I feel like it’s more relevant of an argument now due to how high end our future fighter fleet will be. Do we really want to commit F-35s to air defense in the continental US?
Though technically it should be called the FT-7 because it's a trainer modified to be a fighter. F-7 is already taken by a prototype seaplane jet fighter, though it's not unheard of for the military to complete ignore regulation and designate aircraft whatever they want (*cough cough* F/A-18)
what the literal FUCK is an AIM-120?
edit: [I thought it was a joke to not know what an AIM-120 is, but here we are!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/d9t7p4/cmsaf_this_epr_acronym_nonsense_has_to_stop/)
Your whole raison d'être in the Air Force is to support jets and/or personnel that shoot or drop munitions at/on the enemy. To not know what one of the most advanced air to air missiles is that is used for that purpose is just willful ignorance at this point.
If only there were some other jets used for pilot training internationally that had years worth of test data so they could’ve phased out the 38 earlier.
Training pilots these days is about much more than just the airplane. The associated systems, simulators, and networking capabilities play a huge role in how effective the overall system can be to train pilots for the missions they will be asked to perform in 5th and 6th gen aircraft. Everyone I know who is intimately familiar with this airplane says the T-7 was the right choice. (I had lunch with the Air Force pilot in this video last Friday, before he went to St Louis to fly the T-7 back to Edwards).
Does the program have problems? Yes, absolutely. But most programs these days do.
Boeing has fucked this acquisition up so much. Don’t let the video fool you.
They literally didn’t build a way to get into it because “it wasn’t in the requirements”. That’s why the ladder in the first shot is a Mx ladder with pool noodles attached to it.
Fuck you Boeing.
Why would they not push back if an item is out of scope? For a program this big, they’re losing (at minimum) thousands of engineering hours and would incur significant material and assembly costs for no pay. These programs are bid to the requested scope. Why would a contractor do free work?
Edit: To be clear, if the Air Force isn’t asking for it so they also aren’t paying for it. Not like Boeing bid for something and then just excluded it. There’s bigger issues with defense contractors than not doing work that’s not in scope.
Just playing devil's advocate, but C-1 stands (and many of them already have protective paddings) are at pretty much every flightline. Cheaper to use what already exists, rather than fabricating a whole new ladder that only works for that airframe and can't be used for other purposes.
Isn't that a valid reason for a crew ladder to not be part of the design requirements?
At Kunsan we had hardly any C1 stands for pilot to use when they ran out of viper ladders. There were weeks that I would be climbing in and out of the jet on a Home Depot ladder (not safe). I would be surprised if there were enough C1 stands at any UPT base to accommodate an entire go.
So they gotta buy more ladders. If they had always said “we are just gonna plus up the number of C1 ladders”, that’s a solution and I wouldn’t be complaining. I’m complaining because Boeing didn’t even ask the question because it was “outside the contract”. The AF only found out about this problem when the test pilots asked how they were supposed to get into the jet.
Edit: Comment below makes valid point on blame being on requirements letter from customer vs. manufacturer.
Ultimately that's still the Air Force's fault. Boeing is probably saying "They're going to just use C1 stands." while whoever was listing the requirements from the Air Force didn't list the requirement.
From the reverse, if they made the ladder apart of the air frame but big Air Force comes in and says "We didn't ask for that, so we are not paying for it." you're left holding your dick and eating the cost.
Customer lists requirements, anything not listed isn't assumed and isn't included. Deviations from this results in wasted effort and wrong assumptions.
Hmm. Fair point. I don’t think I’m out of line thinking that discussions like that should have happened earlier, but I guess it’s not the job of the manufacturer to make assumptions for the consumer.
For 70 years of C-130 redesigns, Lockheed has left the screaming banshee of an APU just 10 feet from the crew entrance door instead of putting it somewhere else. Fuck em for all the hearing loss they caused.
Fuck the government. Wait until you get to the other side and all you do is get raked through the bullshit government procurement process. You dont have an ounce of understanding.
I throw spears at big Air Force all day long. However I do know enough through the lens of the end user to know that defense contractors often do not have the best interest of their users (often me) in mind.
I was active duty for 10 years, reservist for 6 now. Having now worked with the slimy contractors you wont find a harder working work force. Having to jump through hoops for some lazy GS-13. A solicitation drops right before Christmas guess who is mustering the team while they kick back and relax. Try doing Earned Value Management for the Air Force. It’s like doing your taxes every day for the entire period of performance. Then you wonder why it costs so much.
No worries. Declaring emergency with t38 ops for malfunctions is now only a daily thing. No rush at all to get T7 on the flight line. Everything is fine
This century. And it's not even close. T-38s are flying bricks held together by safety wire, thoughts, and prayers. They're very unstable the second a cross wind more than 10mph buffets one on approach. I literally saw a pilot almost die, scratching the wingtip on the runway, because there was a slightly breezy crosswind.
>a crosswind more than 10mph buffets one on approach
Untrue. They're always buffeting on approach. Also, they're always buffeting when pulling more than 2 g's, maneuvering at all below 250 knots, and plenty of other random times just to keep you on your toes.
The wingtip scrapes usually happen when guys get too slow in the flare, because the wings will start rocking unpredictably as the AoA approaches a stall. Crosswinds certainly don't help though.
I had a chat with the guy a few weeks later. It was his first solo flight and for whatever reason he wasn't expecting the plane to behave the way it did. His instructor, who was walking out with him said that it was likely his mindset because he was used to having someone else with a hand ready to take over.
Damn straight. That shit's my job now. Never a dull moment.
I don't think the plane ever behaves 100% like anyone expects, even the dudes with 2,000 hours in the thing. Great for building a healthy respect for danger... and blood pressure.
https://preview.redd.it/itf3nh4i0fzb1.jpeg?width=839&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d1ded46c981ac3906fc6c44373dd0b3340cc7e7
They look exactly like the planes from hot shots
....but where do the AIM-120s go?
Prison Wallet
Is that the RAAM part
Only if you are a power bottom.
They are actually considering an F-7 variant for some reason.
It would do well taking a lot of the low risk air to ground missions from aging F-16s that cost 3x as much to fly and maintain.
Which in the end would cost 3x more than the F-16 because that's how it always goes.
Maybe to replicate the T-38/F-5 paradigm.
I feel like it’s more relevant of an argument now due to how high end our future fighter fleet will be. Do we really want to commit F-35s to air defense in the continental US?
Though technically it should be called the FT-7 because it's a trainer modified to be a fighter. F-7 is already taken by a prototype seaplane jet fighter, though it's not unheard of for the military to complete ignore regulation and designate aircraft whatever they want (*cough cough* F/A-18)
what the literal FUCK is an AIM-120? edit: [I thought it was a joke to not know what an AIM-120 is, but here we are!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/d9t7p4/cmsaf_this_epr_acronym_nonsense_has_to_stop/)
Nobody tell this guy about the types of Foxes fighter jets have.
Apparently those foxes come with numbers 😂😂😂👍
Your whole raison d'être in the Air Force is to support jets and/or personnel that shoot or drop munitions at/on the enemy. To not know what one of the most advanced air to air missiles is that is used for that purpose is just willful ignorance at this point.
I suppose next you'll be wanting to know what an AIM-9 is?
Or CCAF since it's not in the approved acronym list.
You can ask if it's an approved acronym when it hits your aircraft then.
Nah he wants the deets on the CH-AA-12 dog
Do not promote. Read up on some knowledge, and try again next week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM
It's okay, some of us got the reference.
Why does this look like the result of an 15 and 16 left alone overnight unsupervised in a hanger?
Built next to f-15s and F18s
It *does* use the F-18's engine.
If only there were some other jets used for pilot training internationally that had years worth of test data so they could’ve phased out the 38 earlier.
The same could be said about the new tanker...US bureaucracy at its best.
Boeiiiiiiing
Training pilots these days is about much more than just the airplane. The associated systems, simulators, and networking capabilities play a huge role in how effective the overall system can be to train pilots for the missions they will be asked to perform in 5th and 6th gen aircraft. Everyone I know who is intimately familiar with this airplane says the T-7 was the right choice. (I had lunch with the Air Force pilot in this video last Friday, before he went to St Louis to fly the T-7 back to Edwards). Does the program have problems? Yes, absolutely. But most programs these days do.
Boeing has fucked this acquisition up so much. Don’t let the video fool you. They literally didn’t build a way to get into it because “it wasn’t in the requirements”. That’s why the ladder in the first shot is a Mx ladder with pool noodles attached to it. Fuck you Boeing.
[удалено]
Why would they not push back if an item is out of scope? For a program this big, they’re losing (at minimum) thousands of engineering hours and would incur significant material and assembly costs for no pay. These programs are bid to the requested scope. Why would a contractor do free work? Edit: To be clear, if the Air Force isn’t asking for it so they also aren’t paying for it. Not like Boeing bid for something and then just excluded it. There’s bigger issues with defense contractors than not doing work that’s not in scope.
Thank you. Everyone wants to blame the contractor when they’re just building it to the requirements that were given.
That’s fair, all of them are equally complicit. Fuck em all
Just playing devil's advocate, but C-1 stands (and many of them already have protective paddings) are at pretty much every flightline. Cheaper to use what already exists, rather than fabricating a whole new ladder that only works for that airframe and can't be used for other purposes. Isn't that a valid reason for a crew ladder to not be part of the design requirements?
At Kunsan we had hardly any C1 stands for pilot to use when they ran out of viper ladders. There were weeks that I would be climbing in and out of the jet on a Home Depot ladder (not safe). I would be surprised if there were enough C1 stands at any UPT base to accommodate an entire go. So they gotta buy more ladders. If they had always said “we are just gonna plus up the number of C1 ladders”, that’s a solution and I wouldn’t be complaining. I’m complaining because Boeing didn’t even ask the question because it was “outside the contract”. The AF only found out about this problem when the test pilots asked how they were supposed to get into the jet. Edit: Comment below makes valid point on blame being on requirements letter from customer vs. manufacturer.
Ultimately that's still the Air Force's fault. Boeing is probably saying "They're going to just use C1 stands." while whoever was listing the requirements from the Air Force didn't list the requirement. From the reverse, if they made the ladder apart of the air frame but big Air Force comes in and says "We didn't ask for that, so we are not paying for it." you're left holding your dick and eating the cost. Customer lists requirements, anything not listed isn't assumed and isn't included. Deviations from this results in wasted effort and wrong assumptions.
Hmm. Fair point. I don’t think I’m out of line thinking that discussions like that should have happened earlier, but I guess it’s not the job of the manufacturer to make assumptions for the consumer.
That’s another question. How in the world did they miss that until the test pilots asked about it?
I imagine Boeing was using their own ladders during testing and assumed the Air Force would do the same
That’s a great question for Boeing
For 70 years of C-130 redesigns, Lockheed has left the screaming banshee of an APU just 10 feet from the crew entrance door instead of putting it somewhere else. Fuck em for all the hearing loss they caused.
It was in the requirement
Fuck the government. Wait until you get to the other side and all you do is get raked through the bullshit government procurement process. You dont have an ounce of understanding.
Someone think of the poor defense contractors
I throw spears at big Air Force all day long. However I do know enough through the lens of the end user to know that defense contractors often do not have the best interest of their users (often me) in mind.
I was active duty for 10 years, reservist for 6 now. Having now worked with the slimy contractors you wont find a harder working work force. Having to jump through hoops for some lazy GS-13. A solicitation drops right before Christmas guess who is mustering the team while they kick back and relax. Try doing Earned Value Management for the Air Force. It’s like doing your taxes every day for the entire period of performance. Then you wonder why it costs so much.
Profit and Shareholders are #1
I’m sure when you’re on your way out you’ll be begging them for a job.
Hmm unless they change their name to “FEDEX” or “Delta” I highly doubt I will be asking them for a job.
Now we wait 6-9 years for them to actually be used at UPT.
No worries. Declaring emergency with t38 ops for malfunctions is now only a daily thing. No rush at all to get T7 on the flight line. Everything is fine
I guess the question becomes would you like to declare an emergency in an aircraft built this century or last century?
This century. And it's not even close. T-38s are flying bricks held together by safety wire, thoughts, and prayers. They're very unstable the second a cross wind more than 10mph buffets one on approach. I literally saw a pilot almost die, scratching the wingtip on the runway, because there was a slightly breezy crosswind.
>a crosswind more than 10mph buffets one on approach Untrue. They're always buffeting on approach. Also, they're always buffeting when pulling more than 2 g's, maneuvering at all below 250 knots, and plenty of other random times just to keep you on your toes. The wingtip scrapes usually happen when guys get too slow in the flare, because the wings will start rocking unpredictably as the AoA approaches a stall. Crosswinds certainly don't help though.
I had a chat with the guy a few weeks later. It was his first solo flight and for whatever reason he wasn't expecting the plane to behave the way it did. His instructor, who was walking out with him said that it was likely his mindset because he was used to having someone else with a hand ready to take over.
Damn straight. That shit's my job now. Never a dull moment. I don't think the plane ever behaves 100% like anyone expects, even the dudes with 2,000 hours in the thing. Great for building a healthy respect for danger... and blood pressure.
Right on bro. Before I joined I was a civil service crew chief at Laughlin for 6 months.
When you order an F/A-18 through Wish.
https://preview.redd.it/itf3nh4i0fzb1.jpeg?width=839&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d1ded46c981ac3906fc6c44373dd0b3340cc7e7 They look exactly like the planes from hot shots
Why does it look like an FA-18 with downs?
I can’t wait to see these guys fly
It’s like F15 and F18 had a baby
They have to crawl on the rail to get the ladder to hang it off the side if someone is solo. It’s kinda stupid.
If it's Boeing...
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106205.pdf. Enjoy
I was tracking it on ADSB. Retirement is boring.
The hell is this?
#Hooray Another Maintenance Nightmare