Sounds like a job for duct tape.

Holy crap. That's generally not a good thing.

Hopefully they haven't scrapped all of the F-14s and F-15s just yet_

Anyone know how long it take to re-glue all 30 F-22s back together again?

*sniff* Man, that glue was *sniff sniff* WAY too good to *sniff* waste on an airplane!

In Lockheed's defense, each delivered plane goes for only $135M. You can't honestly expect them to go all out with SuperGlue for that kind of budget.

Who in the sweet-blue-hell thought it was a good idea to glue a fighter jet? Hell, model planes can't even withstand abuse let alone something that's going to be shot at!

A good friend of mine is an aircraft mechanic, he once told me of an aircraft (for a major airlines company) that he had to fly back to the main hangar. It had a hole in the wing, his temporary fix so he could fly it for the 1 hour flight? Duct Tape.

You'd be surprised how much of a plane is held together by glue.

With the way the govt spends our money, they probably payed $13,478.19 per fl oz of that glue.

cRaptor?

Not good. :(

Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue

MacGyver could have fixed this during his prime.

C'mon guys - part of the airframe did NOT fall off. The glue failed on the Low Observable coating - in other words a piece of the stealth skin came off.

Question - if you want a plane to be stealthy and metal rivets or bolts show up on radar reflections, how do attach the radar-absorbing skin if you don't use glue?

@Auld_Lang_Ziety:

Counter sunk screws?

@JChristopher: Nah, they still show up. A perfectly smooth (or as near as is possible) surface is part of the technology.

OTH, idiot gaffs are nothing new to the weapons industry. I'd be shocked if stuff hadn't started to fall off the new birds.

@faabshaam: My second cousin used to work for Rolls Royce and he once told me of a plane that was in for engine work from a major Asian airline where some enterprising mechanic had apparently taken the belt of his pants and used it to strap part of the engine together. Apparently it flew like that at least back to Rolls for an engine overhaul.

Bad glue?

Did we have the Russians build them for us??

@68newyorker:

Patch over? LOL. So 70s in technology.

Actually the adhesives are super strong. If stuff is coming off:

Bad batch of adhesive
Misapplied or not enough/too much
Pilots pulling more g's than spec

Catch it now before going to war!

Wow good job lockheed martin.

This will really help the US military choose american companies over foreign ones in the future. /sarcasm much

The F22 Raptor is supposed to be Air Superiority fighter.
It's proclaimed to be "The best in the world".

I guess that it's just "normal" American cockiness. Sweden has produced the JAS 39 Gripen. Gripen was a part of Red Flag Alaska 2006 and beat out all the other planes, F-16 (both old and new versions) and F/A-18. Partly due to extreme difficulty for the American fighters to lock on to the "small" Gripen. Also partly due to the Gripen's communication link not being hindered by adhering to old NATO standard, which helps giving the Gripen way better SA.

I'm certain that the F-22 is a very good plane, but to call it "the best" is a tad presumptuous until it's tested in a Red Flag event or something similar.

Then again, being a Swede I'm pretty biased in favor of the Gripen. ;)

Fun facts:
A lot of the parts on the Gripen are actually American, but not extremely central components like the avionics.
Sweden is one of the few countries that have the same cooperation regarding defence material with USA as for example the UK.
Sweden produces alot of excellent war material, like the HMS Gotland a sub that managed to sink the USS Ronald Reagan in simulated war game. A first I believe.

Oooooh, I see: it's 'cause they used metric glue on an imperial plane.

Home Depot has Gorilla Glue!

You see, it's called 100mph tape for a reason. You need 1000mph tape.

That's what they get for using sticky rice as adhesive. Damn these budget cuts.

@JumpinJ: lol! Duct tape FTW!

wait wait, isn't this the airplane that supposed to serve as lead-baddass until 2040?

I guess everyone has to go through puberty...

I was hoping for a pic of the villain from the rocketeer when he realizes there's no bubblegum on the hole in the fuel tank.

Thank God for the lowest bidder policy of Defense Contracting. Like my Dad always told me "You get exactly what you pay for." Thats why I buy the $5,000 toilet seat from the Army contracting company. Even though it looks just like the one down at Home Depot, you just know it's better. Is there any other reason people can think of why the US went with Airbus (I think) for their new tanker, as opposed to using old (un)reliable US companies that think they are entitled to the contract. I would otherwise agree that it should go to a US company because of security issues, but you need to feel secure that the product will be able to perform and get to its destination in one piece. These companies are in it for the profit (which is what their shareholders want), but there has to be some amount of national pride and knowing that you did a complete and functional job for a reasonable price, as opposed to gouging the government. End Rant.

Has there ever been a shuttle mission where the glue holding on the outer tiles didn't fail for at least some of them on reentry?

Anyone who flies an aircraft and expects to land with all the parts they had when they took off is just a big fat wuss. As long as it's got one engine and its cup holder intact, what's the harm?!

Crap! How are we supposed to take over the world NOW?

the ejection seat works fine...'trust us'

@mcowan3:
yes, this is a good reminder that your wepaon is always made byt he lowest bidder.
why?
because if the public knew of an offering to build the plane for less, we'd all bitch and moan about the fact that the more expensive contract was selected.

$5000 toilet seats? sure, you have to think about all the committees and all the chains of procurement, the background checks to make sure the seat isn't molded c4, etc etc etc.

didn't some tiles fall off the shuttle a while ago? all the billions of dollars and nasa can't get tiles to stick either.

That is terrible, especially each F-22 costs about a $billion each, not counting research costs.

@uberfu: The F-14s are all scrapped. The F-15s are still around, but since one of them fell apart in mid-air a few months ago (and I don't mean lost some coating, like this, I mean fell apart, as in cockpit went right, wings went left), I'd say we need a replacement for them soon.

There is big profit in this. Who wants to go take a tube of JB Weld to the Pentagon? You'll never have to work again.

@rdldr1: You're off by almost an order of magnitude. The cost for one F-22 beyond the number Congress has already committed to buying (meaning the production costs are virtually identical, but the R&D costs have already been covered) would be $138 million. Not a cheap plane, by any means, but over $860 million shy of your figure.

how did they manage to run off 30 of the damn planes with the bad glue? i mean jesus their charging over 130 million a piece and using crap glue...

and no counter sunk screws cant hold the shielding, even those would resonate radar signatures instead of absorbing it.

@mcowan3: don't worry, no-bid contracts even things out.

Hmmm, billions of $$$ later and it's a piece of crap?!?
Sad, def. sad!

@frigg: It's not as easy as you think. You have to make a glue that withstands thousands of degrees, and also freezing temps. And it has to be able to cycle as the sun comes into and out of view.

Just for everyones info. The SR-71 takes off with fuel dripping from almost every seam of it's tanks. They have to take-off, build up some speed, and wait for the friction to heat up the airframe. Only then do the tanks seal, and they proceed to mid-air re-fuel. Since it's design, they have YET to create a sealant which can withstand the normal operating temps a SR-71 goes through.

Gee I hope the same thing doesn't happen when the Air Force awards the contract for the new Air Refueling planes to Lockheed since the airframes are coming from Airbus!

Where's macgyvver when you need him.

@Git Em SteveDave: You know, there's an interesting story to that, too.
During development, Kelly Johnson actually offered ANYONE $100 out of his pocket for finding a substance or way to truly seal the tanks. That offer was never redeemed. So it was bumped to $500, which was also never redeemed. Thus, leaving the majestic Habu leaking JP7 everywhere. :)

Give it a break people.
This isn't like "Oh, doop. We need to put 4 grams of Elmer's here instead of 3.5. Duh."
It's more like, "Oh, poop. Our research team found that beyond 200*F, and above 50,000 feet with humidity at less than 3%, the glue we use can fail at 900 lb of force instead of 1000 lb."

I was in the US sub force for several years and was on the commissioning crew for the USS Pennsylvania - so I spent a lot of time in the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard... Anyways, the duct-tape comments are funny and all, but we're dealing with a government contractor here and they have *much* better tape.

GenDyn has something we called "EB Green" - kinda looks like green duct tape, but you could unroll a couple feet, stick one end to the side of an overhead beam, and immediately swing from the other end. I could tell you some really fascinating stories about EBGreen's ability to withstand water pressure, but it's classified. :)

Even the public sector has some amazing tapes. 3M has a clear, double sided tape that they use to hold the bodies of buses onto the frames.

So as shenanigans61 points out, this isn't some case of grade school rubber cement failing, this was probably some kind of highly scientific (read "expensive") adhesive purpose-built for the job... They'll just re-design the adhesive, pull the panels off the planes, and re stick them.

@faabshaam: That wasn't duct tape, it was "speed tape" and it is permitted to be used on airliners for temporary repairs.

[en.wikipedia.org]

@mno.net: Dude, I hate to burst your bubble, but the Raptor is one seriously bad ass motherfucker of a plane. Dual engine, very fast coupled with advanced weapons systems and the best use of stealth in the world. Im sure the plane you are referring to in Sweden is nice and all, but you can not say the Raptor isnt bad ass.

Optimus Prime: AUTOBOTS, roll out!

@Auld_Lang_Ziety: Care Bear blood. Its both highly adhesive, and difficult to detect with modern equipment.

What tape does Nascar use to keep thier cars together??

@bigMoneyMIKE: I'm not saying that the F-22 isn't bad ass. Despite ever having flown one, I'm pretty certain that it's an excellent plane. ;)

However my previous comment stands. I find it presumptuous to call the F-22 "The Best". Especially since previously many American voices has called the F-16 a superior fighter to JAS 39... which in any and all exercises has proven to be incorrect.

None the less, I will agree to the F-22 looking really bad ass. How it performs remains to be seen.

Scrap them all and buy SU-35s with Prat & Whitney engines and all-western avionics.

Like a COD4 quote said.
"Always remember you weapon was made by the lowest bidder"

I honest can't believe most of the comments in this section. This isn't your typical "glue" we are talking about here, but adhesive specific designed for its given task.

There are many cases when adhesives (or if you want to call it "glue") holds better than other methods, especially on areas that have irregular shapes. Boats/yachts are glued together, even Lotus Elise's body is glued onto its chassis with adhesives.

@mno.net:
This information about the Gripen seems to be erroneous/fabricated. I couldn't find any specific information about how the Gripen performed other than that its "small radar cross section caused problems for the red team (who's members were not named)". Nothing about the F-16 and how the Gripen totally dominated it or whatever you were saying. I found some he-said she-said that the Gripen pilots said they could out turn the Vipers and the Viper pilots said they could out turn the Gripen, but that's it. And this was off a Swedish site.

I also don't think its presumptuous at all to say the F-22 the deadliest and most survivable fighter in modern combat. The F-22 has a powerful radar and is the stealthiest plane yet produced, combine that with AMRAAM missiles and combatants are likely to be destroyed long before visual contact is made for a dog fight. When you research it thoroughly you can't come to any other conclusion.

As a side note, Europeans constantly stereotyping Americans as cocky/fat/ignorant is itself cocky, fatheaded, ignorant and arrogant.

@mno-net

F-22's haven't been flown in any Red Flag exercise because they're too good that it would ruin the training for the other pilots. The AF is still trying to figure out the best way to incorporate them (that and there weren't really any F-22s to participate in 2006--AK didn't get them to this past summer).

When they do participate in exercises, the F-22s shoot down everything before they're even seen. As an F-15 pilot, Swedish pilot, or a pilot of whatever plane, you can't fight what you can't see, and you can't see F-22s. Not to mention the fact that F-22s do things (reach higher altitudes, pull more gs, bank harder, etc) that no other plane can do. It wouldn't be a fair fight even without the stealth technology. Of course, that's kind of the point.

@chilicoke: You obviously have no sense of humor at all.

@yehoni: Umm. the F-14s are not ALL scrapped, just on their way. I drive by 30-40 of them on my way to work. They are stored at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson and are just a 100-yards in from the fence along Kolb road. They stopped scrapping about 6-8 months ago.