VFA-147 at Sea

F-35 unit & base selection, delivery, activation
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by spazsinbad » 05 Sep 2018, 20:04

outlaw162 wrote:
As I said earlier - perhaps the F-35C engine was not seen as damaged until maintenance looked at it on the carrier deck.

from wiki:
The F135's health management system is designed to provide real time data to maintainers on the ground. This allows them to troubleshoot problems and prepare replacement parts before the aircraft returns to base.


I assume the 'ground' also includes the boat. This engine 'data-link' may be the reason they put it back on the boat....or shouldn't have.

One would think Class A damage would show up in the data somewhere....if not, the real time heath mgmt system would seem to be somewhat less than useful as intended.

Where is 35aoa when you need him? Maybe he was driving the tanker. :shock:

(BTW that pic of the F-18 with the shredded basket and the shattered canopy looks like something more catastrophic happened than 'basket debris'.....maybe a basket skip hit off the canopy....)

IIRC that datalink from aircraft to ground is not working at moment; but once on the ground data is transferred.

The shattered canopy and basket on the end of the probe story was recounted in APPROACH or NAN magazine and is available on the internet in a few places such as TAILHOOK and was recounted in this forum somewhere.....

Searching for it found this old IRON MAIDEN USN story: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=20468&p=300279&hilit=Hornet+canopy#p300279

The BASKET CASE story:
Another Oldie But a Goodie... Don't fight the Drogue and Hose!
19 Aug 2008 Tailhook Assoc

"Well told by a Bug Driver back some 6 or so years ago! (I do not know the author here... anyone want to pony up?) Happened in VFA-147...."

Source: http://tailhookdaily.typepad.com/tailho ... die-b.html


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by outlaw162 » 05 Sep 2018, 20:34

Interesting stuff, thanks.

Navy F/A-18 Hornet tanking from Air Force KC-10's and KC-135's (the KC-135 is particularly challenging-- pilots call it the "Iron Maiden"). In turbulent weather, especially at night, tanking can be even tougher than landing on the ship.


I would guess the Navy wasn't overly happy with the KC-97 either back when.... :D

This seems to be a VFA-147 thing....


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by spazsinbad » 05 Sep 2018, 20:38

The IRON MAIDEN is NOTORIOUS in Naval Aviation circles from what I have read online and in e-mails to me about same. As one may imagine I have a tonne of material about ARF so I'll crunch it down to 11Mb PDF to post here soonish like.....
Why Navy Pilots Hate The KC-135
25 Aug 2015 'GM'

"Depending on who you ask, the response to uttering the words “Iron Maiden” bring about very different emotions. Ask any fan of rock music and chances are the reaction is the sign of the horns. Ask any Naval Aviator, however, and the response is almost certainly dread....

...“Basket slaps” on the aircraft are not uncommon; it is hard to dance with the Maiden and not get roughed up. While I love the Hornet, there’s some questionable design philosophy when it comes to tanking. The probe is on the right side of the nose. Also, on the right side is an AOA (Angle Of Attack) probe. There are two hydraulic systems on the aircraft and each are run off of its respective motor. All of the hydraulic services besides flight controls (landing gear extension, brakes, anti-skid, etcetera) run off the right motor. Murphy’s law says you will have a basket slap on the right side and the AOA probe will be forcibly removed. Where would it go? You guessed it: straight down the right engine intake!

Now you are looking at a potential single-engine scenario with degraded AOA information going to your air data computer and flight control computers. Not the kind of airplane you want to bring back to das boat.

The only silver lining is that the KC-135 has the highest flow compared to any other tanker. Still, on a combat sortie where up to 40 minutes can be spent plugged into her basket, she’s definitely earned her nick-name of “Iron Maiden”."

Source: http://fightersweep.com/2881/why-navy-p ... he-kc-135/
Last edited by spazsinbad on 05 Sep 2018, 20:53, edited 1 time in total.


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by SpudmanWP » 05 Sep 2018, 20:40

"The boat wants to know how badly the canopy is cracked."

I couldn't believe that one... I thought he would have heard all the wind in the cockpit and known. "It's not cracked, it's gone. I'm flying a convertible."

Best line.. Except for this

From my knees down I was toasty and warm. "This little piggy" was getting sweaty in fact.


after landing

The maintainers showed up about four hours after I did. After the appropriate amount of gawking they got to work and fixed it well enough for the RTB in under four hours.
"The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese."


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by outlaw162 » 05 Sep 2018, 21:02

"Depending on who you ask, the response to uttering the words “Iron Maiden” bring about very different emotions. Ask any fan of rock music and chances are the reaction is the sign of the horns. Ask any Naval Aviator, however, and the response is almost certainly dread....


Just another day/night at the office for a Hun driver.... 8)


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by spazsinbad » 05 Sep 2018, 21:22

outlaw162 wrote:
"Depending on who you ask, the response to uttering the words “Iron Maiden” bring about very different emotions. Ask any fan of rock music and chances are the reaction is the sign of the horns. Ask any Naval Aviator, however, and the response is almost certainly dread....


Just another day/night at the office for a Hun driver.... 8)

You may gather from the NavAv ARF material PDF attached that things are a bit different in that sphere. I cannot speak from my own 'maiden' experience except to add that my first (T)A4G ARF sortie had me scrubbed temporarily (only whilst in the air with my instructor in back of the TA4G telling me how incompetent I was). I had missed the general ARF brief earlier for an indestructible good reason so not knowing the 'gouge' about putting my right boot into the basket for good result. This 'excuse' became known on the ground so taken up again that day I NAILED IT & so continued on me merry way.

Turbulent Tanking (same video in the box below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-RcBAZ5bx4

The URL links are dead along with any other links in this PDF because it has been PRN reprinted to reduce file size....



ARF RNZAF A-4K Newbie to Air ReFuelling (straight probes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SE2DkEe7Uo

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Some ARF AirReFuelling History PRN pp133.pdf
(10.7 MiB) Downloaded 4993 times


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by krieger22 » 05 Sep 2018, 22:23

steve2267 wrote:
krieger22 wrote:Throwing it out on Reddit hooked an interesting, if irate, comment chain: https://reddit.com/r/F35Lightning/comme ... ap/e5euhg4

I'll try poking around for more details.

It's quite unusual that they had enough confidence in it to have it land on the carrier too - I wonder if the barricade was prepped in case.


In that reddit, one bogey-spades states

bogey-spades wrote:Nevermind that the jet proved it couldn't safely operate in modern carrier cyclic ops.


I am interested as to what 35_aoa has to say about the above statement regarding the F-35 not being able to safely operate in modern carrier cyclic ops. I don't have any context with which to evaluate bogey-spade's reddit comments. He states that he was flying, but does not state what he was flying, or flying in, and neither does he state that he (she?) is a pilot. IMO he (or she?) writes in a manner that would seem to lead the reader to assume that he is a Navair fast jet pilot. But for whatever reason, he is not a big fan of the F-35. (Maybe he owns a LOT of Boing stock? Dunno.)


Skimming his profile suggests he's a Rhino pilot. Looks like they're already getting territorial from the looks of things. He hasn't answered me yet.

(In before it turns out he got screwed out of a refueling due to the incident)


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by spazsinbad » 05 Sep 2018, 23:21

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 071%29.JPG (3.1Mb)
"U.S. Navy Lt. William Bowen, left, an F-35 Pax River Integrated Test Force pilot assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23), conducts an advanced aerial refueling control law test in an Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II with a Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet (BuNo 165801) over the Atlantic Ocean on 26 June 2018." https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... -ZB537-071).JPG
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VX23shornetF-35CarfTest.jpg


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by 35_aoa » 06 Sep 2018, 01:33

krieger22 wrote:
I am interested as to what 35_aoa has to say about the above statement regarding the F-35 not being able to safely operate in modern carrier cyclic ops. I don't have any context with which to evaluate bogey-spade's reddit comments. He states that he was flying, but does not state what he was flying, or flying in, and neither does he state that he (she?) is a pilot. IMO he (or she?) writes in a manner that would seem to lead the reader to assume that he is a Navair fast jet pilot. But for whatever reason, he is not a big fan of the F-35. (Maybe he owns a LOT of Boing stock? Dunno.)


Skimming his profile suggests he's a Rhino pilot. Looks like they're already getting territorial from the looks of things. He hasn't answered me yet.

(In before it turns out he got screwed out of a refueling due to the incident)[/quote]

I wouldn't blow this event out of proportions. Stuff like this happens, even to operational aircraft. Some of the most dire emergencies (this one not being anywhere close to that category) I have seen have been while flying around the boat. That's just a fact of life......it is a very unforgiving place. I have no doubt that the F-35 will safely operate during cyclic ops in the future. They launched and recovered just fine. I can't comment about the specifics of this event, since the investigation is privileged and ongoing, but it doesn't somehow make me doubt the suitability of the F-35 to the fleet.


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by mk82 » 06 Sep 2018, 10:27

steve2267 wrote:
krieger22 wrote:Throwing it out on Reddit hooked an interesting, if irate, comment chain: https://reddit.com/r/F35Lightning/comme ... ap/e5euhg4

I'll try poking around for more details.

It's quite unusual that they had enough confidence in it to have it land on the carrier too - I wonder if the barricade was prepped in case.


In that reddit, one bogey-spades states

bogey-spades wrote:Nevermind that the jet proved it couldn't safely operate in modern carrier cyclic ops.


I am interested as to what 35_aoa has to say about the above statement regarding the F-35 not being able to safely operate in modern carrier cyclic ops. I don't have any context with which to evaluate bogey-spade's reddit comments. He states that he was flying, but does not state what he was flying, or flying in, and neither does he state that he (she?) is a pilot. IMO he (or she?) writes in a manner that would seem to lead the reader to assume that he is a Navair fast jet pilot. But for whatever reason, he is not a big fan of the F-35. (Maybe he owns a LOT of Boing stock? Dunno.)


Nah, Bogey-spades is just a Luddite LOL! As 35_AOA noted, operational aircraft including Rhinos had nasty accidents/mishaps too in the real world.


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by Dragon029 » 06 Sep 2018, 10:56

According to Bogey it wasn't a probe snapping - assuming he knows what happened that kinda narrows it down to a failure to disconnect or perhaps the basket getting snagged on some other part of the probe.


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by markithere » 06 Sep 2018, 15:51

Dragon029 wrote:According to Bogey it wasn't a probe snapping - assuming he knows what happened that kinda narrows it down to a failure to disconnect or perhaps the basket getting snagged on some other part of the probe.



So it was an alien encounter, a probing event? :D :doh:


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by ricnunes » 06 Sep 2018, 15:57

markithere wrote:
Dragon029 wrote:According to Bogey it wasn't a probe snapping - assuming he knows what happened that kinda narrows it down to a failure to disconnect or perhaps the basket getting snagged on some other part of the probe.



So it was an alien encounter, a probing event? :D :doh:


LOL :mrgreen:
“Active stealth” is what the ignorant nay sayers call EW and pretend like it’s new.


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by sferrin » 06 Sep 2018, 17:41

Dragon029 wrote:According to Bogey it wasn't a probe snapping - assuming he knows what happened that kinda narrows it down to a failure to disconnect or perhaps the basket getting snagged on some other part of the probe.


Given this is the same guy that said the following, "Nevermind that the jet proved it couldn't safely operate in modern carrier cyclic ops.", based on a trashed basket (that has happened with every type of USN aircraft) I have to question his credibility.
"There I was. . ."


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by spazsinbad » 06 Sep 2018, 19:21

Navy's F-35C Suffers 1st Major Mishap, Costing Millions in Damages
06 Sep 2018 Gina Harkins

"...The F-35C was receiving fuel from an F/A-18F Super Hornet off the coast of Virginia on Aug. 23 when debris from an aerial-refueling basket was ingested into the Joint Strike Fighter jet's engine intake, said Lt. Travis Callaghan, a spokesman for Naval Air Forces.

The mishap led to engine damage for the F-35C, assigned to the California-based "Rough Riders" with Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 125. While rare, Callahan said parts of refueling baskets being sucked into an engine's intake are the most common form of non-bird foreign object or debris strikes in the Navy's tactical aviation fleet...."

Source: https://www.military.com/defensetech/20 ... mages.html


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