I'm sure they will just build concrete hangers for next time.
Ok, let’s leave it to be destroyed by weather then
On top of that, the Air Force has a less than an infinite supply of trucks and drivers. If you have more resources to move than logistical capacity then surely it makes sense to move the most value within the constraints.
At some point maybe a cannibalized, corroded F-22 fuselage is less valuable than whatever else the Air Force decided to put on a truck.
Considering that being in the eye of such a powerful hurricane is a freak occurrence, the cost of the risk contingency probably would not be worth it if you ran the numbers.
Losing a billion dollars of planes because of weather? I know it is only a billion (a drop in the ocean for the military) but if a adversary had knocked out three F-22s they would be considered a national threat.
Treat the weather like a potential national security threat is what I am saying.
For example, a probable solution would be to place the aircraft far from things likely to become flying debris, then add sandbags... lots of sandbags. Park the planes on the runway, then add enough sandbags to divert the wind over the top.
I'd take that chance if I knew that the hangar would fail, but again, that is cheating.
They're planes. Fly them out of the way, it's not rocket science.
Point is, we don't know if the planes were in flight ready state, do we? It could be something simple but I'd not risk my officer's life just to save a plane.
My apologies if the planes were indeed flight certified.
With relatively minor changes like that, an ordinary wood frame house should be considerably stronger.
The issue is as always cost, people operate on a "why spend the money it may never happen" risk model generally and are averse to dealing with a problem til it punches them (personally) in the face, I mean this isn't new, as a species we don't deal with things until it gets to the brink.
If you want a fascinating example of this in the general case read up on the Clean Air Act in the UK.
Most people do better. Typical construction in Florida is concrete block. There is no "ordinary wood frame house" in Florida. That would be out of place. We have termites, but not concrete-eating termites.
To me it feels like the houses are about 5% wood frame, 90% concrete block, and 5% solid poured concrete that could stop a truck tossed by a tornado.
You're also talking about a very serious wall. Fast moving water is extremely powerful and heavy - and it can also wash out the earth beneath you. And it's carrying all manner of debris. It can drop concrete bridge pilings on your house, for example.
I cleaned up after Katrina. There's really nothing we can practically build for these types of situations. Most houses will survive the winds, unless they're hit by a tornado, a tree falls on them, they're especially unlucky, or have unusually poor construction. A lot of people on HN seem to have this idea that we just need better building codes. That is not my experience.
These morons built an Air Force base with billions of hardware in hurricane territory, and were caught flat-footed by a hurricane because apparently there were no adequate plans for what to do when a hurricane approached?
Jesus christ. Those planes are irreplaceable. F-22 production has ceased, so it's not like they can order up some more. And considering the problems with the F-35s, those F-22s are some of the only capable 5th-gen fighters we're likely to have for a longggggggg time.
(I understand that most of the places were apparently evacuated, but it's tough to swallow any significant loss of those very expensive pieces of hardware due to inadequate planning)
Seeing as you've had the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate Tyndall's emergency hurricane evacuation procedures, the airworthiness of 55 aircraft divided between two squadrons, O&M/MILCON budget of a training base, and logistical impediments arising from 72-hours notice coupled with a swarm of evacuating civilians from surrounding areas, please do take the time to enlighten us all.
Are you saying that their plans were adequate? Clearly they weren't; they lost at least a handful of irreplaceable planes.
Or are you saying that there was just no way to predict or prepare for a hurricane hitting an airbase right in the middle of hurricane country? I mean, a lot of hurricanes roll through that part of the country.
the airworthiness of 55 aircraft divided between two squadrons,
I'm no military brain genius, but it seems obvious to me that at any given time less than 100% of the planes at any given airbase would be airworthy and that perhaps some provision should be made for sheltering or evacuating these planes if a hurricane rolls through this base which, again, is located in a very hurricane-prone region.
O&M/MILCON budget of a training base
That you presume to parade your decision making as superior to the dozens of career field officers and senior enlisted members with real skin in the game--let alone the hundreds preceeding them who have earned their keep--is even more baffling.
That you continually insist $1bil in F-22 assets was lost to this hurricane is quite telling of both blatant ignorance and inexperience in matters relating to military aircraft maintenance operations.
Admittedly, I'm rather insulted by the magnitude of sheer narcissism and narrow-minded hubris in your remarks.
I angrily said "these idiots" as if everybody involved was an idiot.
What I should have acknowledged is that the folks on that base are insanely talented (I know enough about the military to know that the folks trusted with these aircraft are very elite) and in all likelihood pulled off a freaking miracle to save as much hardware as they did with (more importantly) zero loss of life. I have no doubt that they spent 72 hours stretched to their limits and performed admirably.
Whatever else we disagree on, at least we agree on that.
What I am angry at is the design of a base that had inadequate structures and/or procedures in place to enable those assets to be fully protected and/or evacuated in the event of a hurricane. Clearly those (or the budget allocated) were not adequate to fully handle the situation. The results attest to that.
The lifespan of the planes is only ~30 years. Losing a few of them to a total freak storm doesn't seem as outrageous as you are making it out to be, especially when much more of the fleet was evacuated than should be expected based on typical readiness.
You're acting like the USAF had no hurricane plan at all when in reality they obviously did. Not all the F-22s were lost and a bunch of the other assets made it out too.
From the article:
> The F-22s left behind could not fly for
> either mechanical or safety reasons, said
> a spokeswoman, who also said all the hangars
> on base were damaged.
It also seems pretty clear that in prime hurricane season, in prime hurricane territory, that... I don't know, man, hurricanes might roll through.
Seems avoidable to me. Obviously, making every single hanger hurricane-proof is probably not feasible. How about, having some kind of smaller reinforced hangar for the planes which cannot be evacuated? Jet fighters are really not that massive; we're probably not talking something the size of a football stadium. Seems cheaper than just losing up to a billion dollars worth of irreplaceable fighters.
"More than a dozen F-22s were left behind as Hurricane Michael bore down on the base Oct. 10. Now, in Michael's wake, many of those are damaged, and some beyond repair, at a cost of more than $1 billion, Air Force officials said."
So of the ~12 planes left behind a subset were damaged and and even smaller subset (apparently four) were potentially damaged beyond repair.
The arrogance on display here is staggering. You think the USAF is not aware of hurricanes in Florida? Since you are obviously an expert please tell me how many category 4 hurricanes have hit the Florida panhandle in the time the USAF has existed or in the time since we started recording them. How many have hit Tyndall directly? How many times has it successfully withstood tropical storms and hurricanes?
Please share the credentials that qualify you to provide detailed guidance to the USAF on how to design and run an air base.
Planes cannot be fixed instantly. I would hope that is obvious.
This was a powerful storm that did a huge amount of damage to more than just these planes. You could take a more generous and broad view of the events and ask if saving these planes would have been worth the opportunity cost to other resources that would have then been left in the storm's path.
I guess my point from the beginning is that these planes didn't need to exist in the first place, so the money spent could have been provisioned differently, like for programs to possibly help tax payers that just got given the finger.
edit: Your first sentence sounds like it's meant to dissuade criticism about military spending, because your opinion mandates it.
As sung by Tom Jones.