Posted on 02/07/2022 10:55:27 AM PST by BenLurkin
When Lt. Kara Hultgreen died while trying to land on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the event touched off a national debate about women in combat roles and the military pushing women who weren’t ready into active service. Except Hultgreen was more than qualified to be a naval aviator – she was just a victim of a well-known deficiency in the F-14’s Pratt & Whitney engine.
On Oct. 25, 1994, she was attempting to land her F-14 aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. She overshot the landing area’s centerline and attempted to correct the mistake. Her correction disrupted the airflow into her Tomcat’s left engine, which caused it to fail. This was a known deficiency in that particular engine.
By the time she died, Lt. Hultgreen had more than 1,240 hours of flying time in the F-14 Tomcat and had landed on a carrier some 58 times, 17 times at night. She was ranked first in defending the fleet from simulated attacks by enemy aircraft and in air refueling, and second in tactics to evade enemy aircraft and in combined familiarization with tactics and aircraft.
Her colleagues and fellow pilots praised her performance as a naval aviator and reminded people that 10 F-14 pilots were killed in accidents between the years of 1992 and 1994.
(Excerpt) Read more at wearethemighty.com ...
I have to ask the question. Exactly what problem did allowing for female pilots solve? Was it because we didn’t have enough male pilots?
You fail.
All airplanes have small details that will kill you if you do not understand them.
Now as for all of the heated defense of the lady, you also are missing an important point.
I flew for 40 years. During that time a lot of people I knew died in crashes.
I can think of only a few who died because of mechanical failure.
One, along with several others in the aircraft, died because some sort of fastener on the elevator was not properly secured. Long ago and I don’t remember the exact details, but the plane crashed immediately after takeoff on a maintenance test flight.. No survivors.
A friend died when both engines on his Aerostar quit shortly after takeoff. The airport is surrounded by very rugged terrain. The engines quit because the lineman at the fixed base thought the aircraft used jet fuel.
But the list of dead is very long with rolls to inverted flight on takeoff, circling approach at night, weather below minimums and collision with the ground, hammer head stalls overloaded and out of CG, buzzing the girls house, failure to remove gust lock on elevator complicated by an extremely short field, close turn behind a heavy jet, and multiples of some of the above.
My point is that every single one of these were dissected and critiqued in no telling how many hanger flying sessions by friends and acquaintances of the dead. Not out of meanness, but because we were determined to learn from their mistakes and not die repeating them.
That is best done by discussing the facts, throwing in a few suggestions and leaving out personal prejudice.
That said, commenting on her record and questioning whether she was pushed beyond her skills is certainly a legitimate factor in the discussion.
Nobody is mocking military personnel.
It was the military personnel who first recognized this affirmative action quota.
“https://www.unz.com/print/AmSpectator-1995jun-00040/
Perhaps you would like to read this to get more, and likely more accurate, information.”
There’s nothing in my original comment that is not accurate. Thanks anyway.
You said the standards were lowered after about 1995. If that is correct one would expect far more unqualified pilots and that would likely be evidenced by higher accident rates and more deaths wouldn't it?
Or I decided not to pull your chestnuts out of the fire by trying to confirm or deny your asinine claims.
Except that's not what you said. You never mentioned fighter pilot, nor did I in the threat you replied to. Try to stop being a complete jackass.
No one who knew how she was pushed through flight training even though she should have been washed out several times during her training was surprised.
There was no engine failure.
Exactly.
I dunno, I thought this statement was pretty misleading.
" I read once that they put other pilots in simulators in her situation and most also crashed. "
I think letting people know that the testers deliberately sabotaged the test is pretty important in giving a fuller picture of what happened. The way you said it it implied that "everybody screws up when this thing happens."
And that's not accurate. Most do not get into such a situation. The engine did not "fail", it was operated under conditions it wasn't designed for. Switching off the engine during the last few seconds of an approach is not the same thing as causing your engine to stall on approach.
The Navy tried to cover up what happened by this fake test with it's rigged results.
I gave you the link. You've had the time to look, so I suppose you didn't find anything that supports your assertion.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Given how strongly you seem to feel about this topic, we can only conclude the list of accidents I gave you provides no support for your claim.
If it did, you couldn't wait to get back here and rub it in my face.
Because *I* did not mention "fighter pilot" in a discussion about the first female "fighter pilot" flying a Navy Jet, why that clearly encourages you to drag up some dreck from 1910.
There are people who want to discuss, and there are people who want to argue. I happen to like both and I think most people respect those who do what they do well.
You can do better than that.
You...really have a lot time on your hands, don’t you?
I remember reading about the incident in the American Spectator, including the part about an instructor having his career ruined because he determined she wasn’t qualified and objected to being overruled. At least he had a clear conscience.
For ‘her’ rudder be gone?.
Retired people usually do. We all pick our hobbies.
More like I have other things I should be doing but I indulge myself occasionally.
https://www.cmrlink.org/data/sites/85/CMRDocuments/CMRRPT09-0695.pdf
Read her training record sport. She was constantly making deadly mistakes, all through training, that would have gotten a male washed out. Read it for yourself. She had no business in a fighter jet.
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