The U.S. Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of B-1B Bone bombers due to unspecified concerns about the aircraft's ejection seats and has no fixed timeline for when it will clear the planes to fly again. The decision comes as an investigation continues into an emergency landing involving the type in May 2018 and amid growing concerns about the readiness of the U.S. military aviation communities as a whole. U.S. Air Force General Robin Rand, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees all of the service's combat-coded bombers, ordered the so-called "stand-down" on June 7, 2018. On May 1, 2018, a B-1B bomber assigned to the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base made an emergency landing at Midland International Air and Space Port in Midland, Texas after declaring an in-flight emergency. The incident involved a fire in one of the aircraft's engines and resulted in an emergency exit hatch coming off in mid-air. Unconfirmed posts on the unofficial Amn/Nco/Snco Facebook Group said that the aircraft's Offensive Weapon Systems officer tried to eject, which caused the hatch to come off, but that their Advanced Concept Ejection Seat (ACES) II ejection seat failed. Additional notes indicated that the decision to make the emergency landing at Midland came after that individual became stuck and it remains unclear if the aircraft's pilot had ordered any of the crew to eject. The United Technologies Corporation (UTC) seat is also found on the Air Force's A-10 Warthog, B-2 Spirit, F-15C/D Eagle, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16 Viper, and F-22 Raptor aircraft. There is no indication yet about whether or not the issue on the B-1s extends to the seats on any of those aircraft.....snip~ http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...ejection-seats Well this will definitely have an impact on Operations. What say ye?
Here's what I'm expecting. A.) "If it's not broken...don't fix it" Some young geek tries to make a better mouse trap but isn't old schooled and uses a computer instead of using his brain housing group. We see it today, replacing a draft board with a computer and in the end game you end up with warships like the U.S. Navy's Little Crappy Ship (LCS) that can't fight or could survive in combat and is always breaking down at sea that it requires a tug boat escort. Or the F-35...what the computer said what the F-35 could do... can't do. But more likely... B.) Obama's sequestration that will take 12 to 20 years to repair the damage that it caused to or military. A few months ago I read an article in one of the military/defense industry publications that visited a Marine Corps FA-18 C fighter squadron at MCAS Miramar. On any given day 1/2 to 3/4 of the squadron's FA-18 can't fly because of the lack of maintenance and spare parts. That the Marine Corps has to pull parts from old FA-18 at the bone yard at Davis Monthan AFB and even from museums. On one FA-18 it was time to replace the explosive charge on an ejection seat but there was no replacement in the supply line. Thank's Obama and Congress. You have way than enough money for PC diversity classes but not for maintaining ejection seats. Here's where the problem is likely to be. -> https://taskaero.com/ejection-seat-maintenance/
Holy bucket of ****. We've had problems with ejection seats long before Obama and sequestration. Put the blame on the contracted companies and you'll be closer to the target than the "Thanks Obama" bullshit.
No one thinks about the poor guy that after landing, and after shutdown had to unstrap from and get out of a seat that might still fire. I would have drank myself to sleep that night. In all seriousness, good on the crew. Hopefully the Air Force will commend them when it's done firing all the commanders.
For the Marine FA-18 squadron not having the new explosive charge to replace in the FA-18 injection seat, there was no replacement in supply. They said it was because of the Obama sequestration. There were no appropriations made for purchasing the explosive charges because there was no freaking money.
To block potential use of the US military in foreign policy matters, the Obama administration ordered half of all aircraft maintainers discharged from military service even during their tours of duty. Shortly afterwards he wanted an engagement and re-enlistment was offered - and all refused as they had found far more lucrative jobs in the private sector and rightly had no trust in the military and for how much it temporarily messed up their lives. To have 7, 9, 12 years of service going for career and suddenly just laid off? When offered to come back they replied "go to hell," creating a massive shortage since we ramped up our activities in the M.E., burning out our aircraft as they increasingly had to be grounded due to lack of servicing. Learning how to maintain, service and repair military aircraft isn't like working on a car. It takes YEARS of intense study and training - meaning they are not easily replaced. In addition, because such massive workloads were put on those remaining, virtually none are remaining/re-enlisting. Of those who do re-enlist, they will only do so if they can be in another duty area OR will switch the branch of service they are currently in to get away from working on aircraft - since they are all but worked to death due to massive technical personnel staff shortage. People don't realize that for every hour of flying time, military aircraft require 20 to 50 hours of maintenance time. The personnel to do so simply does not exist, can not be immediately replaced, and re-enlistment rates of maintainers is next to zero. A person we know who was a maintainer said the greatest danger to our pilots and aircrew even in combat zones are not enemy missiles, but aircraft systems failures. Our military aircraft fly on computers and fly-by-wire. They are extremely complex and most are extremely fatigued. One thing wrong and it could bring the aircraft down. Half our military aircraft cannot fly. Of the half that do fly, half of those shouldn't be without complete go-overs. We are increasingly hearing of our flyable military aircraft falling out of the sky or suffering major failures. This problem with the B-1B is significant as the MOST available staff resources would be devoted to those billion dollar aircraft. If they have problems, the Rube Goldberg designed Globemasters are in real trouble.
Rule of thumb: Assume anything conservatives say about Obama and the military is false, as that's almost always the case. First of all, sequestration was forced by the Republican congress, so blaming it on Obama is highly dishonest. Second, it was the military's job to intelligently make due with less money. The military should have reduced the number of aircraft they had. Instead, they tried to skimp on maintenance. That's entirely the fault of the military. Obama, being a good CiC, did not micromanage military aircraft maintenance policy. The military was free to make their choices, and they made bad choices.
Where have you been ? Somebody was drinking the Obama kool-aid, someone has been drinking the Obama kool-aid and took the bait hook line and sinker. Obama's sequestration came from the Obama White House. White House Admits (Third Time) President Obama Fibbed On Sequester https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulro...ident-obama-fibbed-on-sequester/#44136c24105a Now remember, when President Obama signed his sequestration into law he said if Congress made any attempt of repealing his sequestration he would veto it.
I understand that's what your revisionist history says. After all, your revisionist history says many bizarre things about many topics. If the topic is Obama, your revisionist history is always the opposite of reality. The Republican congress initiated the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, used it to force austerity measures, and sequestration was a result of that. If, in the future, a budget couldn't be agreed upon, sequestration went into effect. That happened. Blaming in on Obama is just bizarre. By the way, your little propaganda piece there was especially bizarre. It was just a crazy guy rambling random hate about Obama. I can see why you liked it.
If you are referring to Woodward, he's a freaking liberal who has been loved and praised by liberals for 45 years until he exposed President Obama being a liar and that the sequestration was Obama's sequestration and while signing his sequestration into law told the entire country on television that if Congress tried to repeal his sequestration he would veto it. If you are ever around the hermit state of California find a sponsor to get aboard MCAS Miramar and you'll notice a few things. You will not see six or nine FA-18 pilots standing around the tarmac doing jack **** but you'll see nine or six FA-18 C's in each squadron being cannibalized for spare parts to keep the other nine or six FA-18's flying. Then head up I-5 and go aboard Camp Pendleton and head towards the 1st, 5th or 7th Marines cantonments areas and you'll notice these Marine captains and majors with gold wings on their chest. These are FA-18 fighter jocks who have been TAD to Marine grunt battalions as ground FAC's who no longer have a FA-18 to fly because they have been canalized for spare parts. It's only a two year tour of duty being a FAC and will return swinging with the wing as they transition over to the F-35 B.
Woodward has been a GOP shill for a long time, since at least back to the Clinton admin. That's not really true, and not meaningful. So why didn't the Republicans raise taxes to fund the military? They had that option. They must have really despised the military to not do so. At least, that's how your logic works, that any refusal to fund the military to the max is awful. That's why your rants about Obama are so silly. The military got funding cuts. Good. It was up to the military to deal with that intelligently. They didn't. And Obama _still_ did not micromanage the maintenance policies of the US military, so that's entirely the fault of the military.