Today was like a dream for me - a bad one, a dream that is repeated over and over again, until one day the reality of it seems like just another dream.
Having been distracted by other matters in Wisconsin, which you all know well by now, I only learned today that an F-16 had crashed yesterday - crashed two miles from my home, as the crow flies, or as the F-16 drops.
Three years have passed since I started to look, first into what the bloody hell all the noise was invading the quiet country space where I live, then leading me to discover the abysmal safety record of the aircraft which besets us with thunderous noise, and puts our lives at risk for hours each day.
It wasn't so when I first got my retreat from urban chaos 13 years ago; I had no idea I lived under a combat training airspace. The slower, quieter, and much safer A-10 was the aircraft then used to train in the Volk airspace, an area covering parts of 13 central Wisconsin counties. Then, like a hammer in the head came the F-16's - loud - ear-splitting loud, and a potentially lethal hazard to all below, an accident waiting for a time and place, determined by random fate, to happen.
The F-16, first introduced in 1975 and quickly tagged the "lawn dart" by it's pilots for it's uncontrolled drop from the sky upon loss of engine power, has a troubling history of crashes. Many are caused by it's single, failure-prone engine, averaging about 10 crashes a year, or about 3.5 per 100,000 flight hours.
By comparison, large commercial aircraft have a crash rate of about one percent the rate of F-16's. Major passenger airlines maintain an average crash rate about one-half a percent of the F-16's. Small turboprops used for short connection flights are worse than the large airliners, but still crash at just one-tenth the rate of F-16's.
Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, the largest F-16 training facility in the world, has had over 18 F-16 crashes since 1998. Most have occurred while practicing air-to-air combat, just as I regularly observe over my home. In 1988, 23 F-16's crashed, and 342 have crashed since it's introduction in 1975.
Of course, pilot fatigue and error contribute to accidents as well, and simulating air-to-air combat doesn't help; training usually means pilots inexperienced with the maneuvers they are practicing. Yesterday's crash was with an experienced pilot, so the cause was undoubtedly the aircraft itself.
The F-16 is inherently aerodynamically unstable, so requires electronic, fly-by-wire technology to stabilize flight. The F-16 has no glide capability. The single, failure-prone engine, often updated, delivers not just thrust, but electrical power. A dead engine thus yields a dead-in-the-air, unstable airframe for gravity alone to control. One system remains active upon failure - pilot ejection. When you read stories of brave F-16 pilots steering their dead aircraft away from people on the ground, it's a great story for the media, but as yesterday's crash demonstrates, not in any way true. There's good reason for pilots to call this craft the "lawn dart", and neither belongs over your, or any civilians', heads.
Clarification, thanks to kyoders - Failure of both engine and backup battery (10 minute optimally), which is known to occur frequently, leaves only ejection functional. The backup battery has facilitated some "dead stick" landings, though this obviously was not the case in the latest, nor any, of the numerous F-16 crashes.
This is an aircraft designed for combat, so hazards like this are considered acceptable in combat areas. Should we also find these risks acceptable to the civilian areas where our homes and families are, just to train for the anticipated air-to-air combat which no F-16 has ever actually been engaged in? That's right - what the F-16 was designed primarily to do has never happened. It has participated in actions as a ground support aircraft, and it's presence has grounded "enemy" fighters, but what it endangers Wisconsinites on a daily basis to train for has never actually occurred. Some would say, "deterrent". I'd say, "reckless waste".
Some of our government representatives apparently find the risk an acceptable trade-off for the economic benefit of hosting a combat training facility. The increase in fighter activity in our area may be due to an April 26, 2005 letter from Governor Doyle to Philip Grone, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, in which Doyle invites the increase while minimizing the significance of our safety and ability to peacefully enjoy our homes and environment. As we are only "17 residents per square mile", Doyle declared that we are "not an issue".
(from page 3, Doyle letter, my emphasis):
Fort McCoy and Volk Field are both capable and poised to support a mission increase. The surrounding area is sparsely developed. In fact, land use densities around Fort McCoy and Volk Field average about seven homes and 17 residents per square mile. In other words, encroachment and noise complaints are not an issue at Fort McCoy and Volk Field.
(from page 1):
Wisconsin’s military bases are also integral to Wisconsin’s economy. More than 8,200 military, civilian, and contract workers are employed by the state’s military bases, generating an estimated $918 million annually into the economy.
That $918 million represents less than one-half of one percent of Wisconsin's 2005 Gross State Product. Unfortunately for us "17 residents per square mile", most of the economic benefit of this activity is enjoyed state-wide, while those of us living beneath combat training with aircraft documented to uncontrollably crash on unpredictable occasions bear the full burden of the risk.
While Luke is busier than the Volk airspace, the number and regularity of F-16 crashes there would lead to a reasoned conclusion that with continued combat training in the Volk airspace, an F-16 crashing in Wisconsin is simply a matter of time. There's a lot more open desert space in Arizona than there is in Wisconsin, as well as a vast difference in population densities between the Luke and Volk areas.
In the U.S., F-16 crashes have occurred near places like the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, on the Illinois/Indiana border, the Ashley River in Charleston South Carolina, Islamorada and Key West Florida, Vincennes Indiana, Fairbanks Alaska, and of course, Arizona near Luke A.F.B., and now, 2 miles from my home, or barely a few seconds of F-16 flight time away. Most of these crashes occurred under conditions similar to what is going on in the skies above our homes here.
As yet, I am not aware of any civilian killed on the ground by a crashing F-16, and I think that is pure luck. But luck always runs out. As General Lloyd "Fig" Newton said correctly in 1999, commenting on six F-16 crashes in a short period of time at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona:
"Airplane crashes are not new to us. There is a certain amount of risk with our mission. We have highly technical and complex systems, which are put through the paces daily. While they are carefully engineered, flown and maintained, we need to remember they were made by human hands -- there will be failures"
So, if these flights are allowed to continue, this
will happen again.
If you're concerned, please call all of your state and U.S. representatives, as I did, and ask that:
1) All F-16 combat training flights be immediately suspended over civilian areas until after
2) A thorough review of F-16 safety records are made, and
3) Public hearings are held to determine how Wisconsinites feel about subjecting themselves and their families to this hazard for a pittance of economic activity and the assurance that pilots are trained to do what they will likely never be called to do.
If your concerns are more immediate, please don't hesitate to call the Volk Field hotline at 1-800-972-8673, and express your concerns. Upon reviewing their procedures, I see each complaint needs to be handled by established procedures, so I'm sure, though they won't understand, they will notice an outcry for reason.