I read today that an F-22 Raptor was grounded by a hive of bees on its "exhaust nozzle". This doesn't look like a nozzle to me; but I don't know the word for it. It looks like part of the fuselage that gets exposed to jet exhaust, but that's not actually part of the engine.
Readers can see my epic lack of knowledge of the F-22.
CNN posted this picture:
Before transporting the bees to their new home at a local beer production facility, Westrich took them to his house and found that the hive weighed nearly eight pounds in total, according to the Air Force release.OK, I get that the Air Force is trying to be all environmentally friendly and relocate the bees because "crew members realized that honey bees are at risk of extinction", but is this really necessary?
Why couldn't they just light up the engines and take off at full afterburner? Wouldn't that kind of toast the little beasties and solve the problem? Yeah, I know, I'm terribly incorrect here, but if they had to take off on a mission, would they really have to call beekeepers and meticulously move the colony? Maybe toasted bees are good eatin'. I love the smell of jet exhaust in the morning anyway, so why not toasted bees with it?
I have no doubts that during war time something like this would not keep a warbird grounded. But for routine flight there is nothing wrong with good PR work and the saving of bees who are a vital part of the American economy and biosphere. All in all the right call for the circumstances at hand.
ReplyDeleteIt was decided to remove the bees from the aircraft and the flightline due to their refusal to wear the tiny reflective belts provided by the base commander.
ReplyDeleteRemember, safety is everyone's job and it begins with a reflective belt.
While I'm not an aircraft mechanic, and not familiar with details of the F-22, I am an engineer and can put forward a couple of technical reasons to 'down' the aircraft for this.
ReplyDelete1. Everything I have read says that stealth aircraft have very specialized and easily damaged skin coatings; while the B-2 is legendary for its touchy skin and I hope the F-22 is better, I would expect them to not gamble with possible damage in a non-combat situation like this one.
2. I think it is safe to say that this qualifies as an 'unusual event' and, therefore, since it IS peacetime, I would expect the Air Force to inspect the plane closely before flight to make sure the bees and the removal operation didn't damage anything or do anything elsewhere not yet seen on the aircraft. To me, it seems it would only take a few dead bees or a little bit of comb in the wrong place to fouls up sensors or control surfaces and cause big problems.
Yep, yep, understood. But I was right in there with SiG on "Light'er up and let's go!" Can't let a small thing like that hold us back!
DeleteThe photos I found show that the bees were on the tip of the exhaust nozzle. The F-22 exhausts are 2-D, meaning that they can swivel up and down, in addition to open and close, to make the jet more maneuverable. The photos were heavily cropped, probably to cut out sight-sensitive portions.
ReplyDeleteYes, they could have started the engine and blown off the bees (like that?), but then you'd have a cloud of pissed-off survivors in and around the plane. Not a good thing.
Dan's right. It was good PR, even though I roll my eyes harder and harder at the actions and ongoings in the armed forces of this country in the "modern era". The bee swarm was just there as a resting place... they'd either split off from an overgrown hive or one that had been rendered unusable, and were looking for a new place to live. (granted there are many places on an aircraft that would make fine hive locations, but there was likely too much activity around the plane for their liking to stay.) They wouldn't have damaged the skin or coating... there's a queen in the middle of that mass and every other bee in that swarm was thinking only about her, while others were out flying around looking for another place to build a permanent home. The beekeeper was the quickest answer to making them leave before they found a hollow spot on the plane with a small hole for an entrance to build a nice hive... like in front of the flaps, ailerons or up in the landing gear recesses.
ReplyDeleteYou're assuming the bees would have stayed there while the turbine was lighting off. If they didn't, then you have 20,000 pissed off bees flying around the flight line harassing pilots and ground crew, and still looking for a place to make a hive. So, the problem may not have been solved by firing up the jet.
ReplyDeleteGreat bunch of comments, but let me just add a little perspective:
ReplyDeleteWhere I live in Central Florida, if you went outside and stood still for a couple of hours, the paper wasps would start to build a nest in your armpits. It's a weekly ritual to go around the house armed with a can of wasp killer looking under the eaves, and especially between the rain gutter and the fascia boards, for the new nests.
Because of that, I'm probably incapable of imagining planes out on a flight line not gathering nests or hives. I know that there have got to be places where a nest is Bad Thing - I can imagine mud daubers plugging the opening of a pitot tube - so that makes it hard to think they'll stop operations whenever something makes a nest on the aircraft.
Kermit Weeks has several videos of his planes at Fantasy of Flight and he's mentioned that some of the covers on probes are exactly because of mud daubers.
DeleteThe planes on display at the Florida Air Museum have quite a few nests in them on exhibits that you can't really spray down with killer.
Not just covers on probes, but covers on engine inlets, and canopies closed. Most other places on a military jet where wasps, hornets, or bees might be interested tend to have the smell of jet fuel or hydraulic fluid, which discourages their residence.
DeleteIf you don't want the bug poisons in your living space, WD-40, motor oil, and a strong dilution of pine-sol all work against wasps. Each of these make them too heavy to fly and they fall to the ground where they die in minutes, or you can step on them. In particular, two quarts of pine sol mix is good for throwing from a straight-sided container at a nest and drenching the whole thing.
DeleteI'm sure the .mil just empathized with a bunch of drones ruled by a queen, just like the US is about to be.