JASDF F15J loses structural integrity ( Video )

Steyr

http://www.alert5.com/2009/11/youtube-parts-break-off-from-f-15j.html

Sunday, November 29, 2009
The front part of the left horizontal stabiliser and part of left vertical tail plane from a JASDF F-15J came off in-flight at the Tsuiki airshow on Sunday.

Captain Chaos

Just goes to show how well they were made, a more modern fly by wire fighter might have crashed for that failure. An Israeli F-15 in the 80s lost an entire wing in a training dogfight due to an inflight collision with an A-4, the A-4 was destroyed but the F-15 made it back to base with a very high speed landing, touching down at around 220kts! compared to the standard 130kts.

The F-15 airframes are getting old and starting to wear out, the US lost one a year or two ago due to metal fatigue and found that a large chunk of their F-15s had the same underlying issue, They ground the whole fleet for a while before imposing limitations on performance. The F-15A/B series were designed for 4,000 flight hours and rated at 7.3g max. This was revised when the C/D series arrived which Japan have named J/DJ. The airframe design was then rated at 8,000 flight hours and 9g max. This applied to the older A/Bs aswell.

The USAF is now limiting its F-15A/B/C/Ds to a max speed of M1.5 and 7g during peace time missions now. But in combat pilots are permitted to take it as fast as they want, (it tops out at M1.7 with missiles loaded) and 9g.

The F-15E series are a different animal, 16,000 flight hours and the 9g weight limit increased, they have no structural issues to date.

diverdriver

Are they sure it wasn't some kid on the ground who opened an emergency door during the static display?:P

Interested that the same post on the aviation forum was closed by the mods. Steyr has consistently posted similar threads on both forums due to them being relevant on both? Is this a new policy? Only military aviation on military?

Steyr

diverdriver wrote: »

Interested that the same post on the aviation forum was closed by the mods. Steyr has consistently posted similar threads on both forums due to them being relevant on both? Is this a new policy? Only military aviation on military?

Im miffed too as its obviously relevant to both Forums but i may as well be peeing into the wind...

cyrusdvirus

Steyr wrote: »

Im miffed too as its obviously relevant to both Forums but i may as well be peeing into the wind...

shhhh..... the mods could be watching!!!

Owen

diverdriver wrote: »

Interested that the same post on the aviation forum was closed by the mods. Steyr has consistently posted similar threads on both forums due to them being relevant on both? Is this a new policy? Only military aviation on military?

It's not a new policy, it's site wide policy on boards.ie. If you go to the FAQ thread, and check the boards.ie general charter, it states specifically not to post the same thread in multiple forums.

The reason it has happened up until now is that I wasn't aware it was happening. Simple as. I'm not going to enter into another discussion on the subject, rules are there for a reason.

concussion

Perhaps if Steyr were to create a thread in Military called Mil Aviation and post articles/links to articles posted in Aviation. His posts don't generally generate a lot of discussion but I am very grateful for the information which I wouldn't see otherwise. Would that fall inside the rules?

Owen

No problem at all with that, and an excellent suggestion! The issue has never been with Steyr, or his quality of posts. Just the duplication of threads - as long as discussion stays in one forum only, then it isn't a problem.