[jandrewrogers]

Much of that specialized equipment is mounted on the hard points where you would otherwise attach ordnance. It is easily removable. In the videos I don’t see much evidence of that equipment being installed. This is consistent with what you would do for an airshow.

The US military plans to lose about 25 airframes per year due to various mishaps. They operate well over 10,000 airframes and produce far more new airframes each year than they lose. The optimal loss rate is not zero.

[HNisCIS]

The G model hornets are extensively modified with different electrical harnesses and electronics for their role, they're not interchangeable at all in practice. The 20mm cannon is fully removed as well as the wing tip rails to make room for permanently mounted antennas and additional internal equipment. They aren't modular systems, apart from the AN/ALQ-99 or AN/ALQ-249 jamming pods.

Historically there were a few F models pre wired for G systems but the F models in USN inventory don't have this feature and the harnessing work required for the conversation is prohibitive.

[gspr]

> The optimal loss rate is not zero.

Fine, but surely if the achieved loss rate is projected to fall below the optimal one, then the optimal way to compensate is something else than crashing planes at airshows? Like, I don't know, dismantling for spares. Or scrapping. Or even target practice.

[XorNot]

Air shows are pilot flight hours training. This could've happened on any random training exercise just the same.

Flight hours are one the key differentiating factors in air force quality and a major US advantage is that their pilots have a lot of them.

[philipwhiuk]

*a male US advantage

major?

[XorNot]

Either autocorrect is getting worse or I'm getting lazier...or just phone posting more.

[vasco]

Ah so instead of all those quotes being sad about the crash they should be happy they are helping the US military destroy equipment at optimal rates.