October 25, 1994 F-14A landing mishap

[disconnectedradical]

This was a piece from an interview of an F-14 pilot and an interesting part was where he talked about Kara Hultgreen, who died in the 25 October 1994 F-14A landing incident. I'll quote from him below.

As one of my friends, HOB Higgins, said, we felt like cats in a room full of rocking chairs. Shortly after I joined 213 we lost Kara Hultgreen while she was attempting to land on the Lincoln. I had known Kara briefly in the Training Command.

We both had Alfa Romeo convertibles and we laughed about the spotty reliability and repair costs of the Italian sports cars. She was the perfect ‘fighter-chic,’ quick with a smile, fun to be around, sharp-witted, and not afraid to stand her ground. She folded herself into the fabric of the Blacklions seamlessly and was warmly regarded as part of the ‘pride.’

The treatment she received after her death has always stayed with me as one of the greatest injustices witnessed during my naval career. Our XO replicated the mishap 100 times in the simulator and crashed 97 of them.

At the time of her death, she was a pack-player behind the boat, meaning that she was solidly in the middle of the squadron’s landing grades. Yet, as one of the first woman to fly Tomcats in the fleet, and the first to die doing so, she was held as an example of the supposed error of women in combat.

It hurt to see her sacrifice used in such a vicious manner, especially since her death had nothing to do with her gender.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/2 ... -aggressor

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

Thanks for sharing that.

[wooster]

This was a piece from an interview of an F-14 pilot and an interesting part was where he talked about Kara Hultgreen, who died in the 25 October 1994 F-14A landing incident. I'll quote from him below.

As one of my friends, HOB Higgins, said, we felt like cats in a room full of rocking chairs. Shortly after I joined 213 we lost Kara Hultgreen while she was attempting to land on the Lincoln. I had known Kara briefly in the Training Command.

We both had Alfa Romeo convertibles and we laughed about the spotty reliability and repair costs of the Italian sports cars. She was the perfect ‘fighter-chic,’ quick with a smile, fun to be around, sharp-witted, and not afraid to stand her ground. She folded herself into the fabric of the Blacklions seamlessly and was warmly regarded as part of the ‘pride.’

The treatment she received after her death has always stayed with me as one of the greatest injustices witnessed during my naval career. Our XO replicated the mishap 100 times in the simulator and crashed 97 of them.

At the time of her death, she was a pack-player behind the boat, meaning that she was solidly in the middle of the squadron’s landing grades. Yet, as one of the first woman to fly Tomcats in the fleet, and the first to die doing so, she was held as an example of the supposed error of women in combat.

It hurt to see her sacrifice used in such a vicious manner, especially since her death had nothing to do with her gender.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/2 ... -aggressor

She crashed because she hit full left rudder to try and get on the glide path, which as she should have known would cause a flameout with the TF30.

They are still trying to fool the public on the fact they pushed a woman through just because she was the first woman.

The instructor DID NOT crash 97 times out of 100 trying to land on the boat. The instructor crashed 97 times AFTER following her mistakes leading to flameout. They don't tell you that because that is not very PC. There is a big difference between the truth how they try to word things.

The correct action after missing the landing was to go around; NOT to hit full left rudder and disturb airflow into the engine causing a flameout. Everyone who flew cats knew landing was one of the most dangerous maneuvers, especially with those garbage powerplants. But she tried to be the hero and recover a failed approach to save her scoring. I am glad her backseater got out.

[quicksilver]

I have no opinion on the Hultgreen mishap, but the article at the link is an excellent read. I enjoyed the VFC-13 piece as well.

[disconnectedradical]

She crashed because she hit full left rudder to try and get on the glide path, which as she should have known would cause a flameout with the TF30.

They are still trying to fool the public on the fact they pushed a woman through just because she was the first woman.

The instructor DID NOT crash 97 times out of 100 trying to land on the boat. The instructor crashed 97 times AFTER following her mistakes leading to flameout. They don't tell you that because that is not very PC. There is a big difference between the truth how they try to word things.

The correct action after missing the landing was to go around; NOT to hit full left rudder and disturb airflow into the engine causing a flameout. Everyone who flew cats knew landing was one of the most dangerous maneuvers, especially with those garbage powerplants. But she tried to be the hero and recover a failed approach to save her scoring. I am glad her backseater got out.

Yes, she made a pilot. But somehow you think that pilot error is because of her gender? Even some of the best pilots make pilot errors. For example, test pilot David Cooley crashed an F-22 in 2009 because he A-LOC'ed. What about all the other F-14s that were lost to pilot error?

[fang]

Yes, she made a pilot. But somehow you think that pilot error is because of her gender? Even some of the best pilots make pilot errors. For example, test pilot David Cooley crashed an F-22 in 2009 because he A-LOC'ed. What about all the other F-14s that were lost to pilot error?

He didn't talk about gender, he talked about the right thing vs the wrong thing to do in this particular situation no matter who the pilot is.
You are welcome to read it once again..

And Wooster? great answer - TNX!

[wooster]

Yes, she made a pilot. But somehow you think that pilot error is because of her gender? Even some of the best pilots make pilot errors. For example, test pilot David Cooley crashed an F-22 in 2009 because he A-LOC'ed. What about all the other F-14s that were lost to pilot error?

He didn't talk about gender, he talked about the right thing vs the wrong thing to do in this particular situation no matter who the pilot is.
You are welcome to read it once again..

And Wooster? great answer - TNX!

Spot on correct.

If Revlon had not been a lady, we would not be still having this 1 crash out of countless Tomcat incidents, and the Navy would not have had an instructor pilot fly 100 simulated failed approaches and try to recover after doing a maneuver that caused the port side engine to go dark.

The absolute dumbest thing to do in a cat when an engine flames out during landing is to light the burner on the one good engine. It shows fundamental lack of understanding the equipment she was driving. The off-axis thrust would do nothing to keep the cat in the air and it would toss it out of control as happened to Revlon.



Gender has nothing to do with lack of skill and overzealous ego.

[quicksilver]

I do have an opinion about how the services have dealt with gender integration, particularly in aviation.

The ‘institutional’ services have (sometimes) gotten caught up in these circumstantial “firsts” — first this, first that — and the hoopla that almost always accompanies such things. Most times the firsts are pretty thin achievements (what many others have done for a long, long time) and should not be celebrated and highly touted, as that “first” is simply what some said that “first” could and should do anyway. “So why the parade?”

The individuals concerned often don’t give a rats a$$ about being “first” but they have no choice in what the institution promotes; in other cases they are full-on crusaders for whatever political cause celebre underlies promotion of the “first.” In either circumstance, the key element is the role of leadership, and therein lies the fault when these things become bandwagons and/or eventually run into the ditch. Failure to understand the pitfalls (history) of promoting these circumstantial “firsts”, failure to understand the complexity of managing expectations and perceptions (both internally and externally), and failure to understand the potential effects on the individual, the unit and the aircraft community are all part of why these things go off the tracks — sometimes predictably and tragically so.

[fang]

Revlon (R.I.P) case is a tragic example of how the PC gang ignores non supportive facts to their agenda (such as technical facts like TF30 was a very unforgiving engine) and they don't take responsibility if something go's wrong because of that.
"Navy Pilot's Errors Contributed to Fatal Crash" the investigation board report Says and yet Carey Lohrenz blaming the whole world but herself for being the other not good enough F-14A female pilot.
https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles ... -successes

Shocking document (including Carey Lohrenz interview)

[quicksilver]

I had the opportunity to fly the Tomcat sim for a couple hours at Miramar many years ago whilst still on active duty. When we were finished I described my impressions of its flying qualities as ‘Mack truck with no power steering.’ I asked if the sim was a fair representation of actual jet; the short answer was, ‘yes.’

It was more than a handful; very heavy stick forces, sluggish response to inputs, and the requirement for a skill not really taught in the training command — the use of your feet for something other than steering the jet on the ground.

BZ to Tomcat alums...

[mixelflick]

In my opinion, allowing females to participate in combat is always going to cause more problems. Always.

They're either going to get special treatment (like this Revlon) and thus lower combat effectiveness, or they'll be bitching about being made to feel "uncomfortable". In the former case, people are going to die. Wars that otherwise would be won will be lost. And in the latter case, they play their own double standard card.

You want us to give you a gun and blow people to bits, see things no person should and be treated like you're equal to a man. But God forbid some guy compliments you on your dress or grabs your a$$. Then you're a poor, defenseless woman who's being victimized. You need the help of human resources, lawyers, your commanding officer and here, we'll hand out restraining orders left and right with no consideration to the other party's side of things. Step 1 is always to get the man out of the house, because he's guilty until proven innocent.

This "I'm uncomfortable" PC nonsense has got to stop. Women don't belong in combat, and are only getting people killed/causing more problems. You won't hear that reality from the services though, it doesn't fit their narrative. You won't hear it on CNN, MSNBCLGBTQ TV FAKE NEWS. And you'll never read about it in the NY Times, Washington Post or any other major media outlet.

Liberal media isn't interested in the truth. They're intent of furthering their leftist agenda...

[disconnectedradical]

Yes, she made a pilot. But somehow you think that pilot error is because of her gender? Even some of the best pilots make pilot errors. For example, test pilot David Cooley crashed an F-22 in 2009 because he A-LOC'ed. What about all the other F-14s that were lost to pilot error?

He didn't talk about gender, he talked about the right thing vs the wrong thing to do in this particular situation no matter who the pilot is.
You are welcome to read it once again..

And Wooster? great answer - TNX!

Wooster tried to draw some connection between Hultgreen's gender and her pilot error. Maybe he didn't mean it that way but that's how the post came across. By all accounts she's middle of the pack in the squadron in landing scores, so gender has nothing to do with her pilot error. Is she responsible for the accident? Yes. But that's not because of her gender and even some of the best test pilots lost aircraft because of pilot error.

What DID happen was that her accident and death was used certain groups as "evidence" that women don't belong in the military, and some people here are brushing that off.

[quicksilver]

He didn't talk about gender, he talked about the right thing vs the wrong thing to do in this particular situation no matter who the pilot is.

You are welcome to read it once again..

And Wooster? great answer - TNX!

I read it again. Here’s what Wooster said —

“They are still trying to fool the public on the fact they pushed a woman through just because she was the first woman.”

Sounds pretty straight forward to me — how is that not ‘talking about gender’? And in his follow-on missive he offered this — “If Revlon had not been a lady, we would not be still having this 1 crash out of countless Tomcat incidents, and the Navy would not have had an instructor pilot fly 100 simulated failed approaches and try to recover after doing a maneuver that caused the port side engine to go dark.”

My experience is that mishap boards go to great ends to consider all of the possibilities that may have contributed to a mishap and to eliminate those factors that were not contributors. That’s called ‘due diligence.’ Do you have information that suggests otherwise or is that supposition?

He also said this, which I found curious — “She crashed because she hit full left rudder to try and get on the glide path...”

Nominally, a rudder input would be used as a correction for lineup, or to effect a coordinated turn for same. Was rudder used for glideslope corrections in the Tomcat?

[quicksilver]

Wooster also said this —

“The absolute dumbest thing to do in a cat when an engine flames out during landing is to light the burner on the one good engine. It shows fundamental lack of understanding the equipment she was driving. The off-axis thrust would do nothing to keep the cat in the air and it would toss it out of control as happened to Revlon.”

Here’s a question and observation from perhaps a more dispassionate seat —

If I am a nugget wrestling with a ‘dark’ engine on the port side, I’ve already got the starboard engine at mil and the LSO keeps giving me ‘power’ calls. What would others have done absent the benefit of hindsight? Were these kind of EPs covered in the sim during FCLPs?

[outlaw162]

What would others have done absent the benefit of hindsight?

I hope a runway guy is not out of line here, best practices would seem to apply regardless of the landing surface. I'm not Monday morning quarterbacking, just a friendly input for discussion purposes.

The first and most important thing I would do is ignore any thing external. Forget about the landing.

Then, regardless of type aircraft, you have three options (not in any order of preference), now that you're without external distraction and on the backside of the curve and decelerating at the current thrust setting:

1. Maintain the current controllable (mil?) thrust setting, lower the nose and use whatever altitude is available to accelerate closer to L/D max. Maybe you can get fast enough to stop the descent. Certainly problematical at night.

2. If altitude doesn't permit lowering the nose, that leaves adding thrust to accelerate with AB. It appears this works better in an F-4 (a single-engine go-around was required on proficiency checks) than in an F-14 where evidently it was not recommended.

3. Accept a logbook entry of 1 takeoff and no landings. Eject. Sooner the better.

(Bottom line, pay attention in training and do whichever of these you were taught.)

edit: actually if you've got something you can jettison that would be beneficial to #1 or #2 although retaining stores can sometimes minimize asymmetrical thrust yaw excursions