Originally Posted by
MSOCS
LO, I don't believe there will be a need to sweep between take offs unless the jet in front overtly trashes the surface during a take off roll and STO. Believe me when I say that this will be very evident to the pilot about to take off but it is rare. There are many advantages to the STOVL design over AV-8 that significantly reduce the chances of any type of re-ingestion - both hot gas and FOD. I'm sure you're well-read on them but the design actually mitigates rather well IMHO.
There was a well documented case at a Scottish air defence base where the detached puffer jets destroyed the tarmac at the lazy runway intersection doing their slow land thing.
Co-incidentally, the northern squadron had instigated a program where rechargeable "wolfe" light were available in their HAS management cabins for intake and engine inspections, however the vastly improved inspection conditions [ie a squillion times better that a right angled torch] had the knock on effect of a massive rise in ECU rejections eventually leading to suspicion of sabotage on the unit by the highly intelligent grown ups....
It was only when the southern squadron rolled out their take on the "wolfe" light that a similar situation was found over there, this was a massive issue for the station.
All this occurred over the space of a fortnight.
So, anyone who decries the cause of FODed engines with the root cause being toy plastic aircraft and their specific landing techniques had better hope they are never south of Iceland when their only hope of survival suddenly goes quiet. IMHO 'natch.