Dmaxx, Flew Hornets on the USS Midway and at China Lake afterwards from 87-95. Got out of the Navy in 95 and was hired by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) to instruct Kuwaitis in their Hornets. Kept my wits about me while over there . The LEXs (Leading Edge Extensions) from the wing root to under the canopy brought vortices around for some rudder authority at high AOA. Not really the most efficient soution, but it worked....as long as both engines were running. As Blueheart said, he would have had to come out of burner and immediately reduce AOA in order to stop the unrecoverable yaw. I think he had about 1 to 2 secs to make that hard decision. Bill
Sounds like the engine out procedure on a Martin B-26. Retard power on the good engine and maintain directional control. Otherwise, ride it through an uncontrolled roll into the ground. I don't believe that I have ever heard of a worse airplane to have an engine fail on takeoff than a Martin B-26. My brother in law flew them in New Guinea.
Bob and All: More of a question than a statement, isn't this SOP for recovery below Vmc? I take my commercial multi check ride next week and all the Vmc demos are executed this way. Of course we are in a Seminole...not quite an F18 or B26 for that matter.
Unbelievable story and pictures. Its also a bit of an eye opener to see how good the eject procedure worked at the last moment. Glad he is recovering.
True. I used to fly over the bay at the end of the runway and depending on the tidal action you could still see wreckage on the bottom.
Bob- The P-38 had the same procedure. If you have two counterrotating engines, there is essentially no torque. When you lose one, you now have lots of torque and a torque roll is a real possibility at MTO power. My father said you pulled the engine back momentarily, kicked in a ton of rudder and then used the ailerons to maintain wings level as you slowly added power back. The aircraft were obviously single seat, so no instructor pilot, but they practiced the maneuver at altitude dirty to see how it felt and how to recover. He said that even just yanking the engine back to idle vs it stopping, the magnitude of the roll was breath-taking if you did not immediately counter it. The really good P-38 combat pilots like Bong, McGuire and McDonald would used that rapid roll in combat to tighten turns and somewhat overcome the P-38's slow initial roll response due its inherent stability. Taz Terry Phillips
FWIW the local news has said that the pilot is at home and itching to fly again.......he's gonna be in a back brace for a couple of weeks as he has 2 compressed vertebrae from the ejection forces.....but other wise he's OK.
Pilot tells us his version of events; http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100817/bews-recalls-cf18-crash-100817/
Matt Lauer's interview is up on hulu and msnbc. Capt. Bews now gets to be a member of a very special club - the ejection tie club. Martin Baker actually have a club with a special tie, tie tac, patch, membership card and certificate for those whose lives were saved by a Martin Baker ejection seat.
Yes! One of the umpteen commandments of flying, " Thou shalt maintain airspeed lest the earth arise and smite thee!"
