Forum: Mishaps

Don't take this the wrong way, I have no idea what really happened.

Hypothetical only:

From my experience, when someone waits that long to eject, there's a certain amount of pride involved.

The old joke in the fighter community was:

"I rather die than make an a$$ of myself."

It really wasn't that much of a joke.

regards, OL

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TC wrote:

That's odd. I've always heard Eagle Drivers say that the best thing to do if an F-15 departs on you is hands off the stick, and ride the spin out. Why didn't that work here?...or was he fighting the controls?

I wonder why he didn't punch tanks?...and 586 AGL beyond the specifications for a safe ejection in an ACES II? That doesn't compute with me either.

This is definitely one of the stranger Eagle mishap fatalities that I've known about.

TC,

That altitude may be within the specs for ACES II, but he was going down really fast, too.

If a jet is out of control you have a problem. Hopefully, you can solve it with altitude and time. You don't jettison tanks in an out of control situation because you don't one or two additional problems to deal with namely two additional pieces of heavy metal in close proximity that are also out of control and now able to hit your jet.

Ejection seats have designed operation envelopes just like airplanes. Descent rates can easily exceed that design envelope. Recommended ejection altitude for an uncontrolled situation is 6000' AGL.

Outlaw is probably correct to some extent....but I don't think that the plane was being flown recklessly and the pilot was trying to correct a mistake.

I don’t fly but admire the folks selected to fly our fighters.

There is a lot of sh*t that can happen in flight at any given time and a lot of emergency procedures that need to be remembered and accomplished, and then the situation still may not be remedied!

In this incident the pilot had numerous hours in the jet and was trying everything in his power to regain control. Since the F-15 is very sensitive to hi AOA departures, I’m assuming the switches he was looking for was roll/pitch ratio to emergency or trying to turn CAS off … all whilst spinning out of control!

Reminds me of an incident that happened at MO back in the day with F-111s. Upon take-off the right hatch popped open. Both pilot and WSO were trying to close it without paying attention to flying the jet. Yes it was a class A

Point is … no one wants to dust off a jet for s**ts and grins and will do everything to recover. Sometimes “time” just isn’t on your side.

Salute

There’s a certain amount of self-imposed pressure in a loss of control situation that doesn’t exist, for example, in a single engine fighter when the engine shells out. In a way, one situation is “you” against “you” & the other is “you” against the airplane.

In a “loss” of control situation, you’re probably leaving a perfectly good aircraft from a fairly high altitude (if you adhere to the guidance) with a lot more room left to work, and doing it voluntarily, whereas without an engine in a single engine fighter, if you’re not in a position to conduct a flame out landing or, as in some earlier jets if it was not recommended, you have no choice. It’s easy.

As F-16guy says, a loss of control certainly doesn’t imply reckless operation or even necessarily a mistake. The guy involved had to have been an exceptional aviator or he wouldn’t have been an aggressor pilot.

But in your chosen line of work you are still potentially meeting a board over the destruction of a perfectly good machine. You want to give yourself every possible chance to recover. It's a fine line. You would like to continue in your chosen line of work.

The F-4 unit I was in lost only two F-4’s, both to loss of control accidents. In both cases they were maneuvering on the defensive against A-7’s. In both cases the crews delayed their ejections until well below the minimum recommended loss of control bailout altitude (back then with the older systems, it was 10,000 AGL). Fortunately every one made it (a couple with non-critical injuries, broken bones, etc.)

The common themes here (and probably in many other accidents of this type) were, first, the pilot’s high level of confidence in his ability to handle the situation, and second, the underlying negative motivation to stick with the aircraft and bring it home safely.

(“I hope nobody notices the collapsed drag chute when I land.”)

The flying safety guys pound the “timely ejection” thing into you, but they know.

There needs to be a hold harmless way to remove the “negative motivation” factors. Make sure the folks know they get plenty of credit for leaving the machine at 6000 AGL if necessary. I don’t think you’d have any more or any less loss of control accidents, just more survivors. (I know, it’s easy for me to say, because I don’t have to answer to anyone.)

BTW, one of the F-4 pilots when asked by the board what he thought was the cause of the accident, simply held up both of his hands, and said “these, sir”. The board was entirely satisfied, and the pilot, who was also exceptional, flew for many more years.

regards, OL

(for sferrin: For those keeping score at home, and had this been the real thing, those A-7’s would have been credited with 2 maneuvering kills on fighter aircraft.)

Moral of the story...How does the expression go?

"Sky above you and runway behind you don't do you a d@mn bit of good".

Actually, in a way, I think what I'm getting at is the sky below you doesn't do you a d@mn bit of good if you're no longer in the airplane.

regards, OL

(not counting UAV's)

VarkVet wrote:

Upon take-off the right hatch popped open. Both pilot and WSO were trying to close it without paying attention to flying the jet.

The pilot that was killed was a FAIP with me. He was going through F-111 Initial Qual at the time of the accident.

Forum: Mishaps

F-15 crash in Nevada