104 Hornets grounded after cracks discovered

[unhappycamper]

Naval Air Systems Command grounded 104 Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet fighters Friday after inspectors discovered the jets were cracking much earlier than engineers had thought.


104 Hornets grounded after cracks discovered
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Mar 12, 2010 15:56:49 EST

Naval Air Systems Command grounded 104 Navy and Marine F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets Friday after inspectors discovered the airframes were developing cracks much earlier than engineers had thought.

The grounding order affects the first four varieties of Hornet — models A through D — and does not apply to aircraft now flying combat missions over Iraq or Afghanistan. The number of Hornets affected makes up 16 percent of the Navy-Marine A through D fleet.

There have been no crashes or other mishaps related to the problem, said Navy spokesman Lt. Nate Christensen. The crash Wednesday of a Marine F/A-18D Hornet from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 off South Carolina — in which both the pilot and weapons officer were rescued — was not related to this problem, he said.

Of the 104 grounded jets, 77 are in flight status. Of those, 23 are in Navy and Marine Corps fleet squadrons; five are forward-deployed at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan; five belong to the Blue Angels flight demonstration team; and 44 are in fleet replacement squadrons. The other 27 Hornets are in a maintenance status.

The grounding notice from NavAir covered a “high stress focus area” that engineers already knew about as part of the Hornets’ service-life assessment program, Christensen said, so NavAir issued a set of instructions for affected aircraft.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/03/navy_hornets_grounding_031210w/



unhappycamper comment: Expect calls for the woefully underpowered and overpriced ($239 million dollars) F-35 to start rising from the folks that insist we need to spend more money to kill more people.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Imagine an America that didn't enemies in order to be safe. n/t