October 25, 1994 F-14A landing mishap

Military aircraft - Post cold war aircraft, including for example B-2, Gripen, F-18E/F Super Hornet, Rafale, and Typhoon.
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by quicksilver » 30 Jun 2019, 00:33

My question was really a rhetorical for those whose hindsight might obscure the challenge of controlling the jet under the circumstances — regardless of the gender or the politics. The jet was a beast to fly.


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by outlaw162 » 30 Jun 2019, 00:41

You had one more ride in the sim than my zero.

I retract my response.


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by disconnectedradical » 30 Jun 2019, 01:59

quicksilver, can you fix your quotes? You're quoting me on something fang said.


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by wooster » 30 Jun 2019, 02:03

quicksilver wrote:
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?


Nugget or veteran, the pilot is the pilot and not the LSO. The pilot can override anything the LSO signals to prevent loss of life and equipment. Even nuggets understand very early on. By the time a pilot is out of the trainers and into the real equipment, they are not hardly nuggets. If shat goes bad, and during landing, on those short finals, shat goes from Ok to bad in milliseconds the pilot knows far far more about the situation than the guy on the deck talking on the radio. You can't let an LSO talk you into suicide because he doesn't have your situatiional awareness.

The simulations done afterwards were done in the catastrophic physical state that Karen put the cat into by being low, slow, and having one operating engine. Its amazing that there were actually a handful of successful recoveries!

When Revlon killed that engine the only course of action was to stear clear of the ship and her shipmates and eject over the water. How anyone would ever think lighting the afterburner in the one good engine, especially in landing configuration 150 feet over the ocean, would somehow save the day shows how much her training she followed and respected. Shows how much simple physics of flight she understood.

Thank god the guy in the back had the courage to punch out and made it.

There are idiot pilots on both sides of the sexes. But politics is trying to white wash this one for obvious reasons.


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by outlaw162 » 30 Jun 2019, 02:16

Just curious. How do you know she 'hit' full left rudder. There are no flight controls in the backseat for the RIO to determine that. At night I doubt anyone on the boat could see the actual control surfaces.


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by quicksilver » 30 Jun 2019, 02:40

“Nugget or veteran, the pilot is the pilot and not the LSO. The pilot can override anything the LSO signals to prevent loss of life and equipment. Even nuggets understand very early on. By the time a pilot is out of the trainers and into the real equipment, they are not hardly nuggets. If shat goes bad, and during landing, on those short finals, shat goes from Ok to bad in milliseconds the pilot knows far far more about the situation than the guy on the deck talking on the radio. You can't let an LSO talk you into suicide because he doesn't have your situational awareness.”

I was a Training LSO for many years; I know the drill. Ignoring the LSO would have been, and remains, a ‘counter-culture behavior’ in Naval Aviation, particularly for a JO with low time in a unit or a given jet.

“The simulations done afterwards...”

I didn’t ask about the simulations afterward. What sim EP training occurred for the MP before the CQ period?

“How anyone would ever think lighting the afterburner in the one good engine, especially in landing configuration 150 feet over the ocean, would somehow save the day shows how much her training she followed and respected.”

My armchair is pretty comfortable too. But, see above; was that EP covered in the sim ahead of the mishap?

“There are idiot pilots on both sides of the sexes.”

Amen. However, one of her (Revlon’s) shipmates in ‘213 described her this way — “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.’”

So, wooster, did you know her, and on what grounds do you cast stones?
Last edited by quicksilver on 30 Jun 2019, 03:40, edited 2 times in total.


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by quicksilver » 30 Jun 2019, 02:44

outlaw162 wrote:Just curious. How do you know she 'hit' full left rudder. There are no flight controls in the backseat for the RIO to determine that. At night I doubt anyone on the boat could see the actual control surfaces.


And to pile on that thought, where in the video is that control input evident? I didn’t see it...


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by quicksilver » 30 Jun 2019, 02:53

disconnectedradical wrote:quicksilver, can you fix your quotes? You're quoting me on something fang said.


Done. Thx.


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by saberrider » 30 Jun 2019, 12:24

In helicopter's the point where she has at the time , it is called "dynamic rollover" .Guess in the F14 the same things is possible at lower speed and if she unload hard could staigh- it-out for safe ejection!But learned reflexes has to pull hard.


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by disconnectedradical » 11 Jul 2019, 21:48

mixelflick wrote: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.


What "special treatment" did she even get?

wooster wrote:The simulations done afterwards were done in the catastrophic physical state that Karen put the cat into by being low, slow, and having one operating engine. Its amazing that there were actually a handful of successful recoveries!

When Revlon killed that engine the only course of action was to stear clear of the ship and her shipmates and eject over the water. How anyone would ever think lighting the afterburner in the one good engine, especially in landing configuration 150 feet over the ocean, would somehow save the day shows how much her training she followed and respected. Shows how much simple physics of flight she understood.

Thank god the guy in the back had the courage to punch out and made it.


Since you are questioning her ability as a pilot due to this mistake, what should we consider all the other pilots who crashed F-14s due to pilot error? And how is this mistake related to her gender?

wooster wrote:There are idiot pilots on both sides of the sexes. But politics is trying to white wash this one for obvious reasons.


What white wash? The only "white wash" is people refuting the notion that the accident is because of her gender. By all accounts Lt. Hultgreen was fairly average pilot. Making a pilot error that contributed to mishap doesn't make one a crap pilot. Unless all pilots that made errors that crashed F-14s are crap pilots.


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by mixelflick » 17 Jul 2019, 15:40

mixelflick wrote:
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.

What "special treatment" did she even get?

Plenty.

Don't believe that? Have a good read..

http://www.returnofkings.com/39218/the- ... he-us-navy


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by wooster » 18 Jul 2019, 01:49

disconnectedradical wrote:
mixelflick wrote: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.


What "special treatment" did she even get?

wooster wrote:The simulations done afterwards were done in the catastrophic physical state that Karen put the cat into by being low, slow, and having one operating engine. Its amazing that there were actually a handful of successful recoveries!

When Revlon killed that engine the only course of action was to stear clear of the ship and her shipmates and eject over the water. How anyone would ever think lighting the afterburner in the one good engine, especially in landing configuration 150 feet over the ocean, would somehow save the day shows how much her training she followed and respected. Shows how much simple physics of flight she understood.

Thank god the guy in the back had the courage to punch out and made it.


Since you are questioning her ability as a pilot due to this mistake, what should we consider all the other pilots who crashed F-14s due to pilot error? And how is this mistake related to her gender?

wooster wrote:There are idiot pilots on both sides of the sexes. But politics is trying to white wash this one for obvious reasons.


What white wash? The only "white wash" is people refuting the notion that the accident is because of her gender. By all accounts Lt. Hultgreen was fairly average pilot. Making a pilot error that contributed to mishap doesn't make one a crap pilot. Unless all pilots that made errors that crashed F-14s are crap pilots.


Unfortunately that is incorrect. They began white washing this on day zero. It basically reached its crescendo when they ran simulations to show that basically no one could have saved the cat from crashing without saying that she put the cat into that position to begin with by commiting catastrophic errors in the most mundane of atmospheric daylight conditions.

As far as I have been able to discern, revlon is the one and only tomcat pilot to try and recover from a flameout by going to full afterburner on the one remaining powerplant during shipboard recovery. This is 8th grade physics we are talking about by putting that kind of off axis thrust into the low slow situation. That's a crap pilot. Sorry. She nearly killed an innocent RIO with incompetence in landing in perfect weather. Did not understand elementary school physics. She would have lived if a) she aborted the failed approach and lived with a lower scoring, or b) did the only correct thing and steered clear of her ship and shipmates and ejected.

The plane was irrecoverably out of control and even at that point she was still trying to work the stick and rudder with no airspeed and no altitude, whereas the guy in the back had common sense to punch out.

So she committed 3 fatal flaws that lead to her death.

Man or woman that's a crap pilot. Reminds me of that famous B-52 crash. Illogical but reminds me of that.

Edit: furthermore those were the crap engines with insufficient thrust in one engine to even begin thinking that she could save the cat from doom. The one and the only logical course of action was to eject. What she thought she was going to do in full AB on one engine is perplexing. Its not like she was going to climb and restart the other. Again, crap pilot. The plane flew her and not the other way around.

I would not want to serve today with all the PC shet there is. In combat, I think it wont matter man or woman at the stick. Everyone will know who is a good warrior and who is not within their squad. The bad will be attritioned away regardless of gender.

Never flown with a woman but I've known a few that could drive like race car driver.


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by botsing » 18 Jul 2019, 14:24

wooster wrote:That's a crap pilot. Sorry. She nearly killed an innocent RIO

She made a vital mistake with the rudder, however she might have (inadvertently) prevented the Tomcat from smashing into the carrier with her full throttle action.

Furthermore I think that we should not overlook the amount of pressure on her to keep her stats up, it's not something good but it might help to better understand that era.

And to others: using Revlon as an example for stating that women in the military are a bad thing is some seriously flawed thinking, n=1 is nothing in statistics.
"Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know"


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by Tiger05 » 18 Jul 2019, 16:52

Interestingly the F-14A involved in this mishap (BuNo 160390) had quite a history. It was one of the VF-41 Tomcats that took part in the Gulf of Sidra incident back in 1981 and downed one of the two Libyan Su-22s. You are gonna say "who cares about the plane when a pilot died!" and i would agree with that. Her death was of course tragic. Still, it is unfortunate that a historically significant airframe ended at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean instead of in a museum where it deserved a place.


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by mixelflick » 19 Jul 2019, 14:42

botsing wrote:
wooster wrote:
Furthermore I think that we should not overlook the amount of pressure on her to keep her stats up, it's not something good but it might help to better understand that era.



REALLY?

"Pressure" to keep her stats up? She was supposed to be a FIGHTER PILOT. They have standards for a reason, and they need to be able to deal with pressure - it goes with the job.

She screwed up, and it almost cost her RIO his life. If you read what I and others have posted... they cut her slack no man would be given. All because she was supposed to be a "historic first". It was to be a triumph of diversity over.... actually finding the best person for the job.

Thank God this diversity crap wasn't around when the Manhattan project was going on. We may well be speaking German right now..


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