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Reagan F-18 down in Philippine sea

azguy

Well-Known Member
None
Glad everyone's safe and hopefully has a badass story to tell for the rest of his/her career.

Of course, this kind of thing is bound to happen, from time to time. I'm curious- for anyone in the know... to what extent are projected maintenance issues "baked in" to Big Navy's buy of a series of jet?
 

SynixMan

HKG Based Artificial Excrement Pilot
pilot
Contributor
Glad everyone's safe and hopefully has a badass story to tell for the rest of his/her career.

Of course, this kind of thing is bound to happen, from time to time. I'm curious- for anyone in the know... to what extent are projected maintenance issues "baked in" to Big Navy's buy of a series of jet?

Short answer yes, attrition of the fleet over time is baked into the initial buy. Once the production line is shut down, it’s prohibitively expensive to restart.
 

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
Short answer yes, attrition of the fleet over time is baked into the initial buy. Once the production line is shut down, it’s prohibitively expensive to restart.
Not to hijack the thread, but I believe this was a major factor in us getting the UH-60L remade into the MH-60S. The Army over-committed to Sikorsky, or under-attrited in the Gulf, depending on your perspective (paycheck), and Congress didn't want to shutdown the line.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
Not to hijack the thread, but I believe this was a major factor in us getting the UH-60L remade into the MH-60S. The Army over-committed to Sikorsky, or under-attrited in the Gulf, depending on your perspective (paycheck), and Congress didn't want to shutdown the line.
My understanding was that during the mid 90s peace dividend Army Aviation had bills due for the RAH-66 and UH-60Ls that were in production but only funding enough for one. Army went all in on the RAH-66 (insert Indiana Jones "you chose poorly" joke here) and offered the in-production H-60s to the USN for "special friend price.". About this time USN was in desperate need of something, anything to replace the HC phrogs and the MH-60S was born.

While we're talking about production line decisions, the reason the USN didn't buy more Phrogs was because at some point Boeing had come to the USN and asked if USN would ever want more Phrogs or should Boeing sell the tooling and rights. USN said "sell it, we have no interest in any more Phrogs." So Boeing sells the line to Kawasaki for next to nothing. A few years later USN is in a pinch and asks Boeing to look in to reopening the line. Kawasaki, not being idiots, offers the line back at a price with plenty of profit for themselves.
 
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RedFive

Well-Known Member
pilot
None
Contributor
A rescue aircraft quickly plucked the pilots from the water and brought them back to the ship, the Navy said in a statement.

A rescue aircraft? Please. God's Chariot. You may quote me NBC 7 San Diego.

And yes, I know, if you're old said Chariot was a Phrog ( @ChuckMK23 ). But because of reasons (above) we are stuck with this one. Glad everyone's okay! :D
 

danpass

Well-Known Member
Glad they're safe.

What a terrible line though, more revealing of the writer's attitude than anything else:
"A U.S. combat jet from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan crashed into the sea northeast of the Philippines on Monday, but its two pilots were rescued safely."

Better:

"Two pilots from the USS Ronald Reagan were safely rescued after their U.S. combat jet crashed Monday into the sea northeast of the Philippines."

[/rant]
 
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