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Disaster at the Local Air show

Volitions Advocate

Volitions Advocate

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I've only gone twice in my life, but I'm always intrigued by the military's presence at the shows.  Here in Alberta we have a pretty prestigious air weapons range at Cold Lake and it's a bit part of the whole "northern sovereignty" issue we're currently having with Russia.

Anyway, it starts tomorrow and the CF18s were out practicing maneuvers for the air show, which Can't be easy to do  in a jet that wasn't designed to fly so slowly.

And this was the result  :(

http://www.globallethbridge.com/fighter+crashes+Lethbridge/3315229/story.html

Apparently the Pilot is okay.  Thank goodness.

Apparently they are still going on with the air show tomorrow.  should make a lot of people happy.  I would really hate to be that pilot right now.. i'm sure he's either extremely pissed, or feeling kind of shameful right now.  no news yet about what happened but I'm pretty sure its not solely his fault.  Poor guy.
 
haha yeah, of all things to have to parachute into after a near death experience, "Stayin' Alive" is not my first choice. or on my list of top 100.

i wonder what he was trying to do :icon_scratch: that was a pretty ridiculous stall he had there. glad he's ok!
 
Alfang said:
Looks like it was his fault to me, he was flying too slow and stalled it
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's the pilot's fault, per se. I suspect he deliberately drove it into a stall as a stunt maneuver, believing he could just power out of it right before he lost all control authority. But, it would seem the engine(s) said no, and he didn't have any altitude to play with so he had no choice but to toss it. Lucky he lived, considering his 'chute had barely any time to open. He must've hit the ground with little help slowing down, and that's where the injuries came from.

What's really surprising is that they've lost 16 of those planes since just before this time last year, with 8 pilots dying in the process. Why would anyone go stunting in a plane with that kind of record? Test pilots in experimental planes have better stats than that.
 
yeah, you'd think they'd move on to a new plane after all that. and i think ejector seats are required to be able to safely eject people while the plane is still sitting on the ground, so he should have had plenty of room. but of course ejecting in the field would be nothing like ejecting in test conditions. glad he survived!
 
Looking at the video, he didn't eject up, he shot out pretty much parallel to the ground, so the rockets in the ejector seat didn't gain him any altitude to float down from. If he'd have dumped a few seconds earlier, he might have been somewhat better off, but I'd wager he didn't anticipate having to eject. He probably expected to just drive out of the stall with gobs of thrust that unfortunately weren't available for some reason. I mean, if you watch and time it, the guy had mere fractions of a second to decide what the hell to do, and I'm sure dumping the plane is always at the bottom of the list of options. As anyone who's ever met a fighter jock will tell you, they have some of the biggest egos on the planet. It's almost inconceivable to them that they can't control a plane. He worked at it until the last millisecond before deciding to abort, and it nearly cost him his life.

But, to be fair, those planes have well-defined performance envelopes, and those pilots are highly trained. He wasn't experimenting, he knew the plane could do what he was asking of it. But, it didn't. So, wtf? These things are apparently failing at a phenomenal rate... why are they even trying to play showoff games?
 
Cagey said:
What's really surprising is that they've lost 16 of those planes since just before this time last year, with 8 pilots dying in the process. Why would anyone go stunting in a plane with that kind of record? Test pilots in experimental planes have better stats than that.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And those are not cheap pieces of machinery. Maybe Canada should stop dicking around, and start blowing stuff up for real!

But seriously, I am a peace-nik, so w/e.

What's actually has me going is that at those shows, they fly OVER the crowd sometimes. Bigger accident avoided? Maybe....
 
Canada's record for the F18s aren't bad at all.  According to the news the last time one crashed was over 5 years ago. *checks*    yeah pretty much: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_CF-18_Hornet#Notable_losses

Maybe Canada should stop dicking around, and start blowing stuff up for real
Click to expand...

Gotta keep up with current events : http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canada+spend+billion+fighter+jets/3290774/story.html
 
As far as his ejection, these ejection seats are equiped with gyros that keep track of which way is up, nozzles in the seats rocket motors swivel to keep the seat going in an upward direction. Though the video isn't panned outy enough to see it, you can start to see the seat uprighting itself at the end of the clip.

Having flown a jet, the throttle response ie... forward motion from thrust input on throttle has a lag, you ask for thrust and theres a 3 second delay before you feel it in your seat of your pants, especialy at lower speeds.

Once he lost controll, the lag in throttle response was just too long to overcome.

I will argue again that it's all pilot error.  Cagey, what do you mean pilot fault per se?  Theres not an airplane made that doesn't have an envelope that it's supposed to fly within, you get outta that envelope, and your in trouble.

Pilots are a cocky bunch, all my family are pilots. It's easy to think you know more than the laws of flight sometime.  Most and I mean most 95% of all plane crashes are pilot error
 
Alfang said:
I will argue again that it's all pilot error.  Cagey, what do you mean pilot fault per se?   Theres not an airplane made that doesn't have an envelope that it's supposed to fly within, you get outta that envelope, and your in trouble.
Click to expand...

Just what I said, that I'm not sure it was pilot error, unless you consider strapping yourself into a jet like that a fundamental error to begin with <grin>

He was stunting, so he was on the edge of the flight envelope and knew it. I'm sure he'd done it before at least one or two mistakes high, and knew how to recover. But, this time, for some reason, he either couldn't get the thrust he wanted when he needed it, or some control system failed. Or, maybe he did screw up. Nobody's perfect, and military jets aren't very forgiving. I'm not trying to exonerate the guy, I'm just tossing ideas around. This is a discussion, not a court hearing.
 
Just to add my 0.02$.

Buddy o mine works at Cold Lake with the CF18's. He tells me there was an incident once when a plane came back from a training mission... AND WAS MISSING MOST OF A TAIL AILERON! (not the first time either). Pilot never noticed. Computers compensated for everything.
These beasts are very sophisticated (mind you, nothing like the newfangled American planes). They are HEAVILY retrofitted to keep them useful in modern theaters. They are also one by one being modified in specific ways (drilling holes at the end of fatigue cracks, reinforcing certain surfaces, lubricating membranes) to delay the normal decay process that huge stress causes on these machines. They are all at various phases of retrofitting and decay. My buddy tells me these planes each have their own "character" because of this.
Maybe an aileron cracked.
Maybe the computer farted.
Maybe the pilot was used to another plane.
Maybe this, maybe that, maybe anything.
Point is, very often it's multi-factorial: small computer glitch, minor equipment malfunction, pilot miscalculation, each alone wouldn't be enough, but add them all together...
It's very simplistic to say "pilot was a douche" - he may well have been, and the Forces will try to save face until the cows come home.
Anything posted here will just be supposition, and even the report will likely be tinged with "We suspect that..." or "In all likelyhood...".

I'm just glad the pilots OK, and maybe Harper will wake up and see that our planes date back to when the Eurythmics put out Sweet Dreams - and that they're on life support.

Mmm... Shiny new F-35's.
 
i agree with mgaut051. at speeds that slow it really could have been anything. he might have been able to pull out but felt like he didn't have enough throttle. the computer might have just been flashing a warning that it was in a full stall and he had to go. maybe the afterburner just plain didn't kick in when it was supposed to and he decided it was a good idea to bail before it had hit the ground. at airspeeds that slow there's a lot that could have gone wrong.
 
mgaut051 said:
Just to add my 0.02$.

Buddy o mine works at Cold Lake with the CF18's. He tells me there was an incident once when a plane came back from a training mission... AND WAS MISSING MOST OF A TAIL AILERON! (not the first time either). Pilot never noticed. Computers compensated for everything.
These beasts are very sophisticated (mind you, nothing like the newfangled American planes). They are HEAVILY retrofitted to keep them useful in modern theaters. They are also one by one being modified in specific ways (drilling holes at the end of fatigue cracks, reinforcing certain surfaces, lubricating membranes) to delay the normal decay process that huge stress causes on these machines. They are all at various phases of retrofitting and decay. My buddy tells me these planes each have their own "character" because of this.
Maybe an aileron cracked.
Maybe the computer farted.
Maybe the pilot was used to another plane.
Maybe this, maybe that, maybe anything.
Point is, very often it's multi-factorial: small computer glitch, minor equipment malfunction, pilot miscalculation, each alone wouldn't be enough, but add them all together...
It's very simplistic to say "pilot was a douche" - he may well have been, and the Forces will try to save face until the cows come home.
Anything posted here will just be supposition, and even the report will likely be tinged with "We suspect that..." or "In all likelyhood...".

I'm just glad the pilots OK, and maybe Harper will wake up and see that our planes date back to when the Eurythmics put out Sweet Dreams - and that they're on life support.

Mmm... Shiny new F-35's.
Click to expand...

all very true, i know from airforce experience what these thing go through, and the navy jets that landed often had flaws that we would not let go, the navy repair people arent as specialized as far as what im told, airforce personel work in one specific area of maintenance, if you go to school for hydraulics that's your afsc, you work hydro and hydro only, structures people work stuctures only, but the navy these are just more skills to tack onto being in aircraft maintenance.

i have seen an f-15 land missing the upper tourque box, a large portion of the vertical stabilizer. pilot didnt notice, and in an airshow scenario they often push limits of low speed manuvers, ive seen f-15's literally hover, an unloaded but full of fuel f-15e has a greater than 1-1 thrust to weight ratio, the horizontal stabs have a huge area and range of motion. the thrust from the engines draws air downward over the stabs and a skilled pilot can point the nose up and bring the plane to a speed so slow you arent sure if it is going anywhere, its pretty cool.

remember also that most of these airframes where constructed in the 80's and 90's the designs date back to the 70's and earlier. they were never meant to last this long, i know about a couple specific problems one airframe or the other has had but im not sure i should share too much. nothing too dangerous or out of the ordinary just all information is sensitive and its against what i was taught in the service.

 
they just wont approve the budget at this point to replace our fleet, they just more or less supplement it with a few shiny new planes. we built these things out of the cold war, they are just too expensive too replace, we waited too long to develope new weapons so we have a big inventory ofold jets and need a lot at once to replace them rather than haveing a constant stream of a few new weapons as we go. yes they are effective today, no we dont need anything better but they diddnt consider these things just wearing out for too long now its an apparent problem and they struggle to keep up on up-keep as f-22's and other platforms are implemented.

alfang i agree pilots should be held to the highest standards, i have seen pilot error blamed on a couple tires troops because they didnt fill out the paper work correctly and it was just wrong, but realize that stunt flying is as difficult as it get and mistakes happen all the time, there may have been another factor, i can share something but probably shouldnt on this board, it's not that relevant as it was a different airframe but sometimes these things do somethings that are just spooky.

oh and an incentive flight, that must have been really cool! or do you actually have a pilots licence? my friend tod went up in an f-15 but they didnt tell the sp's what was going on and they tackled his 6month pregnant wife because she was taking pictures, a capt came out and called them idiots and proceeded to raise hell, it was a big mess
 
UPDATE:

I went to the airshow today. had free tickets (nice)

The squad of military paratroopers did their routine and landed right in front of us.  Had a quick chat with them while they were packing up their chutes and the lead guy said that they cut him loose from his chair.  He actually landed on his head in the chair.  so i guess those stabilizers that Alfang was talking about didn't have enough time to work properly.  he cracked 2 vertebrae and is currently in a wheelchair while he recovers.  I was in the VIP section and saw him sitting about 50 yards away from me.  I called after him when the show was over and let him know that I was glad he was okay.  He waved at me and said thanks, figured it might make him feel a tiny bit better.  Who knows what people have said to him the last 3 days.

The show went on though.  They had a 2nd F18 there but it didn't fly during the show.  Instead they filled the slot with an A-10  which was very cool.  I was impressed and i had always wanted to see one fly before.
 
I remember when I used to deliver Pizza on the Air Force Base.

Nothing quite like getting a very large gun shoved in your face.

weekly.

ITS NOT MY FAULT F-22 ENGINEERS/MECHANICS/WHATEVERS... WANT A STUFFED CRUST. I JUST TAKE THE PIZZA WHERE I'M TOLD.

Fun fact though. show up with two Base Cops to the Hanger to deliver the Pizza, because you darn near got strip searched. AND THE TIPS ARE AMAZING.
 
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