Thunderbird crashes at Idaho air show

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Images from the CNN website:

Courtesy KTVB

What does AoA mean? Anyways, I am just glad the pilot is alright. Until the investigation is done we should not assume anybody mushed anything.

AoA means "angle of attack"and you are very right in just being happy that the pilot ejected safetly.

One should not speculate or give an opinion about an accident until the facts are known.

Well at least people saw ACES II in action as well. Consider this as part of the show!!!

I know little of flying and F-16's. However, look at the first photo at this link:

http://www.f-16.net/modules.php?op=modl ... =0&thold=0

Notice that the plane is nearly level with the nose pointed slightly UP as the pilot ejects. Is in not logical to assume that the plane would have continued flying, even without the pilot, if it would have a good engine at this point? The plane went into the ground on its belly quicly after the pilot got out.

It looked to me like the plane, though it was nearly level, was still "sinking" from the downward momentum as he pulled up and leveled off after the dive. It seems more logical that he was missing the engine thrust needed to push him forward and up (as he had the nose pointed) and there was nothing else he could do to keep the plane out of the ground.

Why else would a pilot, an experienced flight instructor, punch out of an f16 flying level with a good engine? With the nose pointed up and a good engine, why would that f16 not have been climbing at that point?

I am no expert, but it is hard for me to see a set of circumstances to indicate pliot error as the cause of that crash.

The better is to wait for the "autopsy". Nonetheless, i believe from the video that the pilot did a mistake. He misjudged the dive, therefore, i believe that while he was diving he sensed that he wouldnt recover at time. The photo misleads you. If you watch the video you'll notice that the plane is not going to recover. Anyway, it could be a mech failure,nonetheless, people want to resque the T-Birds reputation.

If you were a pilot, you would understand how this happens--just because the nose is level, it doesn't mean that the plane is flying.

I was there also. When he rolled over the top he had his burner on and had it on through most of the dive. It looked like he was pulling out of the dive to low. He had lots of airspeed.

So you mean with nose up at full throttle at that altitude that plane would not have enough thrust in its engines to push it up and keep it out of the ground?

I am just curious, I would have assumed that the plane with full power could have turned and climbed almost straight up from that point.

What you need to consider is that jet engine DO NOT spool up to full power instantly. So, even with a perfect engine if the pilot didn't realize and apply power quick enough, the engine might not be delivering thrust when it was needed.

About the previous AOA question: That is Angle of Attack which is defined as the angle between the wings and relative wind moving over them. So, looking at the that video you can see the nose pointed up say 5 degrees. The flight path down is say 20 degrees (making up all these numbers). So the angle of attack would be 25 degrees. Why is this important? The wing will stall after reaching a certain angle of attack. It doesn't matter whether the plane is going up or down or what the airspeed is.

Also, at low speeds and high angles of attack, the drag from the wings increases. Even with a good engine, if you get slow and the drag increases too much, the only option may be to lower the nose to increase speed.

NOTE: I didn't see the crash nor I am speculating on any cause.

I saw the video clip on the news and AOA (angle of attack) instantly came to my mind as well. I'm not sure what kind of drag the F-16 would encounter while dragging a failed turbine through the air (if it was indeed engine failure)... Unless the drag is exponentially huge, I could not see how an engine failure (while watching the video clip) could cause such a critical result.

My guess (and I stress "guess") is that the pilot transitioned from a dive to an attitude above the horizon too quickly and caused the aircraft to stall. The best way to understand this is to experiment with "angle of attack" on your microsoft flight simulator.. you'll see how easy it is to stall an aircraft at any airspeed by being abrupt on the controls. Flight Simulator affords me the safety of exploring "critical attack angles" in the lear jet without any worry what-so-ever

For you real pilots out there... its easy to experiment with AOA in say a Cessna 152 or 172 by leaning the aircraft on its side at low airspeed (airspeed indicator in the green at or below maneuvering speed) and yanking the control column to your lap and holding it there. The stall comes rather quickly with the stall warning blaring almost instantly.

We'll all have to wait and see what the NTSB has to say about the crash... but until then, its fun to bounce theories back and forth while we wait.

The poster was right about turbine engines not spooling up immediately... think of a turbocharged car from the early 80's... remember how the turbo lagged because of the time it took to "spool up"? Kinda the same thing. Pratt & Whitney engines have been called "push & wait" by many pilots.. you'll experience the same kind of "lag" time on many turboprops too.

-eric

"A good landing is any landing you walk away from"

The f-16 that crashed has a GE engine not a pratt.

Incorrect. It had the pratt f100-220. It was a block 32. The two in the block # means a pratt engine.