Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
- Start date
And here it is after basking in the light of the king's glory.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Total write off as it would be cheaper to buy a brand new replacement than trying to repair that. Best outcome is maybe they can salvage some parts from what’s left that is still useable for the rest of the fleet.
If that was your car, then we are looking at:
- Extensive body work
- Some damage to the chasis
- Flood damage to the engine.
You might be able to salvage some of the avionics, but the cost of hauling back to the dealership across the ocean and get it refit is probably beyond what your car insurance would cover. So yea, a write off.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I have reservations about the avionics. Fire damage and electronics don’t mix well.
Even if the fire doesn’t physically reach said electronic to do direct burn damage, it can still cause all sorts of hard to find damage if it can raise ambient temperature above the melting point of soldering, which can be as low as 183-188 degrees depending on soldering used.
Most aircraft, certainly the F16, uses metal for most of the body, which is a great conductor of heat, so hotspots can form internally well away from the actual fire itself. You also have wiring connecting key parts, which can also act as great heat conductors as soon as the plastic insulation melts/burn off.
Heat damage can also significantly degrade solid metal parts, so I don’t hold much expectations of them being able to get much out of the wreck to be honest. But I assume at least some things might have survived in good enough conduction to be considered as useable directly, or could be in turn stripped for parts.
Physical crush and sheer damage might look bad, but you will probably have a much higher chance to repair something that only have physical damage compared to something with burn damage. Even with write-offs, you should get far more salvage from a physical crashed unit compared to a fire damaged unit.
Indeed, you are going to have to test that stack in the simulation lab for a long long time before you can even think about risking it in a $100m flight worthy airframe.
That’s Indonesian F-16, it says TNI-AU. Let’s not spread disinformation
Clearly the plane did not burst out into flames spontaneously.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Taiwan has simulation lab for F16 avionics?