Letters to the Editor
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about right
I've flown some high-performance aircraft in my life, and in my post-military career I flew an F-16 for a magazine article.
I don't know all the specifics of the F-4, but it sounds like our author got it pretty much right. Too bad he was such a wimp, though. Four G's? Puh-leeze! You'll get that on the Incredible Hulk rollercoaster at Universal Studios Orlando.
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On the Merits of 'Troubleshooting'
JimCH's critique of 'troubleshooting' pilots contains some extraordinary claims.
According to him, the crew of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 "proceeded to ‘trouble shoot’ a failing trim system problem, running a failing jack screw to complete failure. . ."
The crew did no such thing. The jackscrew assembly, stripped of all threads due to inadequate maintenance, snapped under aerodynamic pressure. Without it, vertical control of the aircraft was lost. The crew diverted to Los Angeles for an emergency landing, but the catastrophic failure of the jackscrew assembly essentially doomed the flight.
The NTSB blamed improper lubrication and maintenance of the jackscrew assembly for the disaster. Pilot error was not cited the report. (You can read it online) The crew was awarded the Airline Pilots Association Gold Medal for Heroism.
On the other hand, the crash of Eastern Flight 401, which Jim also mentions, was due to crew error. The pilot inadvertently took the plane out of autopilot control, and the crew, distracted by a problem with the landing gear, failed to notice the aircraft's descent.
This was, indeed, incompetence, but what it has to do with the cocksure "fighter pilot mentality" the writer describes, the urge to "test the limits" of a machine, God only knows.
It is ironic that this writer could end his account with ". . . these are essentially the facts". "No Trouble Shooting, Please", had it been submitted as an article rather than a letter, would not have passed even the most cursory fact checking.
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On the Merits of ‘Troubleshooting’
Actually the facts in my previous letter are quite correct, so the accusation below should not stand unchallenged.
True, mechanical failure was the primary cause of the accident. However, one of the sad lessons that was learned after analysing Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was that getting the plane safely on the ground rather than troubleshooting the mechanical problem should be the crew’s priority. It is likely that the crew could have flown the aircraft with a jammed trim system to a safe landing. However, because they elected to perform a series of attempts to mechanically override the trim system, catastrophic failure of the jammed system was the result.
I refer to the following report:
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2002/AAR0201.pdf
In Section 2.2.5 “Flight Crew Decision-Making“ (primarily subsections 2.2.5.4 and 2.2.5.5) The Safety Board concluded that the crew went well beyond what was called for in the Alaska Airlines’ checklist, and that their attempts to trouble shoot the problem likely worsened the situation. Furthermore, as a result of this incident, the Safety Board recommended that crew guidance be strengthened to indicate that in such cases if the checklist procedures do not result in an operable trim system, the flight crew should always immediately land at the nearest suitable airport, and they should refrain from attempting troubleshooting measures beyond that provided in procedure checklists.
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The G thang, baby
>>Four G's? Puh-leeze! You'll get that on the Incredible Hulk rollercoaster at Universal Studios Orlando.
Ah, sure, for a fraction of a second. The human body can take 20Gs, as long as it's for a very brief moment.
4Gs, sustained for longer than a few seconds, feels awful.
6Gs plus, sustained for any length of time, can make grown men scream like little girls.
High Gs HURT.
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Not Much of a Pilot
Who the hell is this pussy? Here he has the chance of a lifetime to fly in one of the baddest, sleakest, most fire breathing fighter-bombers ever constructed by the hand of man, and all he can talk about is how he is about to wet his pants! Some one throw this jerk a pacifier. Maybe he can stick it up his ass!
Wus
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Were you really scared...
...or was that rhetorical license for the readership of the Robb Report?
Don't get me wrong - I would be as pasty-faced as the next guy, I might lose my lunch, I might even be momentarily terrified during parts of the flight, but just thinking about it gives me goose bumps - the good kind. I wish I had the opportunity. I would happily pay $200 just to do a real simulator.
Military flight is not as safe as a commercial airliner, but it is still much safer than getting on the freeway (read the statistics), especially today when ORM and CRM are routinely practiced.
The US has B-52s, C-130s, and H-46s much older than your Phantom (older than their crews) still operating in combat. As The Pilot has said, with proper maintenance, planes can fly pretty much forever. Flying the Herc is boring unless it involves a very short field, bad weather, or ACM practice. I have flown "commercially" more than once on a 1955 vintage Twin Otter. It could land on a two-lane road or a football field in an emergency - very comforting. Please correct me, but I tend to think of anything with two engines and radar as "safe".
So your flight should have been more thrill than terror - kind of like going 100 mph down a deserted mountain road in the rain, only better.
Garry Owen, thanks for sharing your experience. Garryowen! If you ain't Cav,... I haven't been there and done that, but you are right, nothing else sounds like a Slick. My son loves watching the local Bell 212 take off with its "whop, whop, whop!"
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Were you really scared...
...or was that rhetorical license for the readership of the Robb Report?
Don't get me wrong - I would be as pasty-faced as the next guy, I might lose my lunch, I might even be momentarily terrified during parts of the flight, but just thinking about it gives me goose bumps - the good kind. I wish I had the opportunity. I would happily pay $200 just to do a real simulator.
Military flight is not as safe as a commercial airliner, but it is still much safer than getting on the freeway (read the statistics), especially today when ORM and CRM are routinely practiced.
The US has B-52s, C-130s, and H-46s much older than your Phantom (older than their crews) still operating in combat. As The Pilot has said, with proper maintenance, planes can fly pretty much forever. Flying the Herc is boring unless it involves a very short field, bad weather, or ACM practice. I have flown "commercially" more than once on a 1955 vintage Twin Otter. It could land on a two-lane road or a football field in an emergency - very comforting. Please correct me, but I tend to think of anything with two engines and radar as "safe".
So your flight should have been more thrill than terror - kind of like going 100 mph down a deserted mountain road in the rain, only better.
Garry Owen, thanks for sharing your experience. Garryowen! If you ain't Cav,... I haven't been there and done that, but you are right, nothing else sounds like a Slick. My son loves watching the local Bell 212 take off with its "whop, whop, whop!"