Occasional reader Robert sends along the link to this vid of an F-16 performing an engine out approach to Elizabeth City airport.
From a professional standpoint, I’ve got to admire the sang-froid of dash four, who manages to sound good on the radio even as the observer senses the strain he’s under in his ragged breathing on the intercomm. I’m a little less completely in love with dash three, his element lead, who displays an all-too-familiar and lamentable USAF tendency towards logorrhea during an emergency. Sins of commission being thought superior to sins of omission, I suppose, and yet enough is too much. Sometimes you have to clear guard and let a guy die with dignity.
Robert asks if I’d ever had to land the F-16 without power, to which I have to answer, “No,” although I’d plenty of practice time just in case, and once came back to the field at NAS Key West using a precautionary engine out approach after an FA-18 blew a handful of flares down my intake as I was closing to guns.
Practice made perfect, though. One of our squadron pilots – a great stick – had to shut the motor down manually when his throttle got stuck at an unusably high power setting for landing. Squeaked her on the piano keys at Patuxent River Naval Air Station like that was what he’d been made for.
He was a really good guy.
Man, somebody tell 3 to SHUT UP … I’m flyin’ here …
“…once came back to the field at NAS Key West using a precautionary engine out approach after an FA-18 blew a handful of flares down my intake as I was closing to guns.”
I’m just a Hummer dude, but I seem to remember hearing something about “No expendables on a guns “D”.” Yeah?
3 Had to be a COL or LTCOL at the least – he added about 1% to the problem but filled 90% of the comms.
I know that voice of the controller at Liz City. We used to take RAG students down there – I have literally sat through probably 500 Touch and Go’s down there. That guy is a retired Senior Chief (Coastie, not that there is anything wrong with that) and is a cool as the other side of the pillow.
Yeah. Squadron CO it was, and myself a snot-nosed lieutenant commander. Busted him on the COMPEX for a training rule violation.
Ended up being my commodore few years later when I was squadron CO. He hadn’t forgot.
Still hasn’t.
Somebody better get a nice shiny bauble for their blues, and it better not be “Three”.
“No expendables on a guns “D”.
busted him on the COMPEX
Got the expendables part (I think), but not the “D.” And I’ve got some vague guesses on COMPEX… but I’m gonna have to play the sillivilian here and hope someone will be so kind as to enlighten me.
*tries to look cute in hopes it will draw attention that leads to explanation*
They don’t hang around upstairs very long once the pushing thing quits, do they?
Sorry, I’m used to little guys with one spinner; it’s still all I can do sometimes to stay ahead of the bugsmasher.
#4 there made it look so easy.
Nose,
You of course never talked a student through a PEL at Liz city did you? And I am sure you never talked a student into leaving the landing gear up! ( You know who I am talking about………now that was a pilot who could talk her way through an emergency….)
COMPEX means competitive exercise which is a huge misnomer. Nothing competitive about it, just another check in the box to be accomplished to make sure you got all of your training and readiness things done. ( Yes I gundecked a couple of E-2 COMPEX’s in the day. Nose just shut up and drive the bus!)
Am I the only one who would tell my boss to STFU unless he’s something important to say, because I’m trying to concentrate and I can’t do that with his verbal diarrhea in my earphones?
He can bust me for insubordination after I’ve landed.
Excellent work by the pilot, near as I can tell — landed on slope and on target with just a little reserve energy. Whoever he is, he’s one cool customer.
– Max
Lex, correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t the escort do all the radio talking for his wingman, so the fellow with the bent bird can handle all the flying stuff without distraction? I mean, I didn’t exactly hear Approach and the “yakker” talking about Bret Farv-ruh.
Lex,
TR? If so, I know him well.
Fuzzy,
Guns Defense. Lex can correct me if I misstate, but it is basically a last-ditch defensive move to keep you from getting gunned. Because gun range is relatively close and the move involves a radical turn, you are prohibited from using chaff or flares (normally used defensively to defeat a missile shot) because of the possibility that your “expendables” could end up damaging someone else’s jet. Like Skippy said, a Compex is basically a training “Check in the block”. Part of a larger overall training event…
Nose, no, it was ZM. Good guy, just wasn’t particularly happy with me that day.
Byron, he’s being helpful up to a point clearing the approach with ATC, reminding four to blow his tanks, etc. But he tells tower that the kid is coming in on a flameout approach like four times, and tells the kid he’s cleared to land an equal number. The engine is out – the plane is going to land. At a certain point it just gets to be distracting, and – IMHO – three was well past that point.
I stand corrected, sir. Then three was just an overly-chatty, this is my emergency and I’ll do the talking sort of over-achiever.
This happened a long time ago didn’t it?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3731/is_199705/ai_n8771125
” ‘unintelligible grunt’, switch button 4…”
b2
Well, Lex, that first comment of yours explained a lot I had wondered about. Sorry.
I seem to recall two other F-16N performances, one when Biff had FTIT rollback (wasn’t engine out, but severely underpowered) and took IIRC a straight-in vice an engine-out approach, and the other being Danno getting into and thankfully out of the deep inverted stall.
Yeah, he was a really good guy. He was the one in the squadron who took this ensign under his wing, and I’ll always honor him for that.
If dash 3 wasn’t Air Force I would’ve sworn he was one of my old department heads. (Somebody keep him out of the way while we get the job done!)
Stupid question, but how far can a machine like that glide without power? What is the word for skill and luck combined?
If I recall correctly, a clean F-16N would travel 5 miles for every seven thousand feet of altitude on a straight-in approach. An overhead flameout approach was conducted from 8.3K’ overhead the field aligned with the landing runway, 4K’ on downwind, 2K’ on base (gear down), add 100′ for every thousand pounds of fuel or stores above 1000.
But it’s been a while…
Wow, NICE landing.
What’s with the ‘mark tanks’ command – the dropped fuel tank(s)? So someone knows where to go to dig them out of the ground?!
And, how does one go about ‘marking’ them anyway…? Jot down coordinates or something?
THX
Thanks, guys!
I’m truly impressed with the airmanship displayed by Dash4. There’s a remarkable number of things to consider and do in that situation, and a lot of stress because there are no mulligans. As Lex points out, you’re gonna land, it’s just a question of where and how.
As to Dash 3, what can I say? He obviously is suffering from a near terminal case of diarrhea of the mouth. As the old saying goes, if you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Jay, there’s usually an overfly button you can press on your navigational display that leaves an INS “mark” on the lat/long. I used to use it flying over the Sierras when I espied a potentially juicy trout stream or lake.
I don’t think that’s why they put it there, though.
“OK now, get it stopped…”
Funny.
marc ~ that made me laugh too. Definitely falls in to the “Thank you CPT Obvious” category.
Lex ~ guys that MacGyver flew with in Alaska used their navigational equipment to record fishing/hunting spots too. One of the Blackhawk crews even bagged a moose and flew it back to the hangar while out on a mission. Which was great and all. Until the commander walked in to the hangar.
Then? Not so much.
Jay,
It was, as Lex says, an overfly function on the inertial/GPS. We used to call it “dropping a mark” because it put an “X” on our NAV display and you could hook it and get Latimitude and Longimitude.
With people like B2 working in acquisition, I’m not so sure that Trout streams weren’t the reason for the function…
PS Lex, I didn’t know Mulk, but I knew lots who knew him (and unfortunately the guy who killed him) and I can tell he was a good guy. I love the picture in the NASKW O’Club bar.
Did you overlap at 45 with Polecat and Mongo? Both CAG17 alums with me – great guys…