Myth Busted: High Crash Rates of IAF

Gorkhali

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These days I am seeing that Indian members are running low on morale after recent frequent crashes of IAF, and after recent C-130J crash, people have gone berserk trying to defame IAF how it is the most unprofessional air force of the world, and how our pilots are total noobs. :tsk:

So I did a little research on the crash rates of IAF and some other air forces and calculated crash rates of different planes they operate.

At first I also thought that crash rates of IAF are worst in the world seeing all the media rant going on...but after calculating crash rates of other air forces.....I got different result. :thumb:

I calculated the crash rate of the plane by this formula - Rate = 10000*(No. Crashed)/((Total Plane)*square(Time in Service(in years)))

Reason:-

No. Crashed/Total Plane is reasonable. crash probability of a plane increases by square of time it is in service. multiplication by 10000 is to cancel the exponential term.

Now, Crash Rates of Different Air forces and their Planes -


1. Indian Air Force:-

Su 30 MKI - 1.05

Mig 21 - 1.74 (Not too bad considering they are more than 50 yrs in service)

Mig 29 - 1.98 (Cannot explain this)

Mirage 2000 - 0.4 (quite low(western maal?))

An - 32(transport) - 0.7

2. Pakistani Air Force :-

JF-17 - 4.7 (Oops!)

F-16 - 1.4 (Not so good as people think)

Dassault Mirage III - 0.3

Dassault Mirage V - 0.2

F-7 - 0.7

C-130(transport) - 1.3

3. US Air Force :-

F-15 - 0.4(Expected)

F-22 - 4.0 (Quite high)

F-16 - ? (Cannot get exact data)

4. French Air Force :-

Dassault Rafale - 2.9 (Why?)


5. Royal Australian Air Force -

F/A- 18 Hornet - 0.4


6. Spanish Air Force

Eurofighter Typhoon - 1.2

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Note:- This list is incomplete, most of leading air forces like Russian AF and PLAAF crash records are not actively available anywhere.
If you can get correct data, calculate crash rate by the above mentioned formula and post it.
 

JBH22

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Could you please advise how you reached those figures?

Has the fleet been taken into account as denominator.
 

Gorkhali

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Good thread. Very good analytical and mathematical analysis.
Thanks :D

Could you please advise how you reached those figures?



Has the fleet been taken into account as denominator.
I have acquired data available on internet,and Yes, fleet has been taken into denominator.
For example, take the case of F-22 Raptor.

No. in active service- 195

No. Crashed - 5

Time for which it has been in active service - 7 Dec 2005 to 2014 or ~2006 to 2014 = 8 Yrs.

Crash Rate = No. Crashed/(No. in active service)*(sq(Time in active service))

=5/(195X8X8) = 4.006 X 10^-4 , ignoring 10^-4, we get crash rate as 4.0
 

Peter

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Gorkhali,well you did a nice calculation mate.However I am a bit skeptical.

Your formula is

Rate = 10000*(No. Crashed)/((Total Plane)*square(Time in Service(in years)))
Why did you put the TIME IN SERVICE in the denominator.

You have got DASSAULT RAFALE as 2.9 and MIG-21 as 1.74. You want to know why?Because the TIME SPAN of MIG-21 is greater than DASSAULT RAFALE.

Eg- A very lay man example to make everyone understand the problem

Plane A
No of time crashed=2
Total plane=10
Year in service=10
Plane B
No of time crashed=100
Total plane=200
Year in Service=50

Result Plane A=20

Result Plane B=2

Therefore plane B has 50% crash rate while plane A has 20% crash rate.However by your formula plane B is better than plane A which is incorrect.

The basic wrong thing with your formula is that you have assumed that no. of years in service as denominator in square.The more older the plane gets automatically it will become better by your formula.

(Crazy maths aside do you think RAFALE DASSAULT is a worse plane than MIG_21 !!!!!!!!#@^&&@$$ :shocked:)
 

Peter

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Well believe it or not in our university Jadavpur,we once had a workshop or seminar whatever you call it.There they told us how we can manipulate data to make a normal product look like extraordinary.While giving several examples the lecturer gave an example where he showed how by tweaking a few datas we can show that HCL is a more successful in pc sales than Sony,Dell etc.So from then on I knew how corporate houses give their tall claims.

Anyway you did do a good job and put effort into it.

My only hope for crashes to reduce is for Indian government to buy latest flight simulation machines and also train a few pilots in the country of origin of the planes.Otherwise more C130 crashes will continue..:sad:
 

pankaj nema

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All I know is that we just lost 1000 CRORES brand new plane

1000 crores sounds so big as compared to saying 150 million dollars
 

Gorkhali

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Gorkhali,well you did a nice calculation mate.However I am a bit skeptical.

Your formula is

Rate = 10000*(No. Crashed)/((Total Plane)*square(Time in Service(in years)))
Why did you put the TIME IN SERVICE in the denominator.

You have got DASSAULT RAFALE as 2.9 and MIG-21 as 1.74. You want to know why?Because the TIME SPAN of MIG-21 is greater than DASSAULT RAFALE.

Eg- A very lay man example to make everyone understand the problem

Plane A
No of time crashed=2
Total plane=10
Year in service=10
Plane B
No of time crashed=100
Total plane=200
Year in Service=50

Result Plane A=20

Result Plane B=2

Therefore plane B has 50% crash rate while plane A has 20% crash rate.However by your formula plane B is better than plane A which is incorrect.

The basic wrong thing with your formula is that you have assumed that no. of years in service as denominator in square.The more older the plane gets automatically it will become better by your formula.

(Crazy maths aside do you think RAFALE DASSAULT is a worse plane than MIG_21 !!!!!!!!#@^&&@$$ :shocked:)
Ok, i will put it why time is in denominator. The sole reason that it put time in denominator because more you make a 10+ ton metal machine fly high in sky at speed more than 300m/s(speed of sound),more its probability of coming down to mother earth.

Ok again i will give you a example to explain...

USA have 100 F-22 which it is flying for 10 yrs. 5 Have crashed.(Lets Assume)

Whereas Admiral General Aladdin of Wadiah brought 100 Mig 21 FL from Russia, just a month ago. one have crashed so far.

So, according to your logic,

Crash rate of F-22 - 5/100=0.05
Crash rate of Mig21- 1/100=0.01

So Crash rate of F -22>Mig21 ???

And now, according to my formula...

Crash rate of F-22 - 5/(100*10*10) = 0.0005

Crash rate of Mig 21 - 1/(100*1/144) = 1.44 (One month gives 1/12 year and hence square is 1/144)

So tell me @Peter which gives more meaningful result.

Also, which plane is better or bad, how it can be calculated by crash rate? Crash rate have nothing to do with performance of plane in battle(Unless it is so high that it crashes everytime you fly it).

The crash rate of Rafale/EFT/Raptor is more because these planes rely more on FBW, and slight software/machine defect can bring the plane down.

And yeah, your last line made be laugh :)
 
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Peter

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Ok, i will put it why time is in denominator.
Its nice to know you have seen the film Alladin.I have no perfect formulas with me but I just feel your formula is incorrect.
I have also not said crash rate is a definitive measure of how good a plane is. However you did the example with different time span.Make time span same and my crash rate formula works.
Also thanks for making you laugh.
 
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Peter

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@Gorkhali
Also that time span you have to take for individual planes ie each individual plane of MIG 21 and not the year MIG 21 was introduced .Just some of my ideas to make your formula work.(Also dont you think putting the time span of a plane in denominator decreases the probability.Should an older plane not have greater chance of crashing as it gets older)
 
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Peter

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Also you have given an imaginary example.Try recalculating all your real life crash data with my crash rate formula;.You are bound to get a more correct result.
 

Gorkhali

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All I know is that we just lost 1000 CRORES brand new plane

1000 crores sounds so big as compared to saying 150 million dollars
Yeah bro, it hurts how we are quickly loosing our strategic assets, just hope that crash investigation reveals structural failure, and Lockheed Martin may agree to give us a extra one in next batch.

Its nice to know you have seen the film Alladin.I have no perfect formulas with me but I just feel your formula is incorrect.
I have also not said crash rate is a definitive measure of how good a plane is. However you did the example with different time span.Make time span same and my crash rate formula works.
Also thanks for making you laugh.
Anyway the film name is Dictator, funniest movie i have ever seen. You say u are studying in Jadavpur University? I am going to give WBJEE this year, lets see if i can get...hehe. ;)

OT:-

Thats the thing, making time span same WILL give correct results, i have used time square in denominator just to make fair comparison between old and newer ones...as older ones are bound to crash more than newer ones, no matter how good or bad the planes are.

@Gorkhali
Also that time span you have to take for individual planes ie each individual plane of MIG 21 and not the year MIG 21 was introduced .Just some of my ideas to make your formula work.(Also dont you think putting the time span of a plane in denominator decreases the probability.Should an older plane not have greater chance of crashing as it gets older)
Alas! My formula only gives very approx. result, just to check in the approx. crash rates, but then again finding age of individual planes is just not possible.
 
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Peter

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@Gorkhali
OT
Sorry the film name was indeed dictator (sacha baron cohen).
Yeah best of luck for WBJEE.:thumb:Also just an honest and kind piece of advice is if you start doing SN Dey/rudiments rather than being on defence forums it will help a lot.:wave:Once you get to college you will have lots of free time.
 
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p2prada

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@Gorkhali

Your figure for Mirage-2000 is wrong. You did not take into account the 10 extra aircraft ordered in 2004 and 12 have crashed in total. So, 2.33 by your equation.

For MKI I got a score of 1.7. 4 crashes out of 194 and 11 years of service. The figure is up to Feb 2013.

As for Rafale, all 5 crashes happened due to pilot error. I got a score of 2.2 with 126 in service for 14 years.

@Peter

The time in the denominator is correct. Aircraft are expected to get better as they grow older due to increase in aircraft reliability.

Mig-21 simply became far too old. The oldest bis is 34 years old and M/MF is even older. They are far past their service dates.
 
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Gorkhali

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@Gorkhali

Your figure for Mirage-2000 is wrong. You did not take into account the 10 extra aircraft ordered in 2004 and 12 have crashed in total. So, 2.33 by your equation.

For MKI I got a score of 1.7. 4 crashes out of 194 and 11 years of service. The figure is up to Feb 2013.

As for Rafale, all 5 crashes happened due to pilot error. I got a score of 2.2 with 126 in service for 14 years.

@Peter

The time in the denominator is correct. Aircraft are expected to get better as they grow older due to increase in aircraft reliability.

Mig-21 simply became far too old. The oldest bis is 34 years old and M/MF is even older. They are far past their service dates.
12 Mirage 2000 crashed? I didn't knew it sir.....

But sir Su 30 MKI service is for 12 yrs, 2002-2014. Gives rate = 1.4 (My bad, i calculated 14 yrs of service :p)
 
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Peter

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@Gorkhali


@Peter

The time in the denominator is correct. Aircraft are expected to get better as they grow older due to increase in aircraft reliability.

Mig-21 simply became far too old. The oldest bis is 34 years old and M/MF is even older. They are far past their service dates.
I did not tell anything about time span.Gorkhali himself quoted that "The sole reason that it put time in denominator because more you make a 10+ ton metal machine fly high in sky at speed more than 300m/s(speed of sound),more its probability of coming down to mother earth."

Btw the time in denominator in square makes it too great a factor.
 
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p2prada

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12 Mirage 2000 crashed? I didn't knew it sir.....

But sir Su 30 MKI service is for 12 yrs, 2002-2014. Gives rate = 1.4 (My bad, i calculated 14 yrs of service :p)
You can cut out the sir. I used 11 years because the last known crash was in 2013 along with the last known number of 194. Today we are well above 200, and very close to 230. So, the figure should be lower.

Btw the time in denominator in square makes it too great a factor.
Yes, it affects the equation a bit too much.

Anyway, crash rate is calculated either by the number of landings or number of flying hours (or years).
 

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