Question about high tech fighter crash in Libya today...

[Conan The Librarian]

The news pictures show the apparently burnt wreckage of an airplane. Why, then isn't the surrounding soil blackened, and why is the dry grass around the plane unburned?

[wreckhog]

It burned in the air.

[Siskiyou]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110322/ap_on_re_af/af_libya


Pilots okay.

[Mohawk]

The F 15's are rather aging. Even the E models are pushing 2 decades. My brother was assigned to them for a lot of his career. Its like cars, sometimes you have bad ones. Coupled with flight time of American fighters it comes to no surprise. Anything old and high mileage will break sometime.

[Shu]

Yep no big mystery on this one, mechanical failure plane was on fire on the way down. It was burning all the way down. The munitions and fuel finished burning on the ground. The munitions are designed to burn without the detonating in a fire, it works reasonably well but I wouldn't stand next to the plane.

Fortunately both men are back in thier unit.

[Sourdough]

Old Aircraft, like old cars, don't always get you there, without problems along the way.  But unlike an old car, they could not pull off the road and fix it.  OOOPS.

[beerbelly]

According to the news we sent planes back in to blow the hell out of it so they could not use anything off the plane. Did not look to have been bombed to me.

[slim rem 7]

 i think only the pilots know and they got thier orders..

[Shu]

The F15 is getting old, it was a mechanical failure. The plane was flying above 25000 ft. This is the reason both men did not come down close together. 
Jets tend to fly this high unless doing a strict ground support role. The reason for the altitude is to stay out of those pesky shoulder fired missile ranges. There is no mystery here or fancy missile system involved.

This is why the DoD gets a large budget to replace aging aircraft and to make better crew survival systems. The F16, and F15 are getting tired. Both great aircraft but the F18 is far superior. In fact the early F18s A thru C are getting some age wrinkles on their faces also.

[slim rem 7]

theres probably a newer more capable jet out there ,now..china can keep a secrete a little better than some..jmo..yall have a good day..slim

[Shu]

The  F18 Super Hornet is a few million dollars of total Butt Kickery.
Look up its specs sometime. There aren't too many jets out there that can out perform it. Even China's latest and greatest is still behind it.

Unfortunately several million dollars in Butt Kickery doesn't do well in block to block, house to house fighting unless of course you are leveling everything.

[Mohawk]

The aging fleet is the reason for the F-22. Congress has even outlawed its export to allies. F-15's and even the 18's are end cold war technology. But they could still send an air to air missle 100 miles and hit a pie plate. I am sure we are far beyond that now. And Shu is right. If at anytime everthing needs to be obliterated then the AF will handle that very efficiently. Are the F-22 Raptors in service? Who knows.......

[billy_56081]

The F15 is far from high tech anymore. Entered service in the 70s. I am sure the russian shoulder fired missiles have came up to our 1989 standard on the stinger of 99.7% hit probability.

[Shu]

The F22 and F35 are seeing limited service. These are top of line aircraft without equal.
The F18 Super Hornet is an incredible machine but it is just a bit behind the F22 or F35. This new generation of planes is just unbelievable. The F18 is a work horse where the F22 and F35 are surgical scapels.

Missile technology has come along way also. You wonder where your defense dollars go, well it's not as much to gvt workers as it is to new technology. There just aren't countries out there that have the to hit and kill probabilities with missiles the US does. 

The Govt didnot waste all its money all bail outs, rest assured our boys and girls get the best equipment there is.