Do you have reference material for that statement?
Not with me, no. Most of the details are privileged info anyhow. That statement is based on 20 years of watching flying safety videos annually and reading dozens upon dozens of mishap reports during my career. The infamous Viva Las Vegas video shown before each red flag has a dozen or more low altitude fatalities just in one 5 minute video clip, and that's just a mere handful that were caught on camera. My spatial disorientation course during F-15E FTU had 3 cases with no video, of F-16 drivers who augered in doing night low altitude LGB deliveries. Another CRM course I attended had 5 cases of guys who got disoriented during both daylight and night low altitude visual and PGM deliveries. I've lost 3 friends in the last 4 years due to spatial disorientation, and one of them was even in an F-15E with a WSO in the back seat (who lived), and the very first of my friends and squadron-mates who died in my first fighter squadron hit the ground doing about 500 kts during a low altitude threat reaction at night.
100 is a low estimate for the number of attack pilots who packed it in doing low altitude combat maneuvering. Very low. F-16s simply don't do low altitude LGB deliveries anymore after a rash of fatalities attempting to fill that role more than a decade ago. F-15Es still do it because we don't die quite as often doing that mission, but it requires the full attention of 2 crewmembers to even attempt to do it reasonably safely and effectively.
Rich46yo, don't take this personally, but... I'm sure you could get some data with a well written FOIA request to the AF safety center, but I've already seen the reports. If you choose to not believe me, frankly that's because you're not in the business and you world-view context on the subject is missing about 5 years of training/education that I can't possibly provide for you. Like the 2 morons who only survived by a miracle after they depressurized their acft above 20,000 ft before making sure their oxygen was flowing and after their windscreen fractured (in violation of direct guidance in the acft operators manual), ignorance of aviation safety and physiology doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means you don't have the education and experience to understand what's going on or what people are talking about when the subject comes up.
Again nothing personal, but the whole single seat low altitude strike argument comes up over and over by people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. They either lack the education or experience, and they're making decisions that will get people killed due to their ignorance or ego. That viper driver talking about how the F-16 can do it all... Well, he hasn't done it all, otherwise he wouldn't be saying nonsense like that. And those who claim the F-35 will replace everything including F-15, F-15E, A-10... they're saying it out of WILLFUL IGNORANCE, ignoring 70+ years of lessons learned in fighter aviation, because they think even though they haven't done it and never will, they somehow know better than those who have been there and done that. All their charts and studies don't mean crap to the single-seat fighter pilot who's been given too much to do low to the ground and who pays for the bean-counter's inflated ego with his life.
