3 ms·

Fighter aircrafts are complex machines, and I don't know the numbers for other aircraft, but isn't 10 - 20 hours of flight per month borderline useless? In a w

Fighter aircrafts are complex machines, and I don't know the numbers for other aircraft, but isn't 10 - 20 hours of flight per month borderline useless? In a war I'd expect a single mission to easily hit five hours, using between 25 and 50% of the total flight hours. Most small nations buy somewhere around 20 to 50, so only a few would be ready at any given point in time. The pilots have ridiculously low hours in the air per year, around 200 hours per year. The Textron AirLand Scorpion is a bit of a joke as a flight aircraft, but at least you can buy enough of them to ensure that your pilots have actual flight time every week. I'm really disappointed with the low level of hours in the air for the F-35.

brianwawok 3y ago
I don’t think you should conflate wartime vs peacetime maintenance. At peacetime you aren’t ok with 1 or .1% of flights needing to come in for an emergency landing due to some part flaking out. During training you want as close to 100% reliability as possible.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  I'm not in the military, never was, but I'd expect better performance in war time. You can tolerate a much much higher failure rate during peace time. It doesn't matter much if a training mission is aborted, the consequences are much lower.
  - selectodude 3y ago
    Generally the things that pull the plane off the line aren't things that make them non-flightworthy. They'd be sending these planes on sorties if it wasn't peacetime.
    - warner25 3y ago
      This cuts both ways. A lot more things need to be online in combat: avionics, sensors, weapons, survivability equipment, etc. At home, it didn't matter if the IFF transponder or satellite radio wasn't working. We didn't even have survivability equipment installed. In combat, though, any of those things makes an aircraft non-mission capable.
  - hylaride 3y ago
    In peacetime you can ground your entire fleet of a type of aircraft when an issue is discovered (as has been done for almost every model of military plane flying at some point). In wartime you don't have that luxury and you need to go, go, go. If there was a war, none of the following groundings would have happened even if a very serious issue was discovered: * https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html * https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy-f-a-18-e-f-super-hornets-growlers-grounded-after-incident-injuring-aircrew/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy... * https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-raptor-grounding-due-to-suspected-toxins-says-report/ https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-rapto... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-decision-to-ground-apache-helicopters-provides-key-crisis-management-lessons/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-de...
- warner25 3y ago
  Yes, there are big differences between wartime and peacetime operational tempo and maintenance capacity. I flew and managed maintenance for Black Hawks, and while deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq we flew multiples of the hours that we'd fly at home. While deployed, we ran 24-7 maintenance. We had contract maintenance support to probably triple our organic capacity. We had first priority for getting parts, and we had freedom to stockpile parts or do "controlled exchange" (i.e. cannibalize other aircraft for parts) which we couldn't do at home. One outcome is that we effectively wore out the fleet a decade or two faster than planned.
warner25 3y ago
As a former pilot, I will agree that hours matter. Our ability to get pilots 200 training hours per year has actually been an advantage, to my understanding, compared to our competitors who can't afford even that much. The simulators for the helicopters that I flew really sucked (you just can't capture the feel of hovering, landing in dust or on slopes, terrain flight, etc.) so simulator hours were a poor substitute for flight hours. But I suspect that simulator hours are more valuable for fixed-wing pilots. New single-seat fighter pilots can go straight from simulators to soloing a real aircraft. I also imagine that most of what they need to practice is just button-pressing procedures for sensors and weapons. Doing most of that in a simulator can really extend the lifetime of the fleet.

brianwawok 3y ago

I don’t think you should conflate wartime vs peacetime maintenance. At peacetime you aren’t ok with 1 or .1% of flights needing to come in for an emergency landing due to some part flaking out. During training you want as close to 100% reliability as possible.

mrweasel 3y ago
I'm not in the military, never was, but I'd expect better performance in war time. You can tolerate a much much higher failure rate during peace time. It doesn't matter much if a training mission is aborted, the consequences are much lower.
- selectodude 3y ago
  Generally the things that pull the plane off the line aren't things that make them non-flightworthy. They'd be sending these planes on sorties if it wasn't peacetime.
  - warner25 3y ago
    This cuts both ways. A lot more things need to be online in combat: avionics, sensors, weapons, survivability equipment, etc. At home, it didn't matter if the IFF transponder or satellite radio wasn't working. We didn't even have survivability equipment installed. In combat, though, any of those things makes an aircraft non-mission capable.
- hylaride 3y ago
  In peacetime you can ground your entire fleet of a type of aircraft when an issue is discovered (as has been done for almost every model of military plane flying at some point). In wartime you don't have that luxury and you need to go, go, go. If there was a war, none of the following groundings would have happened even if a very serious issue was discovered: * https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html * https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy-f-a-18-e-f-super-hornets-growlers-grounded-after-incident-injuring-aircrew/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy... * https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-raptor-grounding-due-to-suspected-toxins-says-report/ https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-rapto... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-decision-to-ground-apache-helicopters-provides-key-crisis-management-lessons/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-de...
warner25 3y ago
Yes, there are big differences between wartime and peacetime operational tempo and maintenance capacity. I flew and managed maintenance for Black Hawks, and while deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq we flew multiples of the hours that we'd fly at home. While deployed, we ran 24-7 maintenance. We had contract maintenance support to probably triple our organic capacity. We had first priority for getting parts, and we had freedom to stockpile parts or do "controlled exchange" (i.e. cannibalize other aircraft for parts) which we couldn't do at home. One outcome is that we effectively wore out the fleet a decade or two faster than planned.

warner25 3y ago

As a former pilot, I will agree that hours matter. Our ability to get pilots 200 training hours per year has actually been an advantage, to my understanding, compared to our competitors who can't afford even that much. The simulators for the helicopters that I flew really sucked (you just can't capture the feel of hovering, landing in dust or on slopes, terrain flight, etc.) so simulator hours were a poor substitute for flight hours. But I suspect that simulator hours are more valuable for fixed-wing pilots. New single-seat fighter pilots can go straight from simulators to soloing a real aircraft. I also imagine that most of what they need to practice is just button-pressing procedures for sensors and weapons. Doing most of that in a simulator can really extend the lifetime of the fleet.