Lots of left rudder... F-16 With Half A Wing Lands

Fastglas

Fastglas

Pre-takeoff checklist
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I don't know much about the physics of these fighter jets but I can only imagine that a missing wing has to be fairly critical. Wonder why he chose to land it rather than bail as his instructor did? Anyway, as they say, any landing you walk away from, is a good one.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Student-Landed-F-16-With-Half-A-Wing-223602-1.html

An Oklahoma Air National Guard student pilot managed to bring an F-16 safely back to his base missing half of the right wing after a midair collision with his instructor over Kansas last October. The Air Force released photos of the aftermath of the encounter in which the unnamed student's outboard missile severed his instructor's wing during a mock dogfight training exercise. The instructor ejected safely and his aircraft crashed harmlessly in a field. Official cause of the accident, according to Stars and Stripes, was pilot error on both counts.

The accident happened as the two aircraft were under simulated attack by a third F-16. According to the report, the two pilots lost sight of one another and miscommunication contributed to the mishap. After they touched, the aggressor F-16 pilot did a visual inspection of the clipped-wing Viper (F-16 pilots never call the aircraft by its official name of Falcon) and the student elected to try to save his aircraft. It's not clear if it was repaired. There was no mention in the report of disciplinary action against either pilot. The instructor landed about 60 feet from his aircraft, which appears to have pancaked in, and suffered minor injuries.

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Can't be the students fault.... Those are the rules. Instructor failed to keep the aircraft separated. Student gets a freebie and a medal for having the brass bawls to fly it in while the other guy pulled the chute.
 
Gav1n said:
I don't know much about the physics of these fighter jets but I can only imagine that a missing wing has to be fairly critical. Wonder why he chose to land it rather than bail as his instructor did? Anyway, as they say, any landing you walk away from, is a good one.
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Well, the article didn't really mention the extent of the damage to the lead aircraft, so if he lost part of the tail and couldn't maintain yaw/vertical control I'd assume the only option is to punch out.
 
Yeah, you can't compare 'Student flew it in while instructor pulled the chute". We have no idea what damage was on the other aircraft.
 
Dang! Looks like the student did some great flying to bring that bird in safely. I'll betcha there was damage to the pilot's seat as well, if you know what I mean ;)
 
I bet you that "student pilot" is better than all of us put together.
 
Unit74 said:
Can't be the students fault.... Those are the rules.
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You should probably read the report. And if you can't read the report, at least read the Starts and Stripes article that quotes it.

Nauga,
and his 2v1 LCLS brief
 
nauga said:
You should probably read the report. And if you can't read the report, at least read the Starts and Stripes article that quotes it.

Nauga,
and his 2v1 LCLS brief
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For those that can't be bothered to look it up, here's the relevant part...

An accident investigation board blamed the collision on the student pilot, who had only 106 flying hours in the F-16, saying he had "disregarded his primary responsibilities, which were maintaining visual and flight-path de-confliction." But the instructor, with 2,400 hours' experience, was also faulted for miscommunications and misperceiving a hard-left turn by the trainee as a right turn.
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{Bold mine}
 
I hope the USAF isn't stupid enough to throw out a multi-million dollar F-16 pilot over this.

Two little gray dots, doing hard ( and I mean HARD) maneuvering at high speed against each other.

This chit will happen every now and then. Fate Is The Hunter.
 
But the instructor, with 2,400 hours' experience, was also faulted for miscommunications and misperceiving a hard-left turn by the trainee as a right turn.

The hazards of painting false canopies on the bottom of fighters. :D
 
Lol! I knew you would have some in your collection. I think I still have the Navy Marine Corps news tape of the F-18 one laying around somewhere. "Met" on the merge.
 
it was last night that I read it, so I could be wrong but I believe this was a 2v1? If that's the case, man, that is potentially one of the most dynamic and dangerous things we do. It can be really fun, and a lot of guys will call it "the greatest flight in the Navy [insert service here]" but it always makes me a little nervous to be honest. 3 airplanes all max performing within a mile of each other doesn't yield much time for error, or lack of situational awareness. Newer wingman, flight lead probably busy trying to fight his jet, it doesn't take two poor aviators to put two jets into the same point in space in that scenario. There are definitely mid air stories that just make you shake your head and wonder WTF they were doing/thinking, but for me, this scenario isn't one of them. Flying into the ground and flying into each other are probably still the two biggest causes of death in fighter aviation.
 
What do you think the career outcomes will be of this incident? Can a military flying career survive something like this still? I would hope so, and I would think so since as you said, this is a highly dynamic training exercise, and sometimes things go wrong in the learning process.
 
Henning said:
What do you think the career outcomes will be of this incident? Can a military flying career survive something like this still? I would hope so, and I would think so since as you said, this is a highly dynamic training exercise, and sometimes things go wrong in the learning process.
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If someone is able to learn from their mistakes, this trainee just did the equivalent of digesting an encyclopedia.
 
JOhnH said:
If someone is able to learn from their mistakes, this trainee just did the equivalent of digesting an encyclopedia.
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Exactly, and not only that, he has proven his reaction modality to these levels of stress, he keeps thinking and doing.
 
I know some guys that have had similar experiences (and thankfully most have lived to tell about it) - they've gone on to have nice long careers.

As far as why not punch - it's not a smooth ride. There is a real strong possibility that you will get seriously jacked up or possibly die by punching. If there's any chance to bring the jet home, we're all going to do it. Not to mention we aren't buying anymore 4th gen and they are the ones that actually work - so we need to keep all we can!
 
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Training accidents happen. In the Army we damaged aircraft every now and then either in training or during wartime. Unless it's gross negligence you're not gonna see an FEB happen. Anything from a 30 day suspension and classes to a quick post accident ride with an IP and back up the next day.
 
Not to take anything away from the pilot, but I wonder how much of this could be attributed to the Fly-By-Wire system compensating for the changes in aerodynamics. The FBW might have been putting in all the control inputs to compensate for the damage and keep things flying (mostly) straight.

Definitely good pilot skills to land that airplane, of course!
 
bullwinkle said:
Not to take anything away from the pilot, but I wonder how much of this could be attributed to the Fly-By-Wire system compensating for the changes in aerodynamics. The FBW might have been putting in all the control inputs to compensate for the damage and keep things flying (mostly) straight.

Definitely good pilot skills to land that airplane, of course!
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I'd imagine this to be somewhat the case. I'm sure guys like nauga can comment more intelligently about how a FBW or CBW system can compensate given feedback......ultimately my presumption is that it can, if there is enough aerodynamic control authority with the remaining flight control surfaces (and of course enough lift remaining to allow for something other than an uncontrolled rapid descent). There have been a lot of heavily damaged aircraft to make it back safely. Then again, the Israeli F-15 that nearly entirely lost a wing had no FBW helping......just brute thrust.
 
35 AoA said:
I'd imagine this to be somewhat the case.
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More or less. With any operable FBW mode you certainly have an advantage over the guy trying to bring one home in MECH/OFF/OFF :D
However, most contemporary control systems are designed with some assumption of aerodynamics. Some are more complex than others but it's down in there somewhere (and some are ore sensitive to variations than others). Ever wonder why even with FBW your airplane handles differently with asymmetric stores? You can't design for every loading and configuration, and damage is 'just' another configuration to the control laws - but they can't 'tell' what has fallen off outside of a few specific design cases. If enough bits fall off or break and you go far enough outside the bounds of those assumptions the handling can degrade pretty quickly and my hat (the one with the propeller) is off to the guys that bring them home that way. That the control laws don't actually make it *worse* under these conditions is a testament to the designers who made the system so robust(*).

There is a lot of research going on now on adaptive controls that *will* manage stuff like this but I don't believe there are any flying on current tactical airplanes. I've 'flown' adaptive systems in sims where what would normally be a catastrophic failure is not detectable without a good instrument scan ;)

(*) 'robustness' is a design goal and there are techniques for incorporating it.

35 AoA said:
I'm sure guys like nauga can comment more intelligently...
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:rofl:

Nauga,
singularly valued
 
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nice, what he said :)

Speaking of handling with different configurations, flew a slick big motor chuck the other day for the first time. It was like a completely different airplane. First time I have been able to hang 2 circle with a viper. It also was accelerating bullseye nose high which was cool
 
35 AoA said:
flew a slick big motor chuck the other day...
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Ah, Fallon. :rolleyes:
Slick Hornets are like unicorns - we've all heard they exist but no one's ever seen one - at least one that's not painted blue. :D

Nauga,
and all the stuff he can carry
 
35 AoA said:
nice, what he said :)

Speaking of handling with different configurations, flew a slick big motor chuck the other day for the first time. It was like a completely different airplane. First time I have been able to hang 2 circle with a viper. It also was accelerating bullseye nose high which was cool
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Do you all still have As? I thought outside of Reserves and RAG everyone was Cs. Even the Blues???

I could definitely see a difference on approach between and A and a C/D. C/Ds climbed out about 50 kts faster. Heard engine response was improved as well.
 
Velocity173 said:
I could definitely see a difference on approach between and A and a C/D.
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I'm surprised at that. Same wing and same on-speed AOA so at the same weight they would be at the same speed so I'm wondering what looked different. Of course "at the same weight" is not necessarily a good assumption ;)

Velocity173 said:
C/Ds climbed out about 50 kts faster. Heard engine response was improved as well.
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You probably never saw a Lot X C then :D All of the weight of the C with original engines. FWIW the -402 engine is basically a -400 engine with 'a few' new components and higher limits at the top end (grossly oversimplified).

Nauga,
and the pig of the fleet
 
nauga said:
I'm surprised at that. Same wing and same on-speed AOA so at the same weight they would be at the same speed so I'm wondering what looked different. Of course "at the same weight" is not necessarily a good assumption ;)

You probably never saw a Lot X C then :D All of the weight of the C with original engines. FWIW the -402 engine is basically a -400 engine with 'a few' new components and higher limits at the top end (grossly oversimplified).

Nauga,
and the pig of the fleet
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Oh not approach speeds. Those were almost always 140 kts for A/C/D. I'm talking working departures on approach. It seemed like the C/D climbed out about 50 kts faster. I don't know, maybe 35 can say but that's what I recall. It could have been just a different load out. Seemed like they generally went out with one centerline and a TACTS pod.

Of course the boat guys came in much faster for the carrier break as well. I guess that's almost becoming a thing of the past with noise abatement concerns.
 
nauga said:
I'm surprised at that. Same wing and same on-speed AOA so at the same weight they would be at the same speed so I'm wondering what looked different. Of course "at the same weight" is not necessarily a good assumption ;)

You probably never saw a Lot X C then :D All of the weight of the C with original engines. FWIW the -402 engine is basically a -400 engine with 'a few' new components and higher limits at the top end (grossly oversimplified).

Nauga,
and the pig of the fleet
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Yeah, I flew lot 13/14 in the fleet, all the weight (systems wise) and none of the extra thrust (ie 400's).

Velocity, I'm honestly not sure if there are any straight A's left (I kind of don't think so). I flew some really low lot C's and of course B's in the FRS, but that is about as old as it got. If they are around anywhere, certainly not operationally. I've logged plenty of time over the last few months in A+ and A++, which is actually a really good configuration. USMC A++ are probably the best legacy hornets around, aside from still being an original A with all the original plumbing/wiring and all the problems associated with that after 20 years or so.....or maybe more than that. If I were to choose a jet to take back to the boat or combat, it would be an A++ for sure......at least if we were talking legacy hornet. Or maybe a lot 20 chuck. Like nauga mentioned, really no difference in approach speed, same wings, though ashore I suppose a charlie had a couple thousand more lbs to tug around at a normal recovery fuel state. Which is why I would vote for an A to go back to the boat.......max trap is like a 6.5/7.0 without ordnance. More like 5.0 for a charlie without bombs/ordnance, and on cruise, we basically had one look at the ball before going to the tanker for a combat sortie. Not always the greatest prospect to look forward to at night at the end of a 7 hr mission.
 
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