Pics from the Nellis Air Show, courtesy of B2. You’ll need to excuse me for a few minutes, I need some “private time” after seeing those.
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There, I’m back.
Occasional reader Jason sends us these pics and the back story on what’s being done with the “Great White Hope,” as we Hornet pilots used to call the F-14′s AIM-54 Pheonix missile.
Researchers at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, Calif., are investigating the use of surplus demilitarized Navy AIM-54 Phoenix air-launched missiles as possible hypersonic test platforms or testbeds. Hypersonic flight is defined as aerodynamic flight at speeds of Mach 5 or greater, and use of surplus Phoenix missiles is one of the methods being considered to obtain critical flight data in the hypersonic regime.
It was actually a pretty damned good missile, once they’d re-optimized the fuzing for fighter size targets. It just wasn’t anywhere near as good a missile as the Turkey drivers used to insist that it was.
I mean, how could it be? It was attached to a Tomcat, fer pete’s sake.
those were some mighty sweet shots.
Wow! Those plane pics are pretty, but I must be honest, it’s the blue sky and butte’s behind ‘em that make me smile. I’ve been back East for far too long! I miss the big skies and big mountains. Thank you Lex, and B2, too.
Beautiful pics!
And now new wallpaper too!
Great photos, what kind of camera do you use?
Private moment indeed…which one to choose for the wallpaper??? So much Plane Pr0n, so little time.
F-86 Sabre, pin-up of the sky…
More than one female rued the day her flyer first set eyes on this airframe. It became “the other woman”…
Steve Hinton has the best “job” in the world…
Lex, as you well know, AIM-54 wasn’t designed to kill fighters; it was designed to kill things that start with a “B”L Bear, Badger, and Backfire. And you have to admit, any Flanker or Mig driver would have a leemer if they saw six of those big damn missiles come screaming down out of the troposphere
Byron:
The Iranians did shoot down some Iraqi fighters with the Phoenix (Buffalo). One missile supposedly shot 3 Iraqi MiG-23 at the same time.
Jason, that was probably a combination of luck and poor aircraft driving. Phoenix doesn’t have the maneuverablity of AIM-120 or AIM-9L. The version Lex refers to is the -54C, which has improved ECCM and small/low level target discrimation processing. I kind of doubt the Iranians had 54Cs, hence my guess it was dumb luck and poor flying on the part of the Iraqis.
For those of us “back in the day” that went bear hunting up in its lair in the far north (either coast); the thought of several 4-2-2 loaded Tomcat (plus an NTU or AEGIS or two) under our control on distant CAP made us breath a mite bit easier. Just sayin’, you know…
-SJS
By the by — I was playing golf in Vegas on Friday afternoon. How sweet it was to stand on the fairway watching 2 B-2 stealth bombers take off and peel away to the distance. Twice. D*mn, I love those things
SJ Scribe, it was just the knowledge that you could go so far out there, and then reach out and touch someone…at a distance
(running for the slit trench again, INCOMING!)
Schmoke and mirrors and “wish-you-were” juice. Sez I.
Lex, if only you knew how many very heated Tomcat vs Hornet “discussions” I moderated…but I suspect you’ve done one or two yourself
Yes – I very nearly had to go and spend some ‘me’ time.
Question – what is this burner blowout of which he speaks? Compressor stall, or something else?
Lex,
Didn’t the Phoenie-bomb have a longer range than a combat loaded “C” Hornet?
I did use to laugh at the the RIO mafia during orange air. Anyone that got within about 60NM was killed by the all powerful death ray that hung on their jet.
N
Chris,
Although they look grossly similar, a compressor stall is almost always a sign of a very seriously damaged engine, usually due to FOD of some nature. As you know (but for the benefit of others who might not), compressor blades are like wingfoils – they serve to push ever-more pressurized air into the combustion chamber where, augmented by atomized fuel and ignited, it turns the turbine blades. These in turn use the rapidly expanding gasses to provide a pressure boundary which in turn provides thrust, and also help to turn the compressor section.
If one or more of the compressor blades gets nicked by something hard it sends shards of the damaged blade along with the original source of FOD into the next stage causing a cascading array of damage. When the wingfoils are damaged the airflow around them “stalls,” creating the popping and banging noise associated with compressor stalls, and occasionally causing sparks and even flames to come out of the back end. Compressor stalls are a pretty big deal.
Afterburner blowouts on the other hand are merely a nuissance. The blowers function by bypassing the whole compressor/turbine process and dumping raw fuel (sprayed by nozzles) into the exhaust stage of the engine, causing a rocket-like thrust effect rather than the pressure boundary of the compressor/turbine combination. Once direct combustion is initiated it is normally self-sustaining, although in the Hornet the igniters remain active anytime the throttles are above 50% AB.
The “augmentor” increases thrust by about 50% – useful in combat – but increases consumption by 300%, so it’s not a very efficient use of fuel and we therefore use the blowers sparingly.
Sometimes – rarely – one of the blowers simply snuffs out and all that fuel exits the tailpipe unburned. On most jets there is a flame sensor and automatic re-light capability (it wouldn’t do to have one motor in AB and one in MIL at high angles of attack, for example) so what you’re seeing in the “burner blowout” is actually the re-light process which is torching off the unused fuel aft which had escaped the AB nozzle. Dramatic looking, but essentially benign.
re- “Afterburner blowouts on the other hand are merely a nuissance.”
Ahhhh, in the Hornette maybe but not so the F-14A probably because all cenerline engined go fasters ain’t created equal. From what I heard, if’n one didn’t have catlike reflexes (no pun intended)it’s water time off’n the cat if you encounterd it!
In fact, I heard say of a mishap (late 70′s early 80′s) where a burner blowout led to an ejection after which the Turkey flew itself up and out commencing a supersonic manuever which took it back towards Mother like a huge 75,000lb missile in the terminal phase. As I heard it, many folks, after viewing the ejection entertainment, watched with mouths agape from the flight deck as the pilotless screamin’ Tom auguered in close astern.
N-
re range: Har-har- good ‘un.
re da deathray: Of course you were toast if’n you was in an E-2! More like 90-95 miles though..
b2
Bob,
In early 90′s burner blowouts started becoming aircraft blowups (3 that I know of). It wasn’t just A’s, it was happening to B/D’s also.
to wit: http://www.militaryfix.com/videos/navy-jet-explodes-after-super-sonic-flyby/
I wasn’t toast in the Hummer – we had force fields!
Nose
Lex,
Thanks for that.
“private time”, eh?
And I’m sure it was well deserved, sir. a Man and his machine, after all, share something which even his lady will never understand fully.
Good pics, sir.
Enjoy the week.
Subsunk