- Did you notice the rain covers are present in the second photo in the article? I had to do a double-take because they’re very dark. I suspect they’re less obvious compared to other aircraft.
- Was the launch at night? If so, is the deck of this carrier appropriately lit wherever this plane was parked for inspection?
This is pure speculation. My point is you can have all the checklists in the world but bad design could contribute significantly to a process failure.
It sounds like this was a test flight of new equipment on a new carrier. I’d expect some design issues to be uncovered at this stage.
The color in the image is misleading. They are very bright red.
Honestly, I have no idea how this could have happened without at least two people simply not doing their job, at all.
...and flagged. It shouldn't just be a panel/plug, there should be a ginormous length of red webbing attached with a "you can't miss it" "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" text in white (on both sides of the webbing) as well. It's not like we haven't been doing that for fifty-plus years or anything. That was old news when I was in the service [mumble] decades ago and our quaint training films on type were nearly twenty years old at that point (which should be a clue right there that I'm Canadian).
Perhaps the millenials in charge of designing this most recent fighter tired of your grandfather's rain cover aesthetic, and modernized them to feature Hoefler Whitney and more muted colour palette. :-)
Since you asked, here’s one idea:
- Did you notice the rain covers are present in the second photo in the article? I had to do a double-take because they’re very dark. I suspect they’re less obvious compared to other aircraft.
- Was the launch at night? If so, is the deck of this carrier appropriately lit wherever this plane was parked for inspection?
This is pure speculation. My point is you can have all the checklists in the world but bad design could contribute significantly to a process failure.
It sounds like this was a test flight of new equipment on a new carrier. I’d expect some design issues to be uncovered at this stage.