Randolph AFB mishap

Curious, af the AF analyses the cost to retrofit some of the trainer planes with a chute compared to the costs of the lost aircraft?

In either case. Glad the two pilots are safe, and I do not begrudge the lost tax dollars for the crashed plane. Practicing for war is dangerous.

Tim

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
 
tspear said:
Curious, af the AF analyses the cost to retrofit some of the trainer planes with a chute compared to the costs of the lost aircraft?

In either case. Glad the two pilots are safe, and I do not begrudge the lost tax dollars for the crashed plane. Practicing for war is dangerous.

Tim

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
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How many aircraft are "lost" annually and what is that associated expense, on average? Compare that to the cost of equipping and maintaining a parachute system capable of deploying at speeds in excess of 300kts and I think you'd find that it's not economically feasible. Even with a parachute system, chances are it's going to mangle the aircraft costing millions in repairs.
 
SoonerAviator said:
How many aircraft are "lost" annually and what is that associated expense, on average? Compare that to the cost of equipping and maintaining a parachute system capable of deploying at speeds in excess of 300kts and I think you'd find that it's not economically feasible. Even with a parachute system, chances are it's going to mangle the aircraft costing millions in repairs.
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Hence I asked the question, because I do not have the data. I could not even find a good list if accidents, causes, and flight params.

Tim
 
AWACSEng said:
Regarding handling the emergency, when I earned my PPL, my instructor stressed the point to me that once an emergency happened in the airplane, the airplane now belonged to the insurance company. My only goal was to get on the ground without injuring myself or my passengers. Anything better than that was pure bonus. Look at Cirrus emergency procedures for a comparable reference.
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The simple mantra is Skin, Tin, Ticket.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Engine out, punch out, seems to be the mantra. Perhaps USAF values the pilots more than the plane; I do. That plane was built to land on pavement, it could have easily flipped in the field, which could have left us with two dead pilots. In any case, let's hope it wasn't merely out of fuel.
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A friend of mine flew I want to say the FA-18. He told me a story once of canning a motor on his takeoff run which he barely controlled. He said the response to basically a V1 cut was to punch out because if the jet went into the dirt he was very likely to be killed when it flipped. Thankfully he kept caught it early enough that he kept it on the pavement and saved himself an ejection. Apparently, you can only have so many in your career before they desk you.
 
Art Rose said:
Bull. Saved their bacon. Yea sure, speculation here, but........ Right there in the approach to the field, they probably run it out of fuel. With that big huge open field ahead, that tricycle gear aircraft should have sustained little, or possibly no damage.

The problem here is another 4 million of my tax dollars was totally wasted because engine out Emergency Landings are not taught in ejection aircraft. Something needs to change. There needs to be a thorough investigation, and some changes made.
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They spent the money when they originally bought it; and probably won't add an extra one to the next batch, in order to replace it, so no real dollar loss! Heck, one less aircraft to maintain - you may have a net gain. . .

In cold hard dollars, each pilot is worth more in absolute terms than the airplane.
There is no rational reason to try to dead-stick a turbine powered military aircraft off airport, not with modern seats. Or to clutter the curriculum with a nonsensical and extremly unlikely bold face. Catch a wing tip, drop a main in a hole, collapse the nose gear and go over? Better to step out and save the crew.
 
ARFlyer said:
A friend of mine flew I want to say the FA-18. He told me a story once of canning a motor on his takeoff run which he barely controlled. He said the response to basically a V1 cut was to punch out because if the jet went into the dirt he was very likely to be killed when it flipped. Thankfully he kept caught it early enough that he kept it on the pavement and saved himself an ejection. Apparently, you can only have so many in your career before they desk you.
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The response to a high-speed abort is to take the long field gear, not eject. The decision to eject if departing the runway is largely based on personal criteria.
 
Cooter said:
The response to a high-speed abort is to take the long field gear, not eject. The decision to eject if departing the runway is largely based on personal criteria.
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We had an F-18D lose an engine just prior to rotation once. They were heavy and loaded for the range so they aborted. Unfortunately the E-28 was de rigged so they took the E-5 at high speed. Took out a few approach lights and sunk into the ground.
 
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Velocity173 said:
We had an F-18D lose an engine just prior to rotation once. They were heavy and loaded for the range so they aborted. The E-28 was de rigged so they took the E-5 at high speed. Took out a few approach lights and sunk into the ground.
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When I was at Oceana, there were several overruns within a month or so. Predictably, we all had to receive training which emphasized picking a course of action and sticking with it. Pretty straightforward stuff but it was the hot topic for several weeks. Right after we’d all gotten the training, I was sitting in the hotpits one day and saw a hornet lose (loose in POA-speak) an engine well into his takeoff run. Right when I was thinking that he should abort, I saw the second AB extinguish so I thought all was well. Then the AB re-lit, then went out again, then after several thousand wasted feet of rwy and well past the abort point, he decided to go for it one last time before finally throwing in the towel and going for the long gear. I don’t remember if he ended up off the runway or not but he sure got lucky if he didn’t. I was wondering what the knee jerk was going to be when leadership found out the training didn’t work, at least for some.
 
Cooter said:
The response to a high-speed abort is to take the long field gear, not eject. The decision to eject if departing the runway is largely based on personal criteria.
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So the arresting wire or fence at the far end?
 
ARFlyer said:
So the arresting wire or fence at the far end?
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Arresting gear if you’re above line speed, then personal decision whether to trust the seat if you miss it. A fence would be considered an obstacle, which in most people’s criteria is to eject unless you are very slow. I’ve seen several F-18/F-14s go off the end of the runway and all the ones I’ve seen stayed with it. One was from my squadron and it stayed stuck in the mud for several weeks causing the pilot lots of embarrassment.
 
Cooter said:
Arresting gear if you’re above line speed, then personal decision whether to trust the seat if you miss it. A fence would be considered an obstacle, which in most people’s criteria is to eject unless you are very slow. I’ve seen several F-18/F-14s go off the end of the runway and all the ones I’ve seen stayed with it. One was from my squadron and it stayed stuck in the mud for several weeks causing the pilot lots of embarrassment.
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Interesting.

He always said they are squirrelly with the carrier gear and the canopy won't support the weight of the aircraft. So I guess his personal checklist was to eject and trust the seat. Would that be considered close to a 0/0 ejection?
 
tspear said:
Curious, af the AF analyses the cost to retrofit some of the trainer planes with a chute compared to the costs of the lost aircraft?

In either case. Glad the two pilots are safe, and I do not begrudge the lost tax dollars for the crashed plane. Practicing for war is dangerous.

Tim

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
It would likely cost a billion to develop a chute that could work at low altitudes and high speeds with three tons of airplane.
 
ARFlyer said:
Interesting.

He always said they are squirrelly with the carrier gear and the canopy won't support the weight of the aircraft. So I guess his personal checklist was to eject and trust the seat. Would that be considered close to a 0/0 ejection?
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He probably meant carrier pressurized tires. They are pressurized to around 350 psi when operating to/from the boat and you have to be extra cautious when operating around the field with those. There are a couple of hornet guys on here, they’d know better about the specifics but I haven’t heard of it being unstable on the ground otherwise.

0/0 just means on the ground not moving. Below 50kts would essentially be a 0/0. Most guys will just plan on riding it out below that speed, though the seat is still very capable there. I don’t know of any unsuccessful ejections within the envelope, I know of several outside where the pilots walked away.
 
Art Rose said:
engine out Emergency Landings are not taught in ejection aircraft.
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Hm. I wonder what all this "ELP" nonsense is in this document, then....

http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/aetc/publication/aetcman11-248/aetcman11-248.pdf

1174go8.jpg
 
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