There were a couple of fairly big stories in the DoD in the past week. I’ll consolidate them briefly here.
We lost an Eagle bro this week; one pilot survived, two F-15C aircraft destroyed in an apparent mid-air collision.
Navy successfully shoots down an errant satellite after notifying everyone in the world what we were going to do so everyone couldn’t point fingers at us and tell us we’re just like China. This is the first time we’ve done this from a boat. Last time we did this it was from an F-15.
Pilots safely eject as USAF loses it’s first B-2 ever. We basically just lost almost one-twentieth of our stealth bomber fleet. By comparison of numbers of aircraft (but certainly not comparing capabilities), it would be like 75 F-16s crashing all at once, or about six F-22s. Interestingly (and assuming I’ve done my bar napkin math correctly), the loss of the one B-2 represents a higher dollar figure than the loss of the corresponding number of F-16s or F-22s. Before anyone gets crazy and suggests we replace B-2s with F-22s (although there’s a certain ring to that possibility that excites the fighter pilot in me), it’s important to note that the B-2 doesn’t require quite as many multimillion dollar KC-135s or KC-10s to get it from one side of the planet to the other. Again, the capabilities are completely different.
**20080607 Update: The accident investigation report has been released–it was water-foul.