I am an admittedly early riser (and am often late to bed), having been broken of that comfortable junior officer habit of sleeping on both ears until the noontime bell some years ago. “Eight hours sleep per day,” we used to say on deployment, adding that, “whatever you get at night is gravy.” To which some wag would inevitably respond that, if you could sleep twelve hours a day, it was only a three-month cruise.
Yet somewhere along the way the chain was broken, and I have yet to mend the weaker link. Faced with an early morning commitment that I cannot in good faith decline, I will set my alarm clock – as I did this morning – and wake a minute or two before it sounds. Hoping against hope that the clock will read 0300, when I know that it will read “0413″, as it did yesterday morning with a 0415 wake-up nestling in its innards.
It isn’t like you can say, well: I’m to wake at 0415, so I must to bed by 8PM, so that I can get my eight strait. Not if it were ever so.
But it is nevertheless a cruel, hard thing to bestir yourself with three hours to go before daybreak on five hours sleep, knowing that a cold fighter cockpit waits you at the end of the chain.
Oh, 25 degrees Fahrenheit is not so very cold, I know. There are gloves, and hats and Capilene underwear to whisk the cold away. None of which, I know for a certain fact, have been required in Sandy Eggo since the Little Ice Age.
But, needs must. And I made it to the church on time, bitter resentments or no.
The brief was unexceptional – TOPGUN is nothing if not standardized – the preflight uneventful, the start-up summat of a dog’s breakfast . First we had a “hung start”, wherein the engine – although liberally supplied with jet fuel, ignition and starting air – stolidly refused to catch fire. A second, and more successful attempt was followed by a hydraulic system that utterly declined its duty in those frigid temperatures. A little of this and a little of that, and it was coaxed into obediance.
I may have mentioned that it was cold yesterday morning, as a result of which I had the cabin temperature knob cooking on pretty high heat from (final) start through take-off. The howling of the afterburner was accompanied by the howling of the environmental conditioning system, which in a simpler world you would call your “heater” or “air conditioner”, depending upon the conditions you were hoping to achieve. Sadly, the valve which routes engine bleed air into the cockpit to heat the space surrounding the wetware locked open, and after a few moments it became rather too warm to be comfortable.
Fortunately, I am not the first aviator to suffer through a runaway ECS, so the designers at Dassault – perhaps at IAI – thoughtfully included a manual switch to cool the cabin and prevent the pilot from roasting. As the cabin became more suitable to sustaining life however, I couldn’t help but note that the ECS was laboring unusually. At first I attributed this to the manual operations, checked that my cabin pressure schedule was keeping up with the climb to 23,000 feet and gave it no more conscious thought.
My sub-conscious, however, was keeping it in my scan, which was a good thing because only a few minutes later I checked the cabin pressure gauge – which is rather poorly situated on an ankle-high pedestal between the legs – and found that it was showing 20,000 feet of pressurization at 23,000 feet of altitude. Sub-optimal.
You can of course tighten up your oxygen mask and even go to 100% vice diluter demand, but there are other physiological symptoms of depressurization, some of them benign, others less so. I was keying the mike to tell my lead that I was dropping out of formation to return to base when I heard a strange ripping sound, which is never a good thing in flight. You are permitted the throb of the engine, and howl of the burner in full grunt. You are even permitted the occasional thumping sound (although, especially at night, you’ll find yourself monitoring the engine instruments with increased attention). Ripping sounds are not permitted.
Turned out that for some reason potentially linked to the ECS, the rain seal on the upper canopy extruded out into the windstream. Where it began unraveling like a poorly made Argyle sock. In the matter of seconds it was draped above my canopy, anchored at three 0′clock and ten o’clock to the canopy rail, and rattling in the 300 knot breeze like it just didn’t matter.
Which of course it did, what with the gasping engine intakes just behind my shoulders. I don’t know what, if any effect, five to six feet of wind whipped rain seal would have done to any of the first 17 stages of the J79 engine just behind me. And given that it was my only engine, and the only thing standing between me and a Martin-Baker let-down, I didn’t want to find out.
I slowed the jet down to around 220 knots, which is pretty damned slow in this airplane, when almost fully loaded with fuel, lowered the landing gear to give me a higher power setting on the descent and headed back to the field. Uncomfortably slow on the one hand, but on the other the rain seal seemed quite happy to remain in place at that airspeed, with no more than the occasional nervous flutter. Or maybe I was the nervous one, and just sort of projecting, like.
Now came the issue of putting the jet back on the ground. There’s no way to dump fuel in the Kfir, apart from the afterburner. Which given the circumstances was quite out of the question, since keeping the airplane slow was the priority. Landing heavy – especially at high altitude airports where the air is thin – comes with its own set of consequences, none of which are good. Higher gross weights equate to higher indicated airspeeds on final approach. Because of the density altitude, true airspeed – and groundspeed – are higher still. Stopping a heavy jet means 1) putting out the drag chute (and hoping it doesn’t part under the loads), and 2) mashing on the wheel brakes, turning kinetic energy into heat, and hoping that the brake rotors’ capacity to absorb that energy lasts at least as long as the runway before you.
They say that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. That may be true, but in reality the quality of an aviator’s judgment is evaluated by the outcome of his decisions. I decided to orbit the field with the wheels down for a while until I’d burned down sufficient gas to make a more or less normal landing, and hope that the rain seal didn’t decide to use the luxury of the time I afforded it to do something foolish. If nothing went wrong, I’d land at middling gross weight on a two-mile long runway. If something did go wrong, and the rain seal went down the intake, at the very least I’d have some explaining to do. Which I would also have had to do had I landed heavy, lost the ‘chute or burned out my brakes before getting to safe taxi speed.
You pays your money and you takes your chances, and in the end it all worked out. I burned down to about the gas I took off with, touched down successfully at a (relatively) modest 185 knots or so and had no problem getting the machine slowed and stopped.
A good thing too, because I appear to have misplaced my union card.
The second flight of the day went much better.
Sounds exciting. “I burned down to about the gas I took off with…” Is inflight refueling part of your mission profile or did I misunderstand?
That was what I was about to ask as well…
Glad it turned out OK, Lex. It sure is important to know how things *should* sound.
I’m a sometime bicycle commuter, and I have often reflected on how my ears are my first line of defense. I can often tell without seeing a vehicle how large it is, whether it’s accelerating or decelerating, and go a long way toward evaluating a threat and acting before I ever get a visual.
Commuting through Redmond, Washington I often marvel at the high percentage of riders plugged into their MP3 players, wondering if they know how much situational awareness they surrender for their entertainment.
I agree. And these newfangled cars with CVTs and all sorts of batteries are sneaky quiet, too.
However, I do on occasion use the earphones and find I don’t surrender much awareness at all. Car traffic– with the exception noted above– is damn loud. I suspect our scribe was wearing a fancy helmet equipped with noise deadening and noise cancelling and all manner of ear protection, probably not listening to Led Zeppelin, however, and yet heard the important new sound triggering the “outta here” instinct.
It’s a feeling of gradually increasing panic when you lose situational awareness in any situation where you can get dead, though, so the headphones are always rigged for quick release. Just in case.
I enjoyed reading this very much! I’ve been cold, hot, fell asleep, navigated without all the tools over water at night but never had a pressurization problem or lost the door seal as described. Bird strikes, broken windows and de-ice boots inflated too soon caused some anxiety. Landing long didn’t help and an overrun resulted…no damage except to my pride. Density altitude almost got me once on a hot afternoon in the Appalachian’s in a heavily loaded C-140 on a remote W. Virginia mountain top GA airport…..
You had me worried there Lex. I thought we’d lost you then I figured, `Doh, he’s typing this so he must have lived – keep calm and carry on`. As for the seal, don’t buy an MGB, you’ll have flashbacks until you sell it.
Actually, what I was thinking was, “this piece of French designed, Isaeli modified, worn out, beat up lawn dart is going to kill someone whose wisdom and knowledge have both entertained me and kept me in rapture, sometimes in the same paragraph. Lex, can’t those guys give you a Scooter to fly? Some nice dependable Douglas Iron?
The cold wx had at least one redeeming feature–at least you didn’t have to worry about remembering to put on canopy defrost to keep the canopy from fogging up as you descended from altitude to a hot desert floor.
I’m glad that lawn dart was in the hands of an exceptionally experienced and cool-headed aviator (who in turn was in the hands of the Infinite).
If only your seals were as dependable as those other SEALS…
Lex:
I note that over at Glenn Reynold’s hangout he says that today is blogger appreciation day. It is tales such as this one which makes me appreciate your blog. Not that I don’t like the other posts, just that these stories are what sets your blog head and shoulders above the others, in my opinion. Always happy to read that you are keeping the wheels down landings at an equal number to the take-offs.
Paul
I appreciate Lex.
Me too! This hop sounded something different than what you would describe as “fun”. Congrats on a safe landing; skill of the pilot obviously being the sole reason for a successful ending.
For those former and current aircraft pilots:
http://www.youtube.com/v/RU1oB8sGyYM
And a German built flying model of the USAF SR-71:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=SDbQ5xvsrIU
Hatch seal (ok, canopy – a window used as a hatch as well -) blew out? Somebody got a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
“You are even permitted the occasional thumping sound (although, especially at night, you’ll find yourself monitoring the engine instruments with increased attention). Ripping sounds are not permitted.” That was funny.
Some of my funniest work stories came from incident reports written by pilots. I just enjoy the pilot’s perspective, given the ending was good for everyone involved.
My first job I was a statistician. I would pour over data, programming, trending, etc. The guy next to me used to input the field reports into the database. Sometimes he would get some really funny ones. I think the funniest was the report where the pilot was reporting the sound and he put something like, “Sounds like a little man is in there with a chain saw…” I guess that’s not a ripping sound. We were at a loss as we were laughing.
Dang, Lex! After reading this & just getting into reading “Act of Valor”, I may have to hunt up a children’s book to calm me down enough to get to sleep! We don’t need any more incidents like this, thank you. May have to find you another cubicle if you keep this up.
Good read, even though my heart is beating a bit too fast… Take care!
Having read it this afternoon in the waiting room, while my car got new rear feet, may I reccomend the heartstooping mystery, Find The Duck? L Frank Baum’s OZ books are well worth giving a read as an adult, too. My personal favorite children’s book series would probably be Walter Brooks Freddy the Pig series.
Glad you got it back on deck sans problems. Had my front windscreens ice up to almost complete in-cockpit IMC conditions while 15 minutes out from a suddenly fowled deck at night in the goo tonight. Played monkey-games with the ECS for a while until we were able to defrost it a bit. Odd, but there wasn’t any other icing present on the aircraft at the time.
All is well that ends well, and we were able to get it on the ground after blasting it with the defog for 20 minutes. Took just long enough for the runway to become clear again. I wasn’t too happy with the idea of taking a trap from ACLS needles, without an LSO or a good ball, but that was my worst-case this evening.
Cheers
That was a good outcome, thanks for sharing and taking us through your thought process.
Lex, I’ve never understood, and I don’t think you’ve really explained, why ATAC has chosen the fleet it has? Why Kfirs and Hunters? I get why the Skyhawks, not sure why they don’t have more, and ditch the Hunters. For a supersonic aircraft, why not F-5′s, that are still in the fleet, at least a little bit, or something else less…..unique?
Wasn’t or isn’t there a company that flies Crusaders in DAC? Now that I’d like to see, Lex whipping around in a strpped down F-8H with the J57-P-420 engine – 19,400 lbst.
Perhaps there’s an economic reason?
Lex, as a former plane captain on the F-8 Crusader I can tell you that the rubber seal may not have destroyed the engine right there. It would have rendered it useless for future flight. On a high-power turn at night on the high-power turn pad I, as captain, was sitting in the hot seat doing a full afterburner run when I, mostly felt, (as I could hear nothing in burner with the canopy open) a vibration in the seat. I went to idle, checked everything out, ran back up to full power, nothing, but in afterburner I could still feel something not quite right. All the instruments in the plane and those hooked up on the ground showed absolutely nothing. So against the mechs advice I shut her down and we still could find nothing. Well I stood my ground as this was mine and the skipper’s plane. So we took her loose from the ground attachment points and as I was pulling the large screen that went over the intake to keep FOD (think “plane captain” here) out of the intake I found about 3′ of the rubber weather, anti-chafe, strip gone off the intake screen. The turbine damage resulted in a pull and complete rebuild! $57,000 damage in 1967 dollars is the number sticking in my mind.
I’m amazed you didn’t make O6. No one writies 19 graphs about some loose weather stripping like you do.
I made O6. What’s perhaps even more surprising is that I was allowed to retire at that pay grade
Doh! I knew there was something wrong with that post. Shoulda had O-7 in there.
Congrats Captain. Lucky man you are.
Thanks for keeping us entertained.