Why is this man not smiling?

According to an Air Force power point briefing provided to POGO, earlier this month at 0815 on April 10th, the controls on an F-22A at Langley Air Force Base showed that the aircraft's canopy wasn't locking. After several attempts at opening and closing the canopy, on the final try it locked and jammed--trapping the pilot inside. According to the briefing, the 27th Aircraft Maintenance Unit then "consulted Lockheed Martin and the F-22A System Program Office to determine alternative methods to open the canopy and extract the pilot."

The mission was accomplished approximately five hours later. As you can see from the pictures here, while the "alternative method" ultimately used was fairly cheap (click here and scroll to the last picture at the bottom), the resulting damage wasn't--according to the briefing slides, the cost of canopy replacement will run $182,205. (But after tens of billions of dollars, what's another $182,205?)

As one of our sources puts it, the episode "raises a very interesting maintainability issue."

Oh, and if you haven't read it yet check out Ed Offley's Raptor piece on the Nieman Watchdog.

Comments

[Posted on: Mar 23, 2008 at 02:47 AM]

"we owe a lot to our men and women in the air force, they do us a great service
God Bless America and all the good it stands for"

And all the children and non combatants they bomb.

Patriot fool.

[Posted on: May 22, 2007 at 10:04 PM]

I can prove this is a Hoax. If it were real, and knowing the us Government, they wouldn't cut the canopy open, they would have cut, disassembled and destroyed the multi million dollar plane, and saved the canopy..

[Posted on: Jan 20, 2007 at 03:44 PM]

we owe a lot to our men and women in the air force, they do us a great service
God Bless America and all the good it stands for

[Posted on: Jan 19, 2007 at 03:24 AM]

US airplanes are hardly good at flying. Better to buy some European jets: they're cheaper and better ;-p

[Posted on: Oct 10, 2006 at 06:13 PM]

The government is spending so much on this 'faulty' equipment. Do you have any pictures I can post on my website. It is dedicated to goodfellow air force base.

Thanks,
Michael

[Posted on: Jun 14, 2006 at 10:14 AM]

I doubt this will satisfy people, but I will say it anyway. I am a maintainer on the F-22A. The day this happened we all knew about it. It is all real. Every picture, every person is real. I have read most of the comments posted and I would like to reply to a few.
1. The ejection symbol is in all the pictures, it is just very faint in the one of the right side.
2. The paint of the airplane varies all over the place. This is one thing I even do not understand. Why can I go to Home Depot and get a million gallons that are exactly the same color, but the AF can't mix up a batch of grey that looks alike?
3. You can eject on the ground and be perfectly safe. The canopy has a rocket motor on the front that should shoot it back and to the right. If the canopy gets stuck the seat will cut through, but the damage of all that is more then the damage of just cutting the thing open.
4. This plane is the baddest thing in the sky. But I am biased. I don't read news articles, or magazine reports. Like I said, I am a maintainer, I work on these on a daily basis. I am friends with the pilots. They say there is nothing better. They kill everything they see. It is an unfair fight. Don't belive everything you read, talk to people that are actually there to get a real story.

I am happy to give further input and answer most any questions you have.

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[Posted on: May 15, 2006 at 10:03 PM]

Just wondering.....did you get your pics from the leftovers department at Universal or from a USSR Army-Navy Store?

Next time, do your readers a small favor. Get the facts and your pics correct and have a factual base for them.Otherwise, this will look worse than any comic produced by Stan Lee and would be just as rooten in reality Even Mad Magazine would not stoop this low.

[Posted on: May 15, 2006 at 08:57 PM]

What a crock of left-wing bullshit. This isn't a real "event" and as others have stated it's a mock-up. A quick inspection of the images shows that the canopy frame has "painted on" panel lines.

Besides being an URBAN MYTH propogator this Pogoblog is just a front for "Demcoracy in Action" with ties tow "MoveOn.org" an organization known to have ties with communitsts and anarchists in the USA.

Of course, most of the lefties can be easily suckered into thinking anything is an F-22 Raptor.

[Posted on: May 09, 2006 at 03:19 PM]

It really is a mock-up. Show this to any Air Force puke and they'l tear it apart. The ass-end of the "jet" is still in the hangar, given the proximity of the hangar wall in the photo. It's not even an F-22 mock-up - look closely, and compare the dimensions of a real F-22. Also notice the homemade trim around the bottom of the canopy, which if you look closely you'll notice is also used on the in-take (which is too close to the canopy in relation to the real dimensions of an F-22). Not only is it written on with a sharpy marker, I presume to craft it's shape for fitting around the canopy, this loosely fitted crap around the bottom of the canopy would blow off in flight. Finally, the structure's in the backgound (over the fire-fighter's shoulders prove that these photos were not taken on the the Langley flightline.

[Posted on: May 06, 2006 at 07:23 AM]

Its a DRILL guys, on a MOCK UP.
Fuck - look at the cockpit - doesn't it look a bit absent of stuff??

[Posted on: May 01, 2006 at 07:33 PM]

http://www.defensenews.com/channel.php?C=airwar.

Fixing the F-22A
The U.S. Air Force has discovered structural flaws in its most expensive fighter jet that could cost roughly $1 billion to test for and fix, service officials said.

[Posted on: Apr 29, 2006 at 02:30 AM]

And why not replace the jet fighters, i mean lets face it, i can forsee a time where there will be loads of major air battles.... The Al Qaeda air force mainly consists of a load of paper planes soaked in petrol!

[Posted on: Apr 28, 2006 at 05:29 PM]

Alright, all stories aside. Which is more likely to happen and get released to the press. Photos of a drill that firefighters do at Goodfellow AFB San Angelo Texas, or the canopy of a highly classified jet getting broken, and the Air Force actually admiting to a mistake and letting press take photos of the screwed up jet?

You guys dont' know the first thing about AF PR and what a drill is.

God you some of you "oversight" people make us real military members sick. You call yourself patriots when all you do is hack at your country's military and leadership. If you can do a better job, run for office.

[Posted on: Apr 27, 2006 at 09:29 AM]

I contacted my brother who was on the program, he has since retired and went to work fon the X35. He said this really happened and it was not a drill. HTH, and ends the mindless speculations.

TNRonin

[Posted on: Apr 27, 2006 at 08:33 AM]

Canopys failing to open isn't uncommon on various jets. Get over it.

[Posted on: Apr 27, 2006 at 01:50 AM]

Nick,

I was much surprised to read

Homeland Security "Gag" Orders for Guards

and

POGO letter to Senator John McCain opposing sales of F-22 fighter jets to foreign governments, March 27, 2006

in light of the photos in this piece.

As a point of reference,

"the overly broad definition of 'sensitive but unclassified' information"

would not include pictures of the inside of the cockpit, but not a view of the pilot from the outside.

Points to Andreas, that Ed Offutt article lacks any merit. My suspicion the work was based on press releases.

gpn

[Posted on: Apr 26, 2006 at 07:33 PM]

the only problem with that is where that canopy might land, if it came back down on the airplane, that could be a huge bill...

[Posted on: Apr 26, 2006 at 05:49 PM]

Some folks should check their facts before opening mouths and or writing. Grumman did the Digital Flight Controls on the F-111, but the aircraft was built in Fort Worth Texas by General Dynamics - Fort Worth Not Grumman. The Australian Air Force love the aircraft and the only reason the USAF got rid of it was they were force to choose....new fighter "F-15E" or keep 20 year old aircraft.

[Posted on: Apr 26, 2006 at 04:33 PM]

I meant if an F22 can destroy a wall of F15's....
And all modern ejection seats have canopy cutters on top of the seat, but still would be a bad option.
I think this is a mockup/training scenario...

[Posted on: Apr 26, 2006 at 04:06 PM]

You gotta be kidding me, are some of you guys really that dense?
1) modern day ejection seats are Zero/Zero seats, which means that are designed for zero altitude and zero aispeed, but this is a lousy option for cost and safety.... cutting was the best thing.
2) are you sure this wasn't a training series in a mock up?
3) the f22 is the greatest fighter jet to fly, those of you that think the SU's are better are plain ignorant on facts, but whatever, I am not about to go into specifics.... suffice it to say that if a single F22 can repeatedly destroy an 8 ship wall of F22's with their radars ablazin (that is not classified and happens repeatedly), then it currently owns the skies, and we haven't even started to talk about is prowess...
4) oh whatever that is enough for you guys....

[Posted on: Apr 26, 2006 at 01:53 PM]

to be precise... GRumman was the contractor who actually built the Prototypes for the F-111