Dad is a freshly minted butter bar jet pilot assigned to an F-84 squadron in England (77th TFS Gamblers). Since he is the lowest ranking pilot with the lowest time, he gets to fly wing for the squadron CO. They are returning to base on a rare CAVU day in England and dad feels like he has been the perfect wingman. They enter the pattern and when it is time to lower the gear, the CO gives the hand signal. Dad is determined to drop his gear in perfect unison with the CO. He reaches for the handle and gives it a smart pull. Except for in the Lead Sled the gear and canopy handles look similar, at least they do to him on that day . To his horror, the canopy peels backward, but remains attached to the aircraft. The CO lands and dad does another circuit. In his words, it was loud, cold, and the most embarrassing trip around the pattern he would ever make.
He lands and is met not by the squadron commander, but by the wing commander when he taxis to a halt. Of course he gets his ass handed to him and is told that he is off the flying schedule until the aircraft is repaired. Furthermore, he is told to go checkout a toolbox and to report to the NCO in charge in the shop where his aircraft is being towed.
When he reports to the NCO in charge, who is neither intimidated by the damaged F-84, nor by any Lt in the USAF. He tells my dad to not get near the aircraft, but to take his toolbox and go sit next to the hangar wall while the aircraft is repaired. This takes like 18 hours.
Sooo- not mentioning names, year, or base BUT⊠someone happened to be annoyed by the Eurofighter version of BitchinâBetty and against regulations kept shutting her off (thereâs the equivalent of âMute Allâ switch in the EF).
On an approach to land apparently something threw the pilot attention from the usual sequence of actions and somehow forgot to lower his undercarriage.
As BB was muted she couldnât do anything to attract the attention of the pilot and the guy landed as normal as possible on his tanks.
The way he told the story- he knew he â â â â â â up when the plane lowered below the usual level without feeling the gear stopping the descent - that bird sits very high on its wheeled stilts.
(Ugh I feel I didnât write it very well, but I guess you can understand)
The damage, thanks to the underwing tanks was laughable but the guy changed his demeanor sensibly after that. Much more down to earth (pun intended) and less Elitist.
Out of curiousity⊠How are such occurances treated internally? I suppose the pilot gets some sort of extra training (after being shouted at) but is probably not held financially responsible for the damage made?
Well I have no vision of that- I just worked with the pilots because of the simulator and usually they wouldnât disclose 100% of that stuff with usâŠ
I know the reprimand was there but nothing dramatic, the external tanks saved the engines and the cell so- I think they were just happy nothing worse happened.
According to his telling of the story everyone was really supportive but he was quite depressed for some time.
Letâs just say we didnât see him for a little while and then we saw it more often for a little while longer.
EDIT: there was a more dangerous story about a gear warning caption on landing that usually meant the nosewheel was âfree castingâ - imagine you have no control and it essentially behaves like a shopping cart wheel.
Luckily as long as the speed was above a certain threshold the wheel would behave well.
As landing go- though- eventually you have to slow down and stop.
So in this other pilot case the danger was real but it ended up with a little drifting and a nose gear stuck in the grass. If I remember correctly all was good and the plane good to flight the next day.
Having only seen this jet taxi around us when I worked F-15s, this does accurately describe the landing gear. It is one of the more unusual and noticeable jets when its on the ground.
We had a crane called big bertha that would pick the jet up. We had a gear collapse during landing on a F-15.
I befriended several ground crew members because for work I had to get confident with several of the real plane items in and around the cockpit.
When I noticed the tall gear struts most of the guys (around their 40s and above) smiled and agreed it was awesome. They could work under the plane standing up, which was awesome after working on the Tornado or the F-104.
Looks like the reason might be the decision to have the nose gear come out from under the intakes instead of in front. That would have had its own problems, but it means the main gear struts need to be fairly tall so the plane isnât taxiing around with its nose pointed at the sky like a tail dragger.
was just giving the F14 a quick workout, and setting up control bindings, on a side note does anyone know what the binding is for jester menu selectâŠ
but whilst flying jester picked up two targets on the free fly mission over the black sea map, and proceeded to lock them up, ( too far for guns, switching to missiles) and selected a sparrow, and fired⊠the target was a Grisha, i didnt know we could use the sparrow as an anti ship missile
Thereâs a submenu in the controls binding pages (like âAxis commandsâ and âall but axis commands) for Jester AI, and the only one you really need if you have headtracking or VR is the âshow jester ai menuâ or whatever that one is - Iâm away from my PC at the moment sorry.
The Heatblur manual on their site tells me it is âAâ to bring up the menu, and âALT-Xâ, where X is a number between 1 and 8 to directly select options.
Itâs the same button you used to bring up the menu screen, and if youâre in a submenu (like Navigation) looking to the center of the wheel and pressing that button again will take you up one level, or close the wheel if youâre at the top level (and looking to the center of the wheel)
. To his horror, the canopy peels backward, but remains attached to the aircraft. The CO lands and dad does another circuit. In his words, it was loud, cold, and the most embarrassing trip around the pattern he would ever make.
