USAF News and Discussion

I am not an American and am assuming Stars and Stripes and Air Force Times are credible news sources. These articles back up what my local newspapers are reporting. Hurricane Michael may have caused significant damage/losses to the F-22 Raptor Fleet.

1. Tyndall Air Base in Florida "sustained catastrophic damage" in Air Force uncertain how long devastated Tyndall will be closed; F-22s possibly damaged in hurricane . Normally, this base homes 55x F-22 Raptors.
2. Air Force Times F-22s, QF-16 likely damaged after Tyndall hangars hit by hurricane says

The U.S. Air Force was reportedly laying the groundwork for the F-22 Raptor to serve another 42 years, until 2060, but this assumes a low rate of attrition.

Flight Global is also reporting heavy damage to the base but no details on possible damage to the Raptors left behind.

PICTURES: Tyndall Air Force Base suffers severe damage from Hurricane Michael

FoxtrotRomeo999 said:

I am not an American and am assuming Stars and Stripes and Air Force Times are credible news sources. These articles back up what my local newspapers are reporting. Hurricane Michael may have caused significant damage/losses to the F-22 Raptor Fleet.

1. Tyndall Air Base in Florida "sustained catastrophic damage" in Air Force uncertain how long devastated Tyndall will be closed; F-22s possibly damaged in hurricane . Normally, this base homes 55x F-22 Raptors.
2. Air Force Times F-22s, QF-16 likely damaged after Tyndall hangars hit by hurricane says

"However, according to the Facebook Air Force Forum page, four F-22 Raptors from the 43rd Fighter Squadron were unable to fly out of the way of the storm and may have been damaged. Three Raptors were in one hangar that had significant damage, according to the forum, and a fourth rode out the storm in a separate hangar that seemed to sustain less damage, based on imagery on the forum. The Air Force would not confirm that the F-22s were damaged in the storm.

Photos shared with Defense News on social media also showed a heavily damaged QF-16 aerial target aircraft, with its front nose-cone sheared off, as well as a hangar with an F-22 inside and its roof largely missing. A separate source told Defense News that as many as ten F-22s may have been damaged by the storm."​

A week earlier, an F-22 Raptor crash landed and skidded across the runway at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.​

The U.S. Air Force was reportedly laying the groundwork for the F-22 Raptor to serve another 42 years, until 2060, but this assumes a low rate of attrition.

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Yea we had a News story on News.com yesterday saying 22 Raptors destroyed or damaged. I would not insult this Forum by posting a Link to that place, if they ran a story saying the Sky was blue i would have to go and check.

John Fedup said:

Flight Global is also reporting heavy damage to the base but no details on possible damage to the Raptors left behind.

PICTURES: Tyndall Air Force Base suffers severe damage from Hurricane Michael

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The video in that link just shows the devastation. No voice over, no music. Showed some QF-16's in a damaged hangar. View was from above through the roof.

Redlands18 said:

Yea we had a News story on News.com yesterday saying 22 Raptors destroyed or damaged. I would not insult this Forum by posting a Link to that place, if they ran a story saying the Sky was blue i would have to go and check.

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Good chance they transposed the F-22 number to get that 22. Initial reporting was that 12 F-22 were unable to fly out ahead of the storm, of the 55 stationed at the base. I have since seen reporting that the number was 17. Reports from late last night stated that initial assessment found that aircraft were damaged, but repairable (that sounds good). The USAF won't be releasing any hard numbers until they've had an opportunity to complete more thorough assessments and inspections.

Last year during Hurricane Harvey over 50 T-45s (USN trainer based on BAE Hawk) were left at NAS Kingsville because they weren't airworthy or lacked pilots to evacuate them.

I have no idea what criteria is used for how aircraft are based inside the USA but basing F-22s in a hurricane zone in Florida may not be the best choice for $200 million plus jets, especially when maintenance issues may prevent departures to safe zones. Surely less expensive fighters are sufficient for defending the minimal threats from the south. Even if only 3-4 Raptors have
been damaged, the cost for repair will no doubt be significant. I would be surprised if the number and extent of the damage will be made public for some time.

John Fedup said:

I have no idea what criteria is used for how aircraft are based inside the USA but basing F-22s in a hurricane zone in Florida may not be the best choice for $200 million plus jets, especially when maintenance issues may prevent departures to safe zones. Surely less expensive fighters are sufficient for defending the minimal threats from the south. Even if only 3-4 Raptors have
been damaged, the cost for repair will no doubt be significant. I would be surprised if the number and extent of the damage will be made public for some time.

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I would presume that a number of considerations govern where the air fleet is stationed apart from threat proximity.
There are F22s based in Alaska so I assumesp they are the primary NORAD assets.
There are many important military and industrial facilities based in areas effected by Severe weather events but that includes most of the Atlantic and Gulf States, all of the tornado effected mid west and the earthquake prone West coast. What are the options?
The only realistic defence against such events is strict building codes for infrastructure and mobility of assets.
Obviously the occasional storms are not frequent enough to change the plans.

I would have thought most of the tyndall jets are training ones. So it will be bad that some are damaged but not effect operations.

the concerned said:

I would have thought most of the tyndall jets are training ones. So it will be bad that some are damaged but not effect operations.

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Tyndalls F-22 squadrons are: the 43 Fighter Squadron, conducting advanced fighter training; the 95th Fighter Squadron, a combat coded active unit; and the 301st Fighter Squadron. a USAF Reserve combat coded unit. So, I wouldn't be surprised that a number of the planes that remained at Tyndall belonged to the 301st. As they might not of had pilots available to fly them out of the area.

I think it's more likely any jets left behind were not in flyable condition.

Still no final assessment on aircraft damage at Tyndall AFB. This article implies initial damage assessments may have been too high but it is vague on F-22 information which is understandable.

Air Force Still Mum on How Many F-22s Damaged in Hurricane

USAF have stated elsewhere that a detailed public description of F-22 damage will not be forthcoming for OpSec reasons. I did not know TYNDALL was part of NORAD:

http://aviationweek.com/defense/hurricane-damaged-fighter-jets-look-fixable-says-mattis

SpazSinbad said:

USAF have stated elsewhere that a detailed public description of F-22 damage will not be forthcoming for OpSec reasons. I did not know TYNDALL was part of NORAD:

http://aviationweek.com/defense/hurricane-damaged-fighter-jets-look-fixable-says-mattis

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Yeah, the Air Operations Center (can't remember the number) at Tyndall is a regional center for NORAD. I read a number of days ago it's operational functions were transferred to units at Langley AFB, and the Ops Center became became the command center for recovery operations

A US pilot died in an Su-27 crash, in Ukraine, during international exercises Clear Sky. Investigation is on-going regarding the cause of the crash.

U.S. pilot killed as Ukrainian Su-27 air force jet crashes in training | Reuters

Another update on Tyndall AFB. Reading between the lines, it appears the F-22 damage won’t be insignificant. The pleas for rebuilding Tyndall so economic benifits to the area can continue once again highlights the difficulties in managing military bases in general, a problem not unique to the US. Homestead was closed after a hurricane and after seeing the damage to Tyndall, it is not hard to understand why some want to close it. At the very least, F-22s should not be based there again. If 5th Gen fighters are needed for the Gulf coast then base F-35s there, the USAF will have the ability to withstand losing a few to the next hurricane.

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2018...ase-f-22-raptors-damage-uncertain/1652997002/

I do not for the life of me understand how you can justify US$1,300 for a coffee cup in an aircraft and I presume that each crew member are issued their own individual cup for health reasons. The RAF, RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF most likely have boiling vessels in their aircraft for the making of tea, coffees etc., which are decanted into normal cups. I am sure the boiling vessels cost a darn sight less than US$1,300 per unit and you can get more than one cups worth out of one heating cycle.

Air Force puts the kibosh on the $1,300 coffee cup

Well if one were to get free unlimited fill ups with each cup at popular coffee cafes, the price might be acceptable.

It appears that the USAF are looking at increasing their fixed wing airlift capacity at the strategic level, rather than the tactical level. One option being bandied around is restarting the C-17 production line which is an expensive proposition and increasing C-17 capacity at the same time as reducing C-130 capacity. Nothing is cast in stone yet and this is just ideas being floated as part of the plan to increase the size of the USAF to 386 squadrons.

Could the Air Force restart the C-17 production line?

ngatimozart said:

It appears that the USAF are looking at increasing their fixed wing airlift capacity at the strategic level, rather than the tactical level. One option being bandied around is restarting the C-17 production line which is an expensive proposition and increasing C-17 capacity at the same time as reducing C-130 capacity. Nothing is cast in stone yet and this is just ideas being floated as part of the plan to increase the size of the USAF to 386 squadrons.

Could the Air Force restart the C-17 production line?

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I sense other nations might be interested in the C-17 production line reopening. Australia will be looking at replacing its C-130J sometime in the 2030s and its white paper foreshadowed buying additional heavy lift aircraft.

Well if the USAF thinks it needs to increase its heavy airlift capability then perhaps speeding up the development of a new lifter with some stealth features makes more sense along with a modified version for tanker service. From a selfish POV, restarting C-17 production might allow the RCAF to acquire 2-3 more.