In Flight Failure

[Charles Talleyrand]

I read that an F-14 has a mean time between equipment failure of 0.6 hours and other
aircraft are similar. The F/A 18 has a mean time of 2.5 hours per failure. I conclude
that the average F-14 flight of 3 hours has 5 equipment failures, and that half of all F-14
flights of 3 hours have more than 5 equipment failures.

I understand that equipment failure is typically something smaller than "left engine ejected"
and typically the mission can continue.

Is this right? Does the average flight have several equipment failures per flight?
Are they even announced to the pilot (who must be feeling bothered with all the
distractions)?

[Bill Silvey]

"Charles Talleyrand" > wrote in message

> Is this right? Does the average flight have several equipment
> failures per flight? Are they even announced to the pilot (who must
> be feeling bothered with all the distractions)?

A few aviator buddies of mine have told me that the logbooks for the various
aircraft flown include some sort of "up gripe" and "down gripe" type sheet
(to nab a couple of terms from Steven Coonts). Things like "Left a/c vent
not working" or "xyz VDU display fuzzy" - e.g., things that won't keep the
aircraft from flying and keep the pilots from effectively doing their job,
be it ferrying stuff for FedEx or putting iron on a target.

"Down Gripes" of course cover a range of mission-impeding problems like "xyz
VDU cracked and nonfunctional" or "Left a/c vent blows smoke when opened".

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