Posted on 11/14/2016 11:09:21 AM PST by BenLurkin
Yep. Taking off from a floating garbage fire has its risks.
Reminds me of when an advanced attack aircraft rolled off one of our carriers. There was a USSR sub watching the entire thing.
To make sure the Russians did not retrieve the aircraft, several of our warships remained in the area till the aircraft could be salvaged.
Like the infamous “Forrest fire”. Terrible.
Aircraft carried: Approx. 41 aircraft[4]
Fixed Wing;
12 × Su-33 fighters (current)
20 × MiG-29K/KUB fighters (future)[5]
4 × Sukhoi Su-25UTG/UBP trainers
Rotary Wing;
4 × Kamov Ka-27LD32 helicopters
18 × Kamov Ka-27PL helicopters
2 × Kamov Ka-27PS helicopters
I was on the flight deck of the Kennedy when that happened...
I was sleeping in my plane (I was a plane captain) which was parked with the tail pointed towards the waist catapult. I awoke when my plane was jostled violently (I thought for a long time that my plane had been hit by the Tomcat, but it wasn’t) as the full jet blast of the Tomcat hit before the plane went over the side. I jerked around just in time to see the tail disappear over the edge of the flight deck, and the crew ejected.
I do remember seeing a Soviet cruiser a few miles distant off the starboard bow, and though I didn’t see it, I was told one of our ships cut across its path to deflect it.
Such is standard Cold War stuff!
Thanks, Chode!
only info was mech problems on launch, could be FOD nut i’m guessing not
and i doubt it’s excessive hours on either the pilot or plane
any thoughts
I just think they don’t have any meaningful experience in that environment.
It is an unforgiving landscape, Naval Aviation. Heck, all aviation in unforgiving. Our forces have accidents too, but we train (or try to) like we fight, as best we can. We could have our aviators do powderpuff training, but I don’t think we generally do, at least we didn’t back then...I don’t know about now. I have always assumed it is pretty aggressive.
Granted, when I was in back in the Seventies, we were restricted (money wise) to flying less, using less ordinance, spending more time in port, etc.
But we had planes crash.
I saw that Tomcat go off the side when were out of Scotland.
I saw an RF8 Crusader go off the bow cat right and do an immediate bank to the side and right into the drink.
I saw a cold cat shot of an A7 from our sister squadron (VA-72) off the Eisenhower, and the pilot died while the entire ship (it seemed) watched. He landed in the water, got completely tangled in the parachute lines, and we had a whaleboat right there, but they couldn’t get him aboard and he drowned. I watched them bring him through the hangar bay from the boat doing CPR on him.
I saw a A6 Intruder break its hook on a night landing, proceeding off the angle at an exceedingly low speed, both crew ejected, one landing on the deck, and I watched the carcass of the pilotless plane proceed in front of the ship with its nose pointing skyward, until, engines roaring, it pirouetted and slowly fell into the water several hundred yards directly in front of the ship. It instantly disappeared in a little patch of foam, sinking like a rock with holes in it. I felt like I was all alone up near the bow of the ship when I saw that one, at night running flight operations under darkened ship conditions. I remembered running below to my shop, bursting in all out of breath and saying “You’ll never believe what I just saw!”
And we had an A6 flying out to the Kennedy from Oceana that simply disappeared without a trace.
Point is, this was all in a peacetime Navy, flying less hours because we couldn’t ‘t afford to fly. And I saw all these with my own eyes (except, of course, the last one)
These things happen. But you and I know, while reading these threads about the might of the Russian Navy, that they are just infants at this. Doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t get better at it, but I would be astonished to hear they were operating at any great pace. We could launch fifteen or twenty planes and not even bat an eye, even though we were cannibalizing our hangar queens to keep the rest going. But our Navy has been doing it for many years. But we knew how to conduct flight operations. They could watch us do it, and nearly always did have some vessels trailing along watching, but watching and taking notes is one thing, managing the details and technical portion is quite something else.
So, they lost a plane. I don’t take any enjoyment or entertainment from that per se, we aren’t in open conflict with the Russians, so I hope the aircrew is okay. But, they are going to make mistakes and lose planes learning lessons we may have learned many years ago.
I remember getting the standard lecture from one of our 1st Class Petty Officers when we first got on the ship. He said something to the effect of “You might think some of the things we have you do are stupid or unnecessary. Do it anyway. There are a lot of hard lessons learned through injury and death, so if we tell you to do something a certain way, you do it.”
The Russians may have to learn those lessons on their own.
Heck, could be anything I guess. On that RF8 that went in on cat launch I saw, they never knew what it was, but assumed it was some kind of mechanical failure of the control system.
I don’t know much about operations off a ramp like that one...the Brits did a lot like that, but I don’t know if that makes them more susceptible to FOD or not. I speculate that it could...if you think about it, a plane being shot off a cat spends less time (Theoretically) sucking air over a given portion of deck, so...it seems possible FOD could be a greater danger in non-cat operations.
Interesting, never thought about it before.
Mark Twain — ‘Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.’
I certainly don’t think they are our buddies, what I find disconcerting is the effort to paint them as some kind of super naval force, when in reality, their naval power is relatively weak and not as suited to blue water operations.
I don’t find any entertainment in it, since we aren’t in open conflict, but about the best I can manage is a factual “Hey Russians, carrier operations aren’t a piece of cake, and you guys have quite a bit to learn.”
Jihadis blowing themselves up by accident...no question, I find great entertainment in that. Not quite the same here, for me at least.
Heh, that is a great quote! He was an interesting guy...:)
Huh. I have always thought I had some knowledge of those things, and didn’t know that! Fascinating...I had to go read up on it.
See, learn something new every day!
in those days, it musta been real kick in the ass
same system for launching float planes off BB’s?
“An advanced Russian jet just crashed during its debut off the Syrian coast”
Well, at least they got that out of the way...
“Did the Crew drink the antifreeze ?”
Probably not like the old days when the MiG-25s had gallons of alcohol to keep the electronics cool.
I think the first catapults developed were gunpowder based!
Can you imagine? Or those ejection seats that used an explosive charge equivalent to a 105 mm howitzer shell! That would compress your vertebrae pretty effectively...
Didn’t this carrier break down or run out of fuel and have to be towed back to port?
I think it did at some point. To me, the whole thing seems like a Soviet-style propaganda piece to say “We can do it too”, but like some of the other things they did, it is just a kludge, at least in this case.
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