Rockie wrote:1. Yes an airplane can crash for reasons other than an engine failure.
2. Yes a twin is just as susceptible to non-engine related issues which would cause a crash in the arctic.
3. Yes, fighter pilots must always be prepared for that eventuality.
4. No, two engines will never totally negate the possibility of a pilot ending up stranded in the arctic. What it will do though which seems frighteningly difficult to get across to you, is that it will almost eliminate the possibility that same pilot will be stranded in the arctic due to engine problems.
Why is that childishly simple concept so hard to understand?
By the way Diadem, I have nothing against single engine fighters. I do have a problem with operating them in the vast Canadian arctic hundreds of miles from the nearest little village and well over a thousand miles from the nearest search and rescue aircraft. I don't get how you failed to see that connection since I've only made it about a hundred times.
But then the issue isn't with the number of engines on the aircraft, it's with the SAR system. I think you do, in fact, have a problem with single-engine fighters, or perhaps the F-35 in particular, and that bias is creating some kind of cognitive dissonance for you. Airplanes crash, and usually for reasons not related to the engine, so any pilot, of any fighter aircraft, could find him/herself stranded in the Arctic. I really don't see what it matters what the cause of the accident is; the pilots are, as you stated, prepared to survive in those elements. Let's look at the TSB's accident stats from 2000 to 2010, which are, admittedly, for civilian aircraft, but since I can't find anything from the RCAF it'll have to do:
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/stats/aviation/2010/ss10.asp The number of accidents caused by engine failures is so small that it doesn't even warrant a mention. It's statistically negligible. A pilot has a far, far,
far higher probability of being involved in a CFIT, colliding with an object, overrunning the runway, having the gear collapse or retract on landing, or losing control of the aircraft. Pilot error is by
far the most significant cause of aircraft crashes. That's certainly the case for single-engine fighters: "F-16 manufacturer Lockheed Martin determined that half of Class A F-16 accidents were caused by pilot error."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... losses.htm Hell, even birdstrikes took out twenty Canadian military aircraft between 1944 and 2004:
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/08/ ... esearcher/. The probability of having an engine failure is negligible, and that's the key:
probability. Is it possible the engine will fail? Yes, but it's also possible the aircraft will fly into a lump of antimatter. That doesn't mean it's likely to happen. The probability of the F135 ever failing is miniscule; the probability of the F135 failing while in the Arctic is microscopic; the probability of the F135 failing in the Arctic while beyond glide range of an airstrip is so pitifully small that it's negligible. Statistically speaking, it's practically impossible, which isn't to say that it won't happen, but there are much bigger things to worry about. It's more probable, much more probable, that the aircraft will run out of fuel, or be flown into the ground, or hit a bird. In that case, what does it matter whether it's a CF-18, an F-35, or a Eurofighter? A pilot bailing out over the Arctic is a pilot bailing out over the Arctic, regardless of whether the aircraft from which they bailed had one engine or two, and their chances of surviving have much more to do with SAR's ability to reach them before they starve or freeze to death. As I stated earlier, SAR's capabilities are the real crux of the matter. Would you be satisfied if we had a Herc and a team of SAR techs based in YRB full time, or a C-17 on permanent standby to get the SAR techs anywhere in Canada in a matter of hours? Perhaps that might please you in regards to the issue of SAR in the north, but I suspect you would still be opposed to the F-35 regardless, most likely based on your political views, as evinced by posts in other threads. Your dislike of this aircraft runs deeper than it only having one engine, but that's an easy target you think you can exploit.
If your concern is redundancy, then considering the amount of pilot error or the possibility of the pilot suffering an unforeseen medical emergency, why aren't you calling for Canada to only order aircraft that have two seats? Wouldn't a two-crew aircraft significantly reduce the risk to the crew? Maybe we should order an aircraft with an automated laser on the nose to shoot down birds that pose a threat. Or maybe, since there's a chance that the gear could collapse, we should get fighters with fixed gear.