EAA News - Fog on the Flight Deck Led to F-16 Overrun at AirVenture 2011 [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUei3kAcl9s]F16 Crash Oshkosh EAA AirVenture 2011 HD(1080p) - YouTube[/ame] Always wondered about these cases and I think it was answered before but I cant remember. But in a case like this, and even if it is pilot error but no large scale damage or bodily harm is done(relatively speaking), is he done flying? In other words how much damage is too much damage before they throw the hammer down?
I really can't say for the air force but I knew a Helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps That killed 3 Crew Chiefs in a mishap and he was flying again. He even lost 2 fingers in the crash and was still flying. The Navy and Marine Corps also have classes of mishaps Class A, Class B, and Class C. Each one is a monetary value of the damage done and a Class A is the worst when I was in it was 1 Million dollars (or More) in damage or results in the loss of life. That would classify it as a class A mishap.
Normally, you would expect to see the pilot go around, but with his canopy fogged up, he probably could not see the runway well enough to do the go-around and he did not want to plow into the crowd with afterburners cooking. I doubt he lost his wings, but am sure he got some retraining on going around when trouble pops up. His lead being on the runway in front of him probably factored in to what he did, too. Considering where the intake is on an F-16, that was definitely a Class A accident ($1M or more in the olden days).
A least he did not need a ladder to get out. That was probably a really long walk to wherever he went.
Retired Marine pilot friend was at Quantico for big annual open house. AF sent over a pair of F15's for display day or 2 prior. Friend (he was a jar head afterall) said AF pilot was showing off and managed to flatten tires on landing. Every jar head present made sure it was a very long walk.
Not sure how it is in fighter aircraft but flat tires sometimes happen, it doesn't always mean a hard landing. Sometimes I brake will stick or some other issue which will cause a blowout. I know one person who got a medal after blowing all four main landing gear tires at Kuwait International. Brakes locked up on one wheel causing tire to blow and aircraft nearly went off the runway. In process of keeping in on the prapaired surface the remainder of the mains blew out. It was way better to keep it on the runway at the expense if grinding the wheels to the hubs.
Could the fog caused by a climate control system sneak up on a pilot that quickly? Armchair quarterback in me wonders why he didn't climb to a safe altitude on instruments... wait, as I type that we are actually talking about fog that occupied the air inside the cabin and not just condensation coating the windscreen?
I dunno about fighters but I have personally experienced near instant whiteout in the C-130 under certain conditions..... Usually it's something like this. You have just landed someplace hot and very very humid but the cockpit has air conditioning going max blast. As soon as you get into parking and down speed engines which causes the a/c packs to kick off. The pressurization system seems to always keep things over pressured slightly on the ground so the warm air starts coming in and hits the cold air combined with pressure drop and suddenly it's a fog filled cockpit. It's happened to me probably a dozen times in Bahrain which is one of the most humid places I have been.
Mark- AC never worked well enough on an F-111 to do that. Plus by then we usually had the canopy glass open for better visibility on the ground. Like a 300 SL Gullwing.
One problem with these fighters is that these engines still make a good bit of thrust, even at idle. Idle is set where the engine will run without surging or combustion instability, it has nothing to do with low thrust. When I was a P&W we reduced the idle speed on the engines in the F16 so that they could operate in Norway. The aircraft couldn't be held back on slick surfaces and they were skating all over the place. F15's could shut off one engine, but the F16 was a problem. Even with the reduced idle there were problems on slick surfaces, but we couldn't run the engine any slower. And yes, he made a mistake and for any number of reasons screwed the pooch, but a high powered aircraft that has a lot of idle thrust doesn't slow down that last bit and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble in a situation where the casual observer says "why didn't he just slow down?"....
