Jim C.

On January 18th, 1982, during a training flight four of Thunderbirds's aircrafts crash in Indian Springs, Nevada. The four try to perform looping in a line when the leader's plane receives mechanical break-down which does not allow it to exit from looping. During the flights in such a closer formation (typical for most flying teams) all the pilots follow visually the leader and if they are on a one-plane distance from him they follow the plane between the leader and them and do not look out or to the panel. So all the rest three completely trouble-free aircrafts follow the leader till his crash on the ground causing the death of all the four Thunderbirds.


so to sum it up.... situational awareness.[X(]
[link=http://www.aerobaticteams.com/Archive-Thunderbirds.htm]http://www.aerobaticteams.com/Archive-Thunderbirds.htm[/link] for those intrested.

juvatwad

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Pantherflyr, I'm with you. It's all so simple: try to come out of a loop too low, and you will crash. It happened to one of my former squadron buds several ago when he was the east coast F-16 demo pilot.

nightrider_rc

hey i'm new to this thred but i was reading it and just wanted to say a few things
1-the goverment has used many aircraft for thrust vectoring but very few come with it "standard"
2-the f-22 and the JSF both have thrust vectoring but the jsf also has vtol capasity helped with the over 90 degrese of downward vectoring as well as much left and right to controal yaw when hovering, and the f-22 has only limited vectoring (up/down only)
3-an aircraft isn't like a car it doesn't always go where it is pointing
4-i don't know for a fact about what the pilot was wearing but i do know that the blue angels (navy stunt team) don't wear standard epuipment no g-suits for example (limits movement)
5- everyone should just chill if somone gets somthing wrong it's no big deal
6-i dought that a computer aboard an f-16 will override the pilot if he is going into "un-controaled" (sp sorry) flight because spins, stalls, ect. can be used as evasive munevers.

thanks

FHHuber

A car doesn't always go where its pointing... Hydroplaning or ice (or watch some of those spin-outs of a NASCAR or INDY race..) will EASILLY prove that...

If a F-16 pilot is resorting to a stall or spin for evasion... he's already dead. The missile just hasn't hit yet.

NickC5FE

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juvatwad, was your bud the ninth air force demo pilot from shaw? Maj Phillips? If so, i was stationed there when he was. He was an exceptional pilot! I used to love going out on the line on fridays, and watching him perform!!!! Far better than any thunderbird show, everything was so close and "in there", mostly all high g alphas. Later, nick

And for Nightrider, YES the computer aboard the F-16 was designed to override the pilot if he tries to put it somewhere that is unsafe for the jet. He cannot pull 9 g's with wing tanks and bombs, that is due to his stores config g loading, and it just wont happen. If youd like to know what hes limited to, i can find out and tell you. As an Electrical/ Environmental "Spark Chaser", I work on these things for 12 hours of everyday of my life, so i think i know what it should and shouldnt do. Thanks for your input though.

juvatwad

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Pantherflyr, indeed it was "Moose" Phillips, and yes, he was a great guy.

NickC5FE

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Damn, this is a small world. I CANT BELIEVE THAT, i met someone on RCU that new him personally. AWESOME, AWESOME Demo pilot. Sorry about your loss of a friend, especially during a peacetime involvement. Nick

h-ray-RCA

Question about the maneuver. Not to Moday Morning Quarterback but curious...

Wondering why he did not deselect the afterburner on the downline. In my limited acro experience (full size and r/c) that was one of the first things they taught, deselect power over the top and bring it back in to keep from overspeeding on the downline* and add it as the nose comes up. But looking at the ground crew footage it appears he never deselects 'burner.

I could understand trying to power out of the maneuver as the nose came up but he had it on through the downline. Is this normal for miltary demos or did he get messed up?


Steve
*it also keeps the loop symmetrical instead of egg shaped.

NickC5FE

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Well i would believe that the reason he didnt come out of burner is because that 1/2 eight that he did off of take off role probably dwindled his airspeed down to almost stall anyways. The F-16 is no dog, but on takeoff it takes some time to get humpin. He had a very positive climb out angle and at that angle the jet doesnt perform like it would in a full runway length run. He had a pretty short takeoff role going into that manuever. The F-16 ALSO BLEEDS OFF AMAZING AMOUNTS OF SPEED IN HIGH G ENVIRONMENTS. Sooooo, going over the top he probably took the last lil bit of umpf to get over, and the benefit of burner was needed. Nick

Jim C.

hehehehehe couldnt have said it better!

RCRAINMAN

There is just one thing I do not understand here. I work at an airport that is host to many aerobatic pilots. Normally pilots will set their altimeters to field elevation, which is 755 MSL. But whenever the aerobatic pilots take out their Extra 300's, they ALWAYS set their altimeters to zero. This means that regardless of field elevation, their altimeter is all-needles-up. The crash report confirmed that the Thurderbird pilots also used this technique, as the pilot does not have time to subtract field elevation from his altimeter to get his AGL altitude. The only time that the T-bird pilots have to know their MSL altitude is when they radio it in. Other than that is all AGL, needles-up and your on the ground. So does this mean that the T-bird pilot did not zero his altimeter before his takeoff roll? And if this is the case then what altimeter setting did he call in over the radio before takeoff? Why didn't someone catch this? With all the practice and mindless repetition these guys under-go, why didn't someone realize that he was obviously not in sync with the rest of them. ALSO, if he was squaking any kind of Mode C Xpdr code to local ATC, then they would see all the Tbirds at a common skewed altitude (due to the fact that they are xmitting an altitude much different than field elevation, in this case zero) and the one T-Bird should stand out like a sore thumb.
All of these mistakes on so many people's behalf led to this crash. It was the pilots fault as PIC, most definately, but this also says a lot about the ground support and flight support.

David
10 Hrs from Private pilot!

juvatwad

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You can cross reference AGL and MSL in the HUD. All the information is there, it's a question of how it's processed....

Turbo442

in case you guys have missed this series of photos...

http://www.authphoto.com/maatbirds/tbpage.htm

Matt

Turbo442

also,

does anyone know the details of this photo? Maybe it is not as bad as it looks?

Note speed brakes on.

http://w1.rob.com/pix/oops/closecall

steakandale

just found an in-cockpit video of the crash...

http://www.f-16.net/PhotoGallery/album44/aby.mpg

azyron

I can confirm that this picture is real for I was at that airshow in Mountain Home last fall when it occurred. I was taping the show on my camcorder and caught the whole thing on video.

GPutt33

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Guys - Here is the accident review and it has two great video's at the bottom to watch.

One is the on-board cockpit camera of the pilot. You can see the entire Split S and then he punches out with 0.8 seconds to spare.

The other video is from the Ground Crews line of site from take off to crash.

[link=http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article968.html]F-16 Thunder Bird Crash[/link]

raptor11

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Cool Footage.

RAPTOR 11
FLY, FIGHT, WIN!

Lowlevlflyer

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No one went "retro" as you put it.. The Thunderbirds have been using the HGU-33 helmet just like the one in the cockpit video for years. They have never used the HGU-55 which is standard issue to regular flight crews. The Blue Angels use the 33 also, instead of the 55 or HGU 68 TACAIR that is issue to naval and marine flight crews.

Birdman93

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The image in the first post of this thread was made using a high-speed camera located on the tower-no photographers are allowed except the AF guys. The highspeed cameras are there to document all flights arriving at and departing from MHAFB

juvatwad

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Lowlevlflyer,

Just to dig up an old thread...The Thunderbirds never have used the HGU-33, from my subsequent research (I asked). Although the helmet looks like an HGU-33 (Navy helmet), it's actually a modified HGU-55/P.