USA's overbuilt F15 lands at about 300 MPH with only one wing

I guess that with such powerful engines you don't really need wings - this thing flies like a rocket ! :yes:
 
Armageddon Aviator said:
I guess that with such powerful engines you don't really need wings - this thing flies like a rocket ! :yes:
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A rocket that must still be landed horizontally. That pilot did an excellent job of getting it back on the ground! The aircraft probably became a hangar queen after that though.
 
Armageddon Aviator said:
I guess that with such powerful engines you don't really need wings - this thing flies like a rocket ! :yes:
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Not really. The F-15's wing is blended with the fuselage so that much of what you think of as the fuselage is actually a lifting surface -- what the Aero E's call "body lift." The concept was pioneered on the "lifting body" vehicles like the one the real "bionic man" was flying when he pranged in the accident made famous in the opening credits of that TV show. Pretty much all modern fighters are the same. Thus, losing one "wing" doesn't mean you've lost half your lift or all the lift on one side of the longitudinal axis.
 
Ron Levy said:
This happened like ten years ago. Old news.
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Wow, it's amazing how much the really old pilots have seen...

BTW: I seem to recall a similar scenario with an F16 losing about half of a wing.
 
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