Forum: F-16 Procedures

"There I was ... coming up initial" (so to speak Cool

) ... wait, wrong story Laughing

...

There I was ... 2 ship BFM continuation sortie ... we had just finished a couple 6K low aspect sets & now finished two butterfly high aspect setups ... block 25 jet, centerline bag , 9 mike & gun ... average vanilla blue sky sortie except that HHQ had just put a restriction on AB use ... midst multitude of engine problems ... short term was just don't use AB unless necessary for safety of flight ... soooo we were enjoying a longer than average mission not burning the JP as fast as normal ... and our engagements were going downhill lots faster than normal since we had handcuffs on.

Next set ... line abreast 6-9K (350 KIAS start I think it was, we tinkered with starting parameters) ... anyway "fights on" ... I went full deflection for high six, max vertical, my favorite as a high perch & knife fight is ok by me ... he went the high percentage, classic, low risk route, nose slighty low, lift vector below the horizon, max G into me, but preserving his knots near corner ... well this gave me a smile as it afforded a fleeting chance for a big lead turn pirouette to swing my lift vector out in front ... had the Mike in the HUD, missiles ... pinkied to ACM mode 10 x 40 ... looking to snag a lock & let the mike rip with an off boresight falling away kinda shot ... well good idea dude (and I'd been successful for sure with lots o similar past tries ... to me the Viper was the worlds best lead turnin burnin point now & shoot machine Twisted Evil

) ...

But ... today ... no AB available slick ... there I was, on my back pulling all Hal would give me on multiple limiters, with out my normal P&W friend giving me the kick in the butt ... just like chapter six will tell ya, the nose rate stopped Confused

... she just kinda settled (rapidly) into an inverted flat attitude ... a hunk of iron just falling in the sky Crying or Very sad

... and ... as I figured out I wasn't going to get my shot, I noticed also the nose was turning across the horizon ... deep stall, inverted deep stall, inverted spin Embarassed

...

I instinctively let up/nuetralized the side stick control ... throttle was already in Mil ... negative one g or so (wasnt too bad) & AOA pegged -5 ... had lots o altitude (a really, really good thang!) ... I fed a little rudder in to stop the nose yaw or rotation, oops wrong way slick, that made it rotate faster (guess I should of looked at the turn needle) ... the other way, ok it slowed down to most nothing ... now MPO override and hold ... just then my wingman's calling "KIO" ... I was too busy to make any radio calls so far ... & I wasn't gonna let go of the MPO now to correct my omission or reply back ... it just took two nice "rocks" in phase & she pointed straight down (to my keen delight) ... rapid acceleration & I was back in controlled flight ... ... as I remember I lost 10K plus altitude in the whole thing, but I had lots available from my high perch & 10K agl never became close to a factor.

Well ... I had lots o lights to reset ect. ... we called it a day, that was enough fun for me ... it takes a good bit of buffoonery to put a Viper out of control & I found a way to do it ... fortunately GD (back then) built it with a nice way out & it worked as advertised for me ... ... I was not a stranger to out of control flight as we actually practiced in the less forgiving Corsair II ... I had numerous times gone over the edge in the SkyHawk (learning to find its exact envelope) ... & I had spun T-2's & T-28's ad nosium ... but that was my first inverted experience ... probably best just to do it in the Sim. Rolling Eyes

Oh ... I got off on a tangent here ... I really wrote to tell you guys the dash one does not call for any flaperon input to get out of Viper deep stalls, out of control flight ... I don't know what your computer games do, but when you fly the real one, don't use flaperon.

Obviously the control inputs to recover are different for different aircraft ... swept wing versus staright wing is a significant aerodynamic factor here ... as soon as you detect stall & certainly if you see the nose start to slice ... just neutralize everything (roll, pitch & yaw) (go totally unloaded, zero AOA, no demand for lift, no induced drag), get your engine back if it is prone to air intake problems ... the jet will get back into the relative wind & you'll fly again ... of course you may go on "Mr Toads wild ride" as it gets there ... hope you have some space between your rear end & tierra firma cause you're gonna need it ... if you don't, then it's an easy decision ... jettison your steed & take the nylon letdown.

I'm one of those guys who believes one has to take it over the edge occasionally to truly know where the edge is ... if you're actually going to max perform, then you need to do this ... of course I also believe one only does this in a safe manner, where the risk factors are controlled.

Cheers Smile

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Nice story dyno, I like your writing style Mr. Green

Hey thanks there habu2 ... both you & elp have flattered me Very Happy

... I'll have to see if the "little bird" that sits on my shoulder can dredge up some more past memories. Wink

Yo Ho!

Super war story, Dyno.

Some of we Jurrasic Park dinos used to set the pitch trim to zero gee (yep you yutes, pitch trim is gee, not control position or AoA). In that case, one could let go of the stick and the jet would try to get to zero gee.

This procedure was a 'good thing'. At a one gee command, you could wind up with full deflection on the elevators that was trying to get he nose DOWN. If inverted, this was a 'bad thing', as the FLCS used body rates and gees sensed by all the doofers, not up or down with respect to real world.

As dyno recalled, the secret was not to stay in a fixed attitude for very long when getting slow. I can't recall anyone deep-stalling or anything if they were rolling and pulling. Seemed like all the bad things happened if one relaxed, maintained a nose-high attitude, etc.

Later,

Gums sends

P.S. I flew about 1000 hours in the A-7D and never departed the thing. It was a very honest bird and shook like crazy as you were getting into trouble. The biggie was to use rudder, and only rudder, to roll the thing when way up on AoA and shaking bad. Another tip was to lead stick input for a roll with lottsa rudder, and early. Unlike Dyno, I never intentionally departed the SLUF, but prolly should have just to say I had done it and no big deal.

Right on Gums...

... you've brought back some memory ... part of my normal ground ops routine, to set the cockpit to my personal liking, was to roll that pitch trim tab forward until the index line just kissed the forward edge of the window... liked it for air to air as you mention... & I bet you used it also for 30 degree DB & 45 degree HADB passes (as I did) to help keep the jet away from a "bananna pass"... Hal's auto trim is mostly a good thing, but sometimes required some little nudges to keep a pilot happy.

The Navy RAG (RTU) included a syllabus ride to go out & depart the SLUF ... basically a confidence builder. What was neat was I flew the jet before they had any family models in use (as I imagine Gums did same) ... so all of my flights in the Corsair II were just little ole me at the stick ... never any doubt about who had the jet!? ... I liked that alot ... today only the A-10 guys get that pleasure ... believe me, it's much nicer having your IP in the jet next to you rather than in the cockpit with you. ...Amen.

Heh, heh, heh ... it was funny though, on my first contact A-7 flight out of Cecil Field in Jacksonville FL, it took me 15 minutes to finally get on the correct frequency after takeoff ... at least I kept the aviate-navigate-communicate priority straight, as I flew the SID flawlessly ... as I remember in debrief, my IP wasn't especially perturbed that he had to make the airborne departure radio calls for me ... all in a days work for a single seat RTU IP!

Cheers Smile

Mine did. Dropped 6000 feet before he recovered it.

Forum: F-16 Procedures

Can the F-16 recover from a Flat Spin?