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Aircraft losses in Naval Aviation

Rocky3168

Rocky3168

New Member
So i was strolling through a bookstore during a break in my hectic A-pool schedule when I came across a book entitled; "To be a U.S. Naval Aviator". It looked interesting and had some great pictures so I bought it. I was reading through it earlier this evening and came across a section called 'death in Naval Aviation'. It had some stunning facts about deaths of NA's during the 50's being a daily occurance and how "the Navy and the Corps crashed an average of two aircraft a day". This fact was not hard to believe, but later the author, (who was a former highly accomplished Marine pilot) said that "dramatic improvements in aviation safety have decreased the accident rate to the point that a single [Navy/Corps] aircraft is lost about every ten days or so".
Im just finding it hard to believe that a Navy aircraft is lost every ten days. It seems a bit much. Can anyone offer some validation to this point?

Cheers,
Rocky
 
Brett327

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Rocky3168 said:
So i was strolling through a bookstore during a break in my hectic A-pool schedule when I came across a book entitled; "To be a U.S. Naval Aviator". It looked interesting and had some great pictures so I bought it. I was reading through it earlier this evening and came across a section called 'death in Naval Aviation'. It had some stunning facts about deaths of NA's during the 50's being a daily occurance and how "the Navy and the Corps crashed an average of two aircraft a day". This fact was not hard to believe, but later the author, (who was a former highly accomplished Marine pilot) said that "dramatic improvements in aviation safety have decreased the accident rate to the point that a single [Navy/Corps] aircraft is lost about every ten days or so".
Im just finding it hard to believe that a Navy aircraft is lost every ten days. It seems a bit much. Can anyone offer some validation to this point?

Cheers,
Rocky
Click to expand...

Think about it. These were the days before NATOPS and all the other various standardized things we do to stay safe were in place.

Brett
 
Rocky3168

Rocky3168

New Member
I apologize, my post is a bit confusing.

I agree with the first point that 2 aircraft were lost everyday during the 50's. That is not hard to believe.

I was questioning the second part; that even today an aircraft is lost every 10 days.
 
G

Gainesy

New Member
When was the book written? A loss every ten days sounds like a 1970s/1980s era possibility, but I doubt it applies to today, or is it a mishap rate versus (total) loss rate?
 
scoober78

scoober78

(HCDAW)
pilot
Contributor
When was the book written? A loss every ten days sounds like a 1970s/1980s era possibility, but I doubt it applies to today, or is it a mishap rate versus (total) loss rate?
Click to expand...

Actually that sounds about right. We had what...30 something Class A's last fiscal year? I'm not sure of the number exactly but that is the right order of magnitude, and is within spitting distance. Divide 365 by 30 something and the result is right around 10...the power of statistics.

As far as the historic number...that seems believable as well...we've all seen that decending line graph with number of Class A's on one axis and the year on the other with all the safety improvements inserted...you know...biggest drop when we implemented angled decks, then when NATOPS came on line...seems to me the top number was somewhere between 500-800...so....
 
Flash

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Gainesy said:
When was the book written? A loss every ten days sounds like a 1970s/1980s era possibility, but I doubt it applies to today, or is it a mishap rate versus (total) loss rate?
Click to expand...

Here are some stats:

"The Navy had 14 Class A aviation mishaps, up from 13 in fiscal 2005, but below the 10-year average of 17.8 mishaps. Those accidents destroyed nine aircraft and killed 11 people."

"The Marines had seven Class A aviation mishaps in fiscal 2006, down from nine in fiscal 2005 and below the 10-year average of 11.6."

http://www.navyleague.org/sea_power/nov06-24.php
 
BigIron

BigIron

Remotely piloted
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
From the safety center website: FY 2004
NAVY:
•1 Navy death every 78 hours (3 days)
•1 POV death every 120 hours (5 days)
•1 Aviation death every 73 days
•1 Active duty military injury every 6 hours
•1.8 Military members hospitalized every day
•11.33 Civilian man-years lost
•1 Aircraft destroyed every 41 days
•$1.33 Million a day in aviation losses

MARINE:



•1 Marine death every 88 hours (4 days)
•1 POV death every 191 hours (8 days)
•1 Aviation death every 26 days
•1 Active duty military injury every 25 hours
•1.9 Military members hospitalized every day
•2.53 Civilian man-years lost
•1 Aircraft destroyed every 19 days
•$1.74 Million a day in aviation losses
 
fudog50

fudog50

Registered User
Statistics.....jeez.

Why go by days? WTF does that tell you?

How about flight hours???

mishap rates in 2005 were:

1.94 per 100k fh for USMC

0.88 per 100k fh for USN

Overall average about 1.3 mishaps per 100000 hrs total. (this includes class A and B, and was below the goal)

Your question shows you are absolutely new to Naval Aviation. Good on ya for asking, there are few stupid questions asked here. (lots of stupid answers)

Example-

-1954 Navy lost 776 aircraft

-2004 Navy lost 15 aircraft ( 5 helos)

Fiscal year 2007- Zero (reported)

Don't know what data you are looking at, but this is straight from Naval Aviation Safety Center.

Here is the website if you want to research more-

http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/aviation/default.htm
 
Skeeterman

Skeeterman

Banned
I have no record on the number of Navy aircraft lost during the total years of the 1950's. However, I can tell you how many were lost during the Korean war...1312..
Here is the broken down by aircraft from June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953.

US Navy.
AD- .....7
AD-2... 37
AD-3... 37
AD-3Q.. 1
AD-3W.. 2
AD-4... 77
AD-4B....1
AD-4L...17
AD-4Q....8
AD-4W...6
AD-4N...14
AD-4NA..8
AD-4NL..5
AF-2N....2
AF-2W...1
AT-6......9
AT-6D....36
AT-6F.....25
AU-1......23
F2H-2.....13
F2H-2P....3
F3D-2.....7
F4U........8
F4U-4...376
F4U-4B..168
F4U-4P...1
F4U-5...24
F4U-5N..107
F4U-5NL..28
F4U-5P...4
F7F-3N....62 Marines.
F7F-3P....l
F9F.........6
F9F-2B....32
F9F-2P.....3
F9F-3.....4
F9F-4....13
F9F-5....31
FRF-Firefly..4
P2V-..2
P2V-3....3
P2V-4....1
PBM-5....4
PBM-5A...1
PBM-5S2..1
RB-26C....4
RB-29A....4
RB-45C....2
SA-16A...3
SB-17.....1
SB-29......1
SNB.... 1
Total...1312 various aircraft loss for the 1127 days of the war. Some days, the Navy loss as many as 14 per day.



The Air Force loss a total of ..1855 aircraft.
 
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