Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
Ok, single engine failure on single engine plane = aircraft failure.
Believe Cliff would tell us that pilots memorize an engine restart procedure in the event of an engine failure. Had a long-ago neighbor who had one as a USAF instructor pilot in a T-38 and he got it restarted.

A single engine failure on twin engine plane, in a non-combat situation = good chance (whatever % is) of limping home.
Cliff probably would admit that if you have one of two engines fail, there is a good possibility the second engine also will fail.

The ones who should be worrying the most about engine failures are those flying aircraft with Russian engines.

Aviation Week said that F-35A engine costs are down to about $19 million. A current General was quoted saying he could buy 100 UAS for the price of an F-35 engine. He may have been talking about the F-35B engine which I believe costs twice what an F-35A engine costs. The F-22A has two $19 million engines and don't believe they are included in the typical $143 million F-22A cost that you often heard the USAF was paying at the end.

Plus if you buy 100 F-35As and lose just one to an engine failure, you lose a$100 million dollar aircraft and whatever it costs to rescue the pilot who bailed out. To buy two engines for a hypothetical 100 twin engine F-35A would cost an extra $1.9 billion.

The F-22A line is mostly closed anyway. RAND's 2010 study titled "Ending F-22A Production," paid for by the USAF, estimates that Shutdown and Restart costs for 75 more F-22s would result in average unit costs of $227 million. The total cost in then year dollars to produce 75 more would be $19.2 billion ($17 billion in FY 2008 constant dollars).

In any event, you can't fly an F-22A off a carrier. Guam will be a pretty crowded place. Japan would be a dangerous place to park an F-22A or F-35A given the missile and massed air attack threat. But those massed aircraft also need to land if they survive. The decision to move forward on a new bomber seems to make sense with its longer legs and ability to bomb airfields so that threat quantity and quality are largely irrelevant. Just can't picture a 75,000 lb J-20 or J-10/11 taking off on three points of contact on wet grass thousands of meters long and probably not all that smooth. Don't think loading heavy jet munitions or using large fuel trucks on wet grass would work too well either.

Just my opinion.