Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
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Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#2Debugging..hmm..pretty important stuff when your guns aren't mocked.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#3I thought these sorts of planes would have a safety.
And if the safety is designed in such a way without i.e. interlocks and such that you can fire off guns accidentally by poking around in the wires/connectors, that's a little sad.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#4That has got to be the most expensive fuckup by a technician ever.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#5In Russian media it's always portrayed that a professional pilot must be in the cockpit during any maintenance operations to avoid exactly such things.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#6Why would such a plane even allow firing a gun when not in air?
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#7I took a look at the US Air Force subreddit[0] and lots of people who maintain these jets are skeptical as to the accidental nature of this incident. According to several comments there are many physical failsafes that would need to be deactivated in order for this to happen. The incident occurred in Belgium but it’s hard to believe their F-16s are significantly different.
[0] https://reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/9nyorn/belgium_techni...
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#8Why would such a plane even allow firing a gun when not in air?
Because any system which attempted to prevent that would have a nonzero chance of preventing shots while in the air, and it's quite easy to imagine the cost of that being much greater than what is saved by the intended effect.
That's not to say that there shouldn't be safety systems that would prevent accidental firing, just that “never shoot if system thinks we're on the ground” is very likely not a good one.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#9As a Belgian I find this hilarious. This might be the most Belgian thing ever.
By the way they are investigating whether this was an accident or on purpose. The chances of this being an accident are quite small.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#10That has got to be the most expensive fuckup by a technician ever.
Surely there must be a checklist to follow before maintenance like this that involves either locking the fire buttons, unloading the ammunition or with some kind of reliable software switch.
Either possibility, that such a procedure is not followed, or that there is no such procedure, is worrying.