A bad place to snuff an engine. See also starboard nozzle.
Video here.
There, now. That wasn’t so hard.
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High Alpha PassBy lex, on July 24th, 2010
72 comments to High Alpha Pass |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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I’ve always enjoyed talking to the folks who have one more take-off than landing. Usually some VERY entertaining and educating stories.
The landings always equal the launchings. The question is the form of those landings. Gravity calls no matter what your steed. Even if it’s silk or air, you will return to Earth.
I went to see the photo series last night, and again for this post. The only thing I see associated with the starboard nozzle in the pics is a tongue of flame after the pointy end is already crushed. Perhaps I’m missing something, but don’t see it in the pic you posted, or in the series.
QM, if you look carefully, the port exhaust nozzle is fully open, indicating fully staged afterburner. The starboard nozzle has closed, indicating (probably) an afterburner blowout.
The nozzles dilate from full open at idle to full closed at military power and then open again as the burners light. The aircraft is rolling right, which indicates asymmetric thrust. I deduce some class of engine failure or burner blowout, but it’s all just speculative. The high alpha pass at low altitude is fairly impressive on two good engines, else a good demonstration of Martin Baker’s technology.
Takes a knowledgeable to know what to look for there. I see little difference between the two nozzles. But the port nozzle does look a bit narrower than the starboard side. Your theory would explain the tongue of flame from the starboard side at the crash, with nothing from the port.
Judging from this photo, his neck is hurting something fierce.
…WOW. As a former Ammo guy who worked with the seat pyrotechnics on a regular basis, I gotta ask – was this an out-of-the-envelope ejection? It sure looks like it, even for an ACES II seat.
Mike
The seats are 0-0, so his AOB and proximity to the ground would be the only thing to push this out of envelope.
Fun fact: F-35 onboard computers are designed to punch the pilot out automatically in a situation similar to this: engine failure/shaft fan transmission failure close to ground, with building roll rate.
I think I prefer my parachute and 100 foot run to the cabin door, TYVM.
Yak-38 Forgers had auto-eject, too.
But this guy’s guardian angel was working overtime.
And caused more than a few hull losses due to aircraft ejecting their pilots needlessly.
Never trust a machine to do what a human can do better, like making decisions.
Not exactly. Angle of Bank and proximity to the ground are factors, but the biggest factor in success is sink rate or lack thereof. While respecting the impact of 20 years since the last time I flew in an ACES II seat, I believe the seat was purported to be capable of success while inverted at 100′AGL with zero sink. It takes altitude to accelerate the occupant through negative (e.g. downward) velocity into positive (e.g. upward) velocity.
He’s gonna need a chiropractor.
When I was at NAVCENT the N3A was a guy who had ejected from an S-3. I never heard how far back the event was (at least a few years since S-3′s were retired), but he still needed therapy each week
Kevin, that was back in 97 or 98. I knew the guy well. It ended his flying career as far as ejection seat aircraft go. He was out of position when they ejected hence the severe injuries.
I’m impressed he made it out of there.
Had a friend who died in an F16 during an air show a few years back who wasn’t so lucky. The AF Times was nice to the family, though, and printed a large photo of the fireball on the front page.
Glad Captain Bews’ family didn’t have to encounter the same.
Canadian news said he was dragged unconscious by the parachute a couple of hundred feet, then came to. I imagine, if nothing else, he might need some of his hide replaced. How tough are those flight suits?
BillK/
ATTENTION!!! If you didn’t go back, I left a really funny/cute true story about “morons,” “imbeciles” Katrina, and where each class dwells in New Orleans back at the “Populism” post. Go see..
Huh?
Thanks for a tidbit, Cap’n. Nice stuff. Glad to see the pilot get out of it, expect some unkind words with the mech troops.
Yessir VX! Got quite a chuckle, should have let you know.
He was fortunate the wind didn’t drag him toward the fireball. Hard to tell but it looks pretty toasty where he landed.
Bill K, Nomex flight suits are flame retardent but don’t have much abrasion resistance. I speak from experience after one shredded suit.
Looks like this has happened before with this manuever – what fails?
It’s apparent that whatever happened, he knew better than to hang around trying to fix it… it’s weird seeing the airplane suddenly go uncoordinated like that.
I’m amazed that our man survived at all. His low altitude separation didn’t give much time to open the chute, or allow for any great landing distance from the impact zone; Second and Third degree flash burns likely. Kudos to the photographer for the amazing shots.
At the 2002 Pt. Mugu airshow, an QF-4S crew found themselves in a similar situation that ended quite differently. Take note of the starboard engine just before the aircraft rolls into the break. Warning: Bad ending alert.
The rear seat cleared the a/c but with insufficient time to open the chute, and the front seat was found part way up the rails at the impact site. The mishap prompted the NAWC-Weapons Division Commander to end the Navy’s Full Scale Aerial Targets program in October of that year.
Found this Slo-Mo copy after posting.
From the slo-mo it looks like the guy that got out should have had enough time for the chute to open. Stranger things have happened, tho.
Bad things are almost guaranteed to happen, especially near stall conditions at low altitude, if one rolls the ship in the direction of the failed engine, whether inadvertantly or otherwise. Under those conditions the adverse yaw effect of the off-axis thrust makes a spin all the more likely.
Thank God the pilot is OK, it’ll make for one heck of a bar-room story!
I saw the Canuck AF do this stunt at airshows many times when I used to live there. Always wondered why they did such a risky manuever that was guaranteed to end badly if an engine burped. Believe it or not they used to do it in pairs, and not a lot of leteral separation – saw it with my own eyes one year at Abbotsford! I guess someone did the math and figured out that putting two airplanes and two pilots at risk of one engine failure outt of four just didn’t make sense. They should have kept calculating IMHO.
The same thing happened to an Su-29 (?) at the Paris airshow a few years ago when the right engine ate a bird.
He got out, seems he will live…therefore, good landing.
A most edifying find, Lex.
Edifying.
Rut Roh! Mongo find Call of Duty 4 & 5…
X-Plane, you’ve got some serious competition coming aboard. This could get about as ugly as the last time I had Harpoon installed.
Harpoon = Epic Win
Unless you’re a Classic player and tried Kola2 on for size. I know of only one person who beat it first time out.
Did not beat first time. Can’t always win these days (well, last I played)
I was author of Kola2…
You get your butt kicked? Which version, Classic or H3?
I’ve been trying to figure out what happened. Accelerated stall?
Oh. Engine failed. Wonder if we will ever know why.
here’s the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4yMVM2Vxas
Bad scene. Awesome photo. Glad guy got out.
Cashed in a fair share of those nine lives.
Looks like his bag of luck is empty. Time to walk away.
That photo will be framed in every rigger’s shop in Canuck-town. Good thing he didn’t have to yank twice to get the seat to fire. A good day, despite the 35 million loss. One step closer to the 35.
And, hopefully, every engine maintenance shop. Here’s what happens when we f$%k up!
I opened the NY Post this AM to see this story and realize that I just saw this guy do his flight demo at Jones Beach NY Memorial Day. Glad to see he is going to be ok.
Lex,
How in the world do you find this stuff out before it gets out to the national media?
-CG
Lex is master of teh interwebz…
“How in the world do you find this stuff out before it gets out to the national media?”
Don’t want to start a political thing here, but the evidence is the national media sometimes doesn’t know about stuff until the bloggers (aka “pamphleteers” in bygone days) force them to see it.
Which is the reason why I came to mil-blogs lo those many years ago. I knew that I could get the unvarnished truth about what was going on and how to find out about the real skinny on the War on Terror. Never left, rarely go to see what the talking heads have to say.
Can’t tell you how glad I was to see this post, still digesting, and trying to formulate a comment to, your last post.
I may have to face the fact that I might have an addiction…..
E ticket ride, for sure. Gotta love that seat!
I wonder how many of the young set have no idea about how that phrase came about?
Marc in Calgary – my mind boggles at the thought of a reenactment of PH in the landlocked frozen north. And those photos give a whole new meaning to “Go Flames!” don’t they? (for some reason this California boy has been a Flames fan since they were in Atlanta)
I’ve got it covered on both accounts, Joe. I’m not young, and I was stationed at Norton AFB for almost 8 years.
Thanks for the insight Lex. Here’s some more coverage from our local paper/we’re 2 hours north of Lethbridge. The show goes on, with a reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Pilot+hospital+under+observation+after+crashes+burns+Lethbridge+airport/3315226/story.html
Too bad the “expert” in comments over there doesn’t know that it’s TOPGUN – all one word, all caps, don’t ask.
It was good to hear from you Lex.
Sort of on the topic of air shows – Check out the inbounds right now into Oshkosh for EAA. By my count 70 showing up on Flight Aware at the moment.
http://flightaware.com/live/airport/KOSH/enroute?;offset=0;order=estimatedarrivaltime;sort=ASC
We have been hammered by rain. Supposed to be sunny the next couple of days and things are drying up. Many of the class A motor homes have been parked temporarily in mall parking lots while the camp grounds dry out. It will be interesting to see how the aircraft handle the soaked fields.
I was at the Mountain Home Air Show a few years back when #6 Thunderbird made a little altitude error on his pullover. Thought sure we’d seen a fatality. I was sure glad when the crowd yelled “Look, he’s waving.”
I guess it’s true, we’ve never left one up there yet.
Ok here is some irony. In this raw footage you’ll note they were playing the Bee Gee’s “Staying Alive” at the time…
http://www.globallethbridge.com/story.html?id=3315229
Yea..I got a little chuckle at that, too.
Lex, nice to see you posting aviation stuff!
I’ve always wondered what happens to the seat. Say, the guy gets out ok, comes down un-injured, but the seat falls through my roof? The way I figure it, the previous owner abandoned it, and it’s now mine, and I get to sue him for roof damage.
Good luck with that – the NTSB/military safety org will definitely want the seat for the investigation.
P.s. The previous owner of the ejection seat is almost certainly not the pilot, but some annoying government or other.
Saw some great demos last week at Farnborough — even though I’ve seen it before, the F-22 show is amazing. Zero a/s pitchover, and the flat leaf spiral descent are testimony to the power of vectored thrust. The Super Hornet show was stunning as well. Typhoon, both the BAE and RAF versions were severe disappointments. Got to see the Red Arrows as well, for the first time. But the highlight of the show was seeing the retired RAF Vulcan flying. Saw it at Dayton in ’80, and it is still as amazing. Imagine an A4, at 20X — and fifty years old. A400M, A380, and others were just background noise.
But, nothing really exciting like this — t/o = ldgs.
I’ve been to many air shows but the most memorable are the Offutt AFB open houses where the RAF showed what a lightly loaded Vulcan could do. I know they called the T-37 Tweet “The Converter” for converting jet fuel into noise, but the Vulcan did that in spades. I guess the Bone has inherited that title.
Seeing the video on Fox News today. (finally!) From a micro-second point of view it looks like he was ahead enough of the curve to realize the fit had hit the shan, and that he’d better get clear before he got spattered.
Another observation: The AOB and parallel motion of the jet in relation to the ground during the ejection shot him behind the jet rather than above it, which I believe substantially increased his chance at survival in this situation. The guys in the F-4 video above were in a much more vertical trajectory when the rear seat came out; negative result.
As I said earlier, sink rate is the killer. The F-4 was in a high sink rate. The thrust of the seat was not enough for the Back Seater to overcome that and survive and the time to impact was not enough for the front seater to even have a chance. God rest ‘em.
Was there every a conclusion as to the cause of the accident? Obviously we see the flame out of both engines pretty clearly. What caught my eye was the small amount of white smoke trail as he entered the turn.
“…given the amount of force from the ejection, the injuries Bews sustained are consistent with bails from aircrafts.
“We can expect a full recovery and return to duty for Captain Bews,” (Medico) Morrell said.
“I feel extremely lucky considering the magnitude of the accident; Martin Baker is my new best friend!” he (Bews) said in a statement.: http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/07/26/14835871.html
The CF-18 Tail Design Paint Scheme:
http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/vital/v2/cf18/ig-gi/images/photos/bn2010-0076-06.jpg
Featuring classic Canadian Air Force and Navy motifs and a striking paint design, the CF-18 national demonstration jet will be dazzling audiences across North America during the 2010 air show season. The Navy Centennial theme, customized by Mr. Jim Belliveau of 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta, is featured on both tails, rendered in freehand airbrush and paint gun murals in subdued blues. The tri-colour Royal Canadian Navy Roundel from the 1950s is featured on the fuselage. As well, the main serial number on the nose, intake safety markings and false canopy on the underside were rendered in navy blue.
The tail art features a stylized anchor, Navy Maple Leaf, and wave graphics. One the left-side (port) tail, HMCS Winnipeg with a CH-124 Sea King helicopter is featured, and on the right-side (starboard) tail the HMCS Bonaventure with a Banshee Fighter jet. The art reflects the intimate and longstanding working relationship shared by the Navy and Air Force.
So does that mean our Navy and Air Force play together nicely in the sandbox better than the American versions?
Although the fact that 2010 is the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy might just help explain the paint job. Which, for the record, I think is rather nice.
The ‘Navy of Canuk 100th’ Hornet twin tails are here:
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/CF18otherTAILzoom-PDF.jpg
&
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/CF18tailCrashedPaintSchemeZoomPDF.jpg
Lucky pilot. Great seat. Superb chute packer. Quite a vid.
CF-18 pilot recalls harrowing tale of survival Tue. Aug. 17 2010
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100817/bews-recalls-cf18-crash-100817/
“…Bews said that only four seconds passed between when he pulled the jet’s ejection handle and when he hit the ground hard…”