"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On 9 Jan 2004 07:50:56 -0800, (James Dandy)
wrote:

Seems to me like all the modern wars I can remember up from Vietnam
use mostly ordinary fighters and bombers.

I don't understand why such emphasis is put on that stealth stuff when
we use the same old planes from previously.

In 1966, while I was flying the F-105 over N. Vietnam, we lost one
every 65 missions. In 1991, during Desert Storm we lost one fixed wing
aircraft every 3500 mission. In 2003 in Iraqi Freedom we lost one
fixed wing aircraft in 16,500 mission.

I think we can pretty well know the iris on the J-75 was taking out 1% of
the F-105s. When Ed posted here that the F-105's brakes could not hold the
airplane in AB, I could see that iris stuck open/closed/half way between.
Since the introduction of onboard automated testing in aircraft and the next
30 years of R&D, the number of failures per launch has been driven down year
on year; excludeing aging aircraft issues, that may show themselves at any
time.