Sunday, May 29, 2011

Fly Like An Eagle

Fly Like An Eagle

Hey Flyboy, how's those planes going? Oh, this article will be pretty annoying if you so happen to like airplanes and government pissing away of money.
The US Air Force has stopped flying all Lockheed Martin F-22s for an indefinite period over concerns about a possible glitch in the onboard oxygen generation system.

The stand-down order issued on 3 May by Air Combat Command (ACC) chief Gen Will Fraser comes about six weeks after the F-22s were restricted to flying below 25,000ft due to the same problem.

The order is in effect until "further notice", the ACC says.

"The standown is a prudent measure following recent reports of oxygen system malfunction," Fraser said in a statement.

While the F-22s remain parked, investigation teams will continue to determine the cause of the malfunction, the statement added.

The ACC emphasized that the stand-down order is technically not considered a "grounding", which occurs only in response to a catastrophic technical issue. A stand-down is voluntary and precautionary.

Despite keeping the F-22s on the ground, ACC believes the stand-down order will not change the air force's ability to perform missions such as air superiority alert. The F-22 is still available for "national security directed missions", the ACC said. One-time flights can also be approve by the heads of major commands, inclduing repositioning flights.

The air force has been flying the F-22s operationally for more than five years, with more than 150 already in service. All 186 F-22s on order are expected to be delivered by early next year.
Well, isn't that sad. I guess it's a good reason to stop using them. You know, when they're able to just completely malfunction with crossing an imaginary line. At least it's not costing us too much... is it?

Oh wait...
Meanwhile, supporters of the F-22 program — which has cost more than $65 billion so far — argue that Mr. Obama should extend its production, at least temporarily, to preserve thousands of jobs related to building the jets, which cost $143 million each.

add not having oxygen to its laundry list of shit
The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show.

HA HA HA HA HA. Oh man, If I didn't laugh I would be crying on how much we wasted on these suckers.

While most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly to repair as they mature, key maintenance trends for the F-22 have been negative in recent years, and on average from October last year to this May, just 55 percent of the deployed F-22 fleet has been available to fulfill missions guarding U.S. airspace, the Defense Department acknowledged this week. The F-22 has never been flown over Iraq or Afghanistan.
My god, what a worthless piece of shit this military economic spending is...

"The new US stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, was deployed for the first time to Asia earlier this month. On Feb. 11, twelve Raptors flying from Hawaii to Japan were forced to turn back when a software glitch crashed all of the F-22s' on-board computers as they crossed the international date line. The delay in arrival in Japan was previously reported, with rumors of problems with the software. CNN television, however, this morning reported that every fighter completely lost all navigation and communications when they crossed the international date line. They reportedly had to turn around and follow their tankers by visual contact back to Hawaii. According to the CNN story, if they had not been with their tankers, or the weather had been bad, this would have been serious. CNN has not put up anything on their website yet."
Why yes.. time zones, they be my only weakness! But to be honest, time zones are my weakness as well. I look at what time Doctor Who is on GMT and I'm all sorts of confused on the matter on when it will air here in the states.

But at the very least I don't crash because of it. You get the point, it's a pretty serious issue and us throwing massive amounts of money into this black budget sure is fucking stupid.

Just think, supporters of the F-22 program - which has cost more than $65 billion so far - argue that Mr. Obama should extend its production, at least temporarily, to preserve thousands of jobs related to building this worthless piece of shit jet that cost $143 million each.. And how is it that we don't consider ourselves a socialist state?

Paying them to do nothing would be orders of magnitude cheaper at this point. What a waste of our tax dollars.

Do I need to remind you that the Navy Seals used top secret stealth helicopters to attack Bin Laden's $250,000 mansion and had to blow one of them up when they clipped a wall with the rotor?

The whole purpose of the F-22 and F-35 programs was that they were going to cost much less for maintenance than previous generation planes. But hey, US interests abroad are almost entirely economic. Our economy is based upon trade, and maintaining PAX Americana by mitigating threats to global trade is the best way to ensure our continued economic success.

The good news is that this is great for the rest of the world, as well. But the bad news is that we'll continue to wage wars with brown people and throw endless amounts of money to creating and launching weapons while we still have hungry people in our nation.

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