Posted on 04/14/2008 7:12:15 AM PDT by Yo-Yo
Some of the U.S. Air Force's new F-22 Raptor fighter jets are flying with a manufacturing defect in crucial titanium supports in a section built by Boeing.
The Air Force agreed to allow the defect to stay because of the cost and delay to fix it. But the jets will require more frequent inspections because of the potential for a catastrophic failure in flight.
Details of the problem emerged late last month when Boeing sued Alcoa, the Pittsburgh, Penn.-based subcontractor that forged the titanium parts. The suit seeks more than $12 million for extra costs incurred because of the alleged shoddy manufacturing.
Boeing said the jets are safe for military operations as long as the potentially defective parts are inspected regularly.
"The Air Force has determined there is not a safety-of-flight issue here and they have not grounded the aircraft," said Boeing F-22 spokesman Doug Cantwell. "There will be more frequent inspections, making sure no cause for concern does develop. Boeing employees will keep an eye on them."
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor on the F-22, which will replace the Air Force's aging Boeing-built F-15s and other aircraft. As a subcontractor, Boeing builds the Raptor wings and aft fuselage in Seattle.
From 2000 through 2005, Alcoa supplied Boeing with the forged titanium parts that provide structural support in a section of the aft fuselage that "connects the wings to the fuselage of the aircraft," the filing states. This section's "failure could result in the loss of the aircraft."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Good thing there aren’t any plans out on the web for our newest most super secret A/C.
Alcoa can’t wait! (old ad slogan)
yah. Good thing someone didn’t highlight the best aiming point for our enemies, too.
Voiced by Harry Kalas!
Everyone watched those two-parters with a commercial stuck in the middle - it was a brilliant creative advertising move.
30 years on Madison Avenue is stuck in a rut - there are only so many cute fuzzy animals and slackjawed beer-soaked couch potatoes you can use.
Of course, the DVR and the mute button have allowed me to win the arms race so I don’t really care what they come up with in future.
But I do remember the Fantastic Finishes well.
If pro ball hadn't become a bunch of effects, gaudy uniforms, and questionable players, I would still care. I gave up sometime shortly after the LA Rams moved to Anaheim. They were the only team I truly liked.
How the airforce once tricked tax payers into paying for the development of a next gen fighter jet - long before any enemy had anything only close to the generation below.
And how it couldn’t be payed for in sufficient numbers and how it wasn’t deployed in any war ongoing because one downed plane would be allready a risk considered to high - because of the technology involved.
The f-22 fleet is to small for a fight against any high tech airforce - and to valuable for a low tech one.
To belabor the subject....do you remember the recycling-plant footage of all that scrap aluminum going into the smelter?
I am convinced that all the Ecology (to use the then-dominant term) BS that kids my age had to absorb in the 1970s is a large contributor to the global warming/earth-first mass psychosis in vogue today.
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