Forum: F-16 Procedures

The one good PP story told to me was by one of our company QA's that flew part-time for Syracuse during their A/B days.

During ODS and en route to his assigned area, he thought it was quiet enough to...you know...off-load that coffee he had for breakfast. So about halfway thru the deed he gets spiked by a SAM site followed quickly by a launch indication on the RWR. He managed to get a tally on the missile and while still hooked up to the pack he did what you're supposed to do, given the sitchyayshun. I'll let you draw your own mental picture. Wink

Having defeated the SAM, he re-stows himself and the partially-filled pack and RTBs but before hopping out, he yells to the chief, "Ya may wanna gimme a second. Got any shop rags down there?" LMAO

At least he was kind enough to at least offer to clean up his mess. Smile

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Roscoe wrote:

Having worked at the F-16 SPO, here's what I recall. Mishap pilot unstrapped, with a buckle unknowingly under the SSC. Then like others have said he raised his seat to get the proper angle. At some point the buckle wedged against the base of the SSC and it quickly went full right roll command with a smidge nose down input which kicked off the autopilot. At this point I'm trying not to laugh as I picture this guy with his personal equipment unstowed and the airplane winding up into a right roll and attempting a slight nose over. That's such an unnatural move I can't even imagine what the poor guy must have had running through his cranium.

I recall however that he was able to release the jammed buckle and recover the jet...but I suspect there was some cockpit cleanup and some 'splainin to do.

As Roscoe says, this particular event didn't result in an ejection. It just resulted in a pilot getting to ride through a minute's worth of the jet rolling hard right until he was able to unjam the side stick. This started on a cross country while the jet was somewhere around 30K feet and ended below 20K feet. And as someone else mentioned, the pilot didn't say right away what really happened. The company flight control engineers and us safety types were scratching our heads on that one for almost two weeks before the real story came out. IIRC, this was the first time we had heard of such an event. The ejections came later.

Roscoe wrote:

Having worked at the F-16 SPO, here's what I recall. Mishap pilot unstrapped, with a buckle unknowingly under the SSC. Then like others have said he raised his seat to get the proper angle. At some point the buckle wedged against the base of the SSC and it quickly went full right roll command with a smidge nose down input which kicked off the autopilot.

That is pretty much what we heard when the jet didn't come back. It was my bird, and we were flying out of Incirlik at the time, doing Operation Northern Watch. The DO was flying and he was about a hundred miles out of Incirlik when the mishap occured. There was a scathing report on attrition rates in The Inspector General magazine that year, and they specifically called this incident out as an example of pilot error related loss of aircraft.

Roscoe wrote:

I recall however that he was able to release the jammed buckle and recover the [Link pending approval] I suspect there was some cockpit cleanup and some 'splainin to do.

Maybe another one, but not my [Link pending approval] wound up in a Turkish farmer's field and was recovered quickly. The years have really affected my memory, but IIRC it was tail number 85-1451.

Yep, from the mishap list:
"08 Sep 1992 [w/o] 85451 85-1451 USAF 526 FS F-16C Block 30A Details
This was the aircraft which crashed due to the pilots flight suit inflating causing the side stick to jam. The pilot was releiving himself and undid his lap belt. Unknowingly, the belt was wrapped around the stick and when he finally raised his seat up the aircraft went into an unwanted roll which could not be recovered. The pilot managed to eject safely. He unstrapped himself at 33,000 ft and initiated the ejection at 1,100 ft agl. The pilot was unbelted on ejection. This mishap occurred in the skies over Incirlik, Turkey while TDY. "

Not exactly accurate, but it confirms the story and tail number.

I think it is a good time for this joke, actually it may well be a reality Wink

***********************************************************

A C-130 was lumbering along when a cocky F-16 flashed by.

The jet jockey decided to show off.

The fighter jock told the C-130 pilot, "Watch this!" and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb.

He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier. The F-16 pilot asked the C-130 pilot what he thought of that.

The C-130 pilot said, "That was impressive, but watch this!"

The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the C-130 pilot came back on and said, "What did you think of that?"

Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, "What did you do?"

The C-130 pilot chuckled. "I stood up, stretched my legs, walked to the back, went to the toilet, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun."

Forum: F-16 Procedures

Piddle pack incident - restrooms at 28,000ft