The U.S. Air Force has implemented a new checklist for F-22 pilots who are flying with external fuel tanks attached.
During the previous checklist guidance, pilots had to abort takeoff due to hardware limitation in the external tanks. The ground fuel management logic of the jet will not work properly with external fuel tanks. Pilots have to abort their mission due to center of gravity issues and trapped fuel indications.
By implementing a new checklist that ignores the restrictions, testers found that the fuel imbalance issues will sort out once the fighter is airborne.
The effort allowed Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to generate 25 F-22s for a Polar Force exercise on Mar. 26. This would have drop to 16 aircraft if pilots followed the legacy checklist.
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