Scary precedent...but where was leadership????

via CDR Salamander's Blog

There is so much going on with the T-45/F-18 O2 problem that it is hard to get your head around exactly what is the most interesting.

Is it the fact that this has been a known problem for over twice the time it took to fight WWII and nothing was seriously done until now?

Is it the cycles of aviation leadership that couldn't or refused to see it as an issue ... or decided the easier thing to do was to shift the problem in to someone else's PCS cycle?

Is it the hubris of engineers who put more faith in their theories than the facts in the aircraft?

Hard to say, but what I find most interesting is the fact that what finally got things moving was after a body of the best junior officers in Naval Aviation went on strike.

This is some scary shit.  There is no other way to say it.  Consider the age old mantra...Mission first, troops always!

Then dig into this story.

We're seeing the worst of both world's rearing its ugly head.  Personally, I've been alarmed at how casually military leadership (and in particular SOME Marine Corps leaders) throw accusations at pilots.  The first time I noticed it was when the MV-22 crashed in the desert during testing.

They vilified those pilots who perished in the crash and it took the families almost 20 years to finally get their names cleared.  It happened with a crash of an F-22.  I remember that one too.  I was a regular on Aviation Week and I stated clearly that they were too quick to blame the pilot but got shouted down by the "arm chair aviation experts" that believed more in tech than in brave men.  That pilot was vindicated too.

My point?  We're seeing a failure of leadership in the aviation house that is bordering on the criminal.

The scary precedent?

Like CDR Salamander said...it took a freaking strike by pilots to get the problem taken seriously!  This whole thing is unsat!  Think about it!  A system on a modern jet trainer (and on some of our fighter/attack jets) is physically harming our pilots and we don't see a MASSIVE push to fix it?  The pilots have to go on strike?

It was necessary but I've never heard of this happening before.  This is weird, scary, wild...but it worked.  Let's all pray this is a one off event!