On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:00:25 -0500, bob urz
wrote:

Walt wrote:
On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 10:38:10 -0500, bob urz
wrote:

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/A..._Type/f-14.htm

Sure seems to be a lot of them.

bob

Not really. The F-14 had approximately 180 losses during it's career.
The FA-18 has had approximately 160, the F-16 over 300 and the F-15
approximately 120 through 2004. Not counting foreign users.

Also considering that carrier launches and recoveries are not the
safest ways to take off and land an aircraft. And, the F-14 and FA-18
aren't always able to divert to land bases when trouble developes, as
are the F-15 and F-16.

So how does one judge loses?
number of crashed planes vs number built?
Number of fatalities?
Then, factoring in war loses that were not airframe issues?

taking that into account, what was the highest and lowest loss fighters?

bob
Losses depend on what you're looking for. Airframe or crew losses. The
figures I listed were for accidents (airframes). They came from
Scrambles "US Military Aircraft Mishaps 1950-2004", which does include
aircraft combat losses. In this case I think the original question was
in reguard to airframes and ejections. An ejection would be an
airframe loss in most cases.

I didn't do any percentages on any of them. Percentages could tell a
completely different story. Compared to the number built the F-14
probably suffered more accidents than some other types. Compared to
their contemporaries during the same period, not so much. The F-14s
were underpowered up to the B and D version which was a contributing
factor to a number of losses. The early FA-18s lost a number of
aircraft to faulty INS.