There has been a lot of talk about the problems of the latest Air Force fighter aircraft, the F-22 Raptor. Recent groundings have not added to the belief that we have a winner, although, in fact, we do have a winner, as long as we can keep it flying. This is why a pilot finally achieving 1000 flight hours in the F-22 is important.♠ Here is a press release from the Air Force on the accomplishment.
It is interesting to note that Lt Col David Piffarerio, a 1994 graduate of the Air Force Academy♥ is now a member of the Air Force Reserve, assigned to the 302nd Fighter Squadron, in Anchorage, Alaska.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Of course, a pilot gets to log five minutes of taxi time for each flight, so, given an average flight time of 1.5 hours, which does not seem unreasonable for an advanced fighter, about 54 of those hours are taxi time, given he will have flow about 650 separate sorties, some longer and some shorter.
♥ Thirty years after I graduated from the same institution.
1 comment:
I've always wondered why the AF doesn't install Hobb's meters on all its aircraft. The moment you have an engine start, the Hobbs starts ticking off the time....as it is all "operational"....and the guy who is PIC gets to log that time. We should probably employ the term "operational time" instead of "flight time" because the latter reflects only a portion of what a PIC must do in order to begin and end aviating.
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