Posted on 04/19/2016 2:02:33 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Yep, FOD in the cockpit. And yes, part of every engine runup on the runway prior to brake release is a controls check — partial left, full left, partial right, full right, full back, full forward, rotate around — check freedom of the controls and proper deflection of the flight surfaces, hydraulic pressure OK, no warning or caution lights.
I guess “FOD” is not just a problem related to engine intakes. In this case, the FOD originated on the flight deck and destroyed the aircraft and everyone on board.
WRT your F-4 experiences, one of my regrets in life is not having been able to hear two J-79s at idle at the same time. The coolest sounding engines ever made, in my opinion.
I know today’s engines are far more efficient, but those low-bypass pure jets made a sound that absolutely thrilled me, as a child.
We moved to Los Angeles in 1960, when I was six. We lived in Santa Monica, not too far from the airport. Fantastic sounds in the distance as I walked to and from school each day.
Is it the elevator stop or the case that ends the range of motion and how do you know in the dark?
Bad mistake, easy to make.
My AP is like a surgeon. Counts every tool before he closes. Has cut out foam spots for every tool.
I want a real,well paid expert and anal pilot in the seat and not a drone or rpv on the airline I fly.
Pilots know the feel of the yoke. They should have also noticed during taxi the yoke not at neutral during trim check. The case was preventing full forward input meaning it was used to keep the stabs at neutral or full aft. If they normally taxied at full forward it would have seemed wrong at neutral or full aft. A complete cycling of the yoke and flight control check would have caught the case deflecting the yoke 100% no doubt about it. Being in a hurry and skipping routine checks doomed the crew.
A Spangdahlem F4 had an overlooked socket bouncing around in the cockpit while detailed down to a bombing range in Spain.
My brother was glad it wasn’t his bird.
In the 1930s an early airliner crashed in San Francisco when a microphone cord got tangled up in the yoke.
Do you recall what model aircraft that was?
I don't quite understand. F-4s had two J-79 engines so if you heard them at idle that would be the two.
One weird thing from my years on the flight line: If an F-4 taxied by and then you walked out onto the taxiway directly behind the plane, what you heard was...dead silence. The thrust diagrams show that the thrust goes back but also out at perhaps a 30 degree angle. So if you're standing right behind one you're in a dead zone, and it's silent. Weird.
The loudest thing I ever remember was one night we were searching for an intermittent problem with an engine instrument. The crew chief ran up the engine while we shook the wiring and looked for a jump on the gauge. It shook my whole body, brain included, and the crew chief was only allowed to go to 85% on the flight line. Ah, the good ole days.
The importance of checking and cross-checking between crew members can’t be stressed enough—and it is; unfortunately, in the rush to get airborne, steps are rushed or sometimes forgotten.
My primary AFSC was intel; my crew member days came during a career broadening tour in EC-130Es. Earlier in my career, I was an intel officer in an F-4E squadron. One of the steps in the pre-flight checklist for that aircraft consisted of the aircraft commander moving the stick while the WSO looked out of his cockpit to ensure the control surfaces were moving properly.
One day, a squadron IP was flying with a WSO who had a reputation as a slug. To see if the WSO was on his toes, the pilot called a control check, but didn’t move the stick.
“Everything’s good,” the WSO called from the back seat. The IP cussed him a blue streak over the intercom and after the sortie, he went directly to the squadron commander and told him “I will never fly with that guy again.” And he didn’t.
Interestingly, the WSO was a consummate brown-noser that still made it to UPT. He wound up in the RC-135 community after pilot training, but continued his record of idiocy flying recce aircraft. On one mission, he accidentally dumped cabin pressure, forcing everyone to go on oxygen until they could get to a lower altitude. He would up running the co-pilot enrichment program at his base, arranging flight time for other co-pilots in T-37s. Guess the Air Force thought it would be more difficult to screw things up in Tweets.
Found the crash I mentioned. It was a United DC3 in February 1937. The co-pilot dropped his mic and jammed the elevator controls on approach into SFO.
Was that the type you referred to?
DC3A-197. NC16073
United Flight 23 Burbank to SFO.
11 deaths
I recalled reading this at ASN a few years back.
No point of debating. The restriction could have been a lot or a little and a little may have been just enough. They made a mistake and paid for it and so did others. We’ll never know if they skipped the checks or not and just didn’t notice the difference in their haste.
Can’t believe anyone woudl be a brown noser. They get promoted and moved on everywhere don’t they?
Yeah, he brown-nosed it all the way to Lt Col in the reserves. Amazingly, he somehow got his commercial ticket and became an airline pilot. More recently, he ran for Congress (unsuccessfully) as a Republican, then ran two years later as a Dim. Doing his best to get to the top of the heap, and doesn’t care how he gets there. Maybe politics is his true calling.
Sound like a born politician to me.
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