In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

Whoa! Time to throw a flag. If stuff were ripping off of airplanes,
whether through fatigue, corrosion, maintenance oversight or exceeding
design G limits, you can bet your butt, the pilots would know it. They
would NEED to know it, since separations for whatever reason can
endanger the whole airplane.

I agree, they *should* know something about this.

But if there was a rare case of something happening, you'd probably get
a debrief about "be sure to have your crewchiefs inspect all fasteners
to reduce the chance of ECM pod separation." You wouldn't get a
detailed pile of info on it, and you'd probably file it in the "rare"
incident pile. It sure wouldn't be something you could inspect on a
preflight.

We couldn't even get most of them to learn how to use the stuff that was
installed in the planes every single day.

Don't know where you were in the food chain of aircrew training, but
if it was installed in the planes every single day, you can bet we
knew how to use it.

Maybe back in Vietnam, but I can guarantee you that a good number of
pilots had a severe lack of interest in ECM matters in the early 1980s.
I was one of the enlisted men who got to go in and "assist" the training
from time to time.

If it were mission essential or mission critical
we got trained in it, refreshed in it, tested in it, and briefed on
every single mission with regard to employment of it.

....and yet, on a weekly basis, we had a problem with pilots who couldn't
even do a correct built-in test on an ALR-46 system. And they'd write
it up as bad because they did it wrong (the description in the writeup
would be completely correct except for pressing one button). And we'd
test, it, it would work fine, and we wouldn't get another writeup on it
until that same guy went back on the plane.

And you wouldn't *believe* how confused they got over the use of the
ALQ-119 pods.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.