Kaa написал(а):
Проблем хватает и у них, и у нас. Просто некоторые свои проблемы вываливают на весь белый свет и рвут рубашку на груди (все кончено, мы полные лузеры). А некоторые проблемы не пиарят, а успехи заявляют на весь мир.
Это как в жизни, как себя позиционируешь, так к тебе и будут относиться.
Вы полагаете что весь мир узнал о проблемах Рапторов при полёте в Японию от российской разведки? Мне так показалось что сами американцы об этом заявили. Да и разбитых Рапов не скрывают. Ну и если навскидку сделать поиск, то много всякой всячины всплывёт которая без ведома ВВС не дошла бы до СМИ:
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But with a price tag of $130 million per plane — $330 million if you take into account research and development costs — critics wonder why millions more will have to be spent to fix corrosion problems and design flaws on some of the 104 stealth fighters delivered so far by the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
Leaky fuselage access panels at the top of the jet are leading to corrosion issues in many of the planes. Also, problems with the plane’s core structure — particularly the forward boom, which supports the plane’s weight and must endure the stresses of high-G maneuvers — must be fixed.
These are among the latest in a series of problems for the Raptor as it continues the transition from developmental test jet to operational fighter. Over the past year, another problem — overheating avionics — has been fixed.
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The manufacturers of the Air Force's newest fighter jet knew years ago that the composition of some mechanical access panels made the F-22 Raptor susceptible to corrosion. Military officials even changed the design to fix the problem.
But a decade later in a program already fraught with setbacks, the design flaw reappeared. Now, about two-thirds of the military's fleet of Raptors are suffering from corrosion, prompting the Air Force to speed up the timeline for bringing the aircraft through Hill Air Force Base for depot-level maintenance.
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The Air Force on Tuesday said it is fixing technological glitches in roughly 87 F-22 Raptor fighter jets after several aircraft computer systems earlier this month were disabled mid-flight.
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What would cost $8 billion, has a mission capable rate that is a “troubling” 62 percent and “is proving very expensive to operate?” The answer: 100 upgraded F-22s.
John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, offered those statistics at breakfast this morning in an apparent effort to explain just why the Defense Department does not want to buy more than the currently projected number of 183 F-22s.
Young piled on, saying the plane “still does not meet most of its KPPs (Key Performance Parameters).” But it’s not just pure operational shortcomings that have Young worried. “The airplane is proving very expensive to operate.. and it is complex to maintain.”
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The Air Force has discovered a tail stress problem in the nation's most expensive jet fighter and will delay testing as it considers changes to the F-22 Raptor's airframe.
Air Force officials said that last fall they found that certain high-force flight maneuvers put unacceptable stress on the F-22's distinctive twin tail.
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The United States' premier 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.
The aircraft's radar-absorbing metallic skin is the principal cause of its maintenance troubles, with unexpected shortcomings -- such as vulnerability to rain and other abrasion -- challenging Air Force and contractor technicians since the mid-1990s, according to Pentagon officials, internal documents and a former engineer.
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Over the four-year period, the F-22's average maintenance time per hour of flight grew from 20 hours to 34, with skin repairs accounting for more than half of that time -- and more than half the hourly flying costs -- last year. The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22's predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.
Darroll Olsen, a specialist in stealth coatings who worked at Lockheed's Marietta, Ga., testing laboratory from 1995 to 1999, said the current troubles are unsurprising. In a lawsuit filed under seal in 2007, he charged the company with violating the False Claims Act for ordering and using coatings that it knew were defective while hiding the failings from the Air Force.
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The plane's million-dollar, radar-absorbing canopy has also caused problems, with a stuck hatch imprisoning a pilot for hours in 2006 and engineers unable to extend the canopy's lifespan beyond about 18 months of flying time. It delaminates, "loses its strength and finish," said an official privy to Air Force data.
In the interview, Ahern and Air Force Gen. C.D. Moore confirmed that canopy visibility has been declining more rapidly than expected, with brown spots and peeling forcing $120,000 refurbishments at 331 hours of flying time, on average, instead of the stipulated 800 hours.
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Знаете в чём разница между ура-патриотами и американцами? Ура-патриоты кричат что надо скрывать недостатки, а американцы особо не скрывают недостатков, выявляют их потихоньку и чинят. Я вообще практически никогда не слышал от американцев такого странного мнения что надо недостатки скрывать чтоб можно было гордиться собой до посинения.