Forum: General F-16 forum

Quote:

"After this incident, our wing checked the engines," Davis said. "They did a scan … for damage and no damage was found from the incident."

The incident was videotaped in an area where filming is banned without authorization, Davis said.

In September, Kunsan-based agents of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations were told by their OSI counterparts at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, that a video clip had been posted on a personalized MySpace page showing "an individual throwing a frog into a running F-16 engine intake," Davis said.

Full Article: http://www.f-16.net/news_article2173.html

Ok....could somebody indulge me a couple of questions.

First, as I read the article, nobody in the AF knew about this until 5 months later when the incident appeared on MySpace? They "checked" all the engines in the whole wing......5 months later?

How much FO can a GE motor ingest without having issues?

How big was the frog?

I'm sure that had a lot more to do with the obvious question of what the hell else might they have tossed down the intakes, but it just seemed funny that they'd be worried enough about frog FOD 5 months later to check the entire wing's engines.

Geez, pilots that HAS to make ya feel good huh?

Frankly, I'm STUNNED that they let him off as lightly as they did.

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AfterburnerDecalsScott wrote:

Quote:

"After this incident, our wing checked the engines," Davis said. "They did a scan … for damage and no damage was found from the incident."

The incident was videotaped in an area where filming is banned without authorization, Davis said.

In September, Kunsan-based agents of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations were told by their OSI counterparts at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, that a video clip had been posted on a personalized MySpace page showing "an individual throwing a frog into a running F-16 engine intake," Davis said.

Ok....could somebody indulge me a couple of questions.

First, as I read the article, nobody in the AF knew about this until 5 months later when the incident appeared on MySpace? They "checked" all the engines in the whole wing......5 months later?

How much FO can a GE motor ingest without having issues?

How big was the frog?

I'm sure that had a lot more to do with the obvious question of what the hell else might they have tossed down the intakes, but it just seemed funny that they'd be worried enough about frog FOD 5 months later to check the entire wing's engines.

Geez, pilots that HAS to make ya feel good huh?

Frankly, I'm STUNNED that they let him off as lightly as they did.

Scott,

I can see how that frog might have caused some sort of damage - you don't want anything going down that pipe that's not supposed to. I can even see that 5 months later what used to be a microscopic crack might have enlarged, but I'm just a civilian so I really don't know Shrug

?

The fact that PETA didn't lobby to have him put on a vegetarian diet for a few months amazes me Razz

!

Anyone else around here have better answers to this?

I'd be willing to bet that they checked the motors soon after the investigation started. The 5 months they talk about in the article is probably just the time between the beginning of the initial investigation and the obvious conclusion...the court martial. Evil or Very Mad

I was wondering because they apparently didn't get wind of it until Sept. but didn't say when the incident occurred except "sometime last year".

Friggin' moron. To do it is one thing, but to THEN post it on the web. I bet he was shocked when the OSI came for him.

Funny that they apparently aren't done with the other brainiac who actually managed to get poor Kyung-Kermit down the intake after his partner missed. The fact that there were 2 of these mental giants on the ramp at the same time boggles the mind. Must be REALLY boring at Kunsan.

Well Scott, don't forget about the biggest idiot of them all...the run guy. I doubt he was oblivious to what was going on. Then he signed off the friggin red X's! Evil or Very Mad

Yeah, man he's the one sitting on top of the motor!

Good thing they didn't come across a stray puppy....oh wait..... Whistle

Good god. That is dangerous. They were lucky the engine didn't croak. Surprised

What a couple of dumbasses. Evil or Very Mad

Ok, and why the hell one would want to pop a frog into an engine anyways ? Last time I checked it's not like throwing pebbles in the lake Confused

I'm not (and don't wanna) whine about the "poor animal", but it's like plainly pointless, stupid and well...splattering to do so. Unless the found their base cooks to make the frog legs not-too-crispy....

I'd court martial them too for stupidity of the highest degree lol.

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 15, 2006 - 12:28 AM Posts: 760

I have seen a lot of (rats with feathers) starlings, pigeons, and sparrows; go into GE engines with no effects or damage. I think it depends on the size animal, engine size and type, relative speed and luck. I doubt your typical small frog could harm an engine’s blades. However a large bullfrog might be able to cause catastrophic failure to an F-16 engine.

Most of the time small birds go into jet engines, they don’t even bother to check the engine. Most pilots with a lot of hours have hit birds, most of the time they go through jet engines you are not even going to notice.

Birds often roost in test cell intakes. It was so common for birds to be pushed into the test cells on startup that they started putting screens over the ducts of the test cells and sometimes even over the intakes of engines. Roost to roast in seconds lol I have seen birds go into engine in test cells on film, and not be able to even find a feather in the test cell afterwards. A phenomena I have coined the phrase “inhalation annihilation” for.

Still it is irresponsible to intentionally throw things into an engine.

The risk to the engine was small if it was a small frog, however lives and jet engines are not things you should risk for no real reason. This type of behavior can be infective. Even in this case one idiot copied on another idiot, and these things have a tendency to snowball. Each idiot would likely want to outdo the next idiot by throwing a larger animal in, until it became catastrophic. Idiocy begets idiocy.

Not only were they risking the engine, they could possibly got hurt themselves, they are also risking the lives of the pilots, and if a crash was the result from losing an engine. They could be responsible for casualties on the ground. If engine failed on a CAS mission it could have also put our ground troops at risk.

This demonstrates a large engine can handle a fairly large bird.
GE90-115B Gas Turbine Jet Engine Testing & Evaluation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xlObdXF8VE

This is a test cell failure of a jet. I suspect these clowns didn't take precautions to protect themselves, I doubt they had the protection of a hardened test cell like in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F-I08xLWqM

elp wrote:

They were lucky the engine didn't croak. Surprised

Good pun.

Good stuff guys!

Slightly unrelated, but this is a good engine vid in the test cell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4bn1WG5LS0

Glad it wasn't me Razz

!

I have always wanted to see that happen when i go watch one at test cell. Now I can check that off my list.

Does anyone have the video? I want to see it. It's not coming up on MySpace anymore. I guess when you are in jail, it's hard to keep an account updated.

It's hard to imagine a SrA doing something like that, but the AF is going to sh*t anyway, so natural selection comes into play. Maybe his CJR got denied and he was pissed off. We used to pass time during engine runs/launches throwing quarters in the exhaust and watching them fly out of the back of the HAS, but throwing something down an intake requires a real dumbass, and huge balls.

Then they put it on their MySpace like autistic retards as if nobody is going to see it and figure it out. It probably took OSI a total of 5 minutes to figure out exactly who it was.

I can imagine those two poor bastards trying to back pedal and talk their way out of it during the investigation. Ya, we weren't trying to throw it down the intake, it was hopping toward it and I dived on it like a grenade and threw it away... I'm a hero.

This reminds me of another story. If anyone has ever been to Fairchild SV-80 before two years ago, they used to teach a tap code. Well last year some dumb a$$ who just got out of the training course posted the tap code on his MySpace web page. Before this, the tap code was classified as SECRET. Now boyscouts are using the code and it is open source thinks to some dumbass. Needless to say he is no longer a member of the armed forces. I guess people think MySpace is some sort of amnesty zone or something. Like OSI never goes on MySpace Rolling Eyes

donk14N wrote:

Like OSI never goes on MySpace Rolling Eyes

Or this site... Rolling Eyes

That's why we always stress watching what you say. Some person of questionable means is trolling this site as we speak, looking for anything he can use.

The conduct of these two is completely unacceptable. These two should've both been thrown out, and if the engine was damaged, they should have to make full restitution. I can't see either one having a long remaining career. Good thing. We don't need morons like that.

Note to self: If I'm stupid enough to commit a federal crime, don't be stupid enough to post it on MySpace or YouTube.

Forum: General F-16 forum

Frog FOD at the Kun