Posted on 04/18/2008 6:37:23 PM PDT by Dundee
THIS "shredded" and incapacitated F-111 soared across southeast Queensland homes before a spectacular emergency landing at Amberley Air Base.
The jet was flying at 900m on a test bombing raid at Evans Head, northern NSW, when a pelican struck the fibreglass nose and was sucked into an engine...
The nation's air combat chief, Air Commodore Neil Hart, said the jet's predicament and "precautionary emergency landing" was not serious enough to alert the public...
"One engine was working fine, while the other was at reduced power."
He described the circumstances of the incident, which happened between 10am and noon, as near freakish. "It's a surprise thing at 3000ft to have a bird strike," he said.
"It's certainly not the way we want to operate all the time. The boys did a great job in getting it home."
Repairs to the F-111 one of 21 active jets are expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Initially the pelican bounced off the nose before being sucked into an engine.
Its impact smashed the plane's ray-dome before causing an immediate engine failure.
The damaged aircraft is expected to be flying again within a month. The F-111 fleet, built in 1974, will be retired in 2010 when an expanded fleet of new Super Hornets is introduced.
At the time of the incident the F-111 was cruising at more than 550km/h. The Air Chief played down fears the flight path endangered homes across the region, though he conceded there were homes in the flight path.
The pilot and air combat officer in the plane were both "reasonably experienced" flight lieutenants, he said...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
B-1A had it too but there were only two (I think) built. It was cut as too expensive for the 4 man crew. I was on one once at Rockwell.
Actually yes. It's called Pave Tack and uses a laser to designate targets. Although it's mounted in the bomb-bay not the nose
But you probably knew all that :)
Three of the four B-1As were equipped with a crew escape module.
"Hello? Yes? F-111 Radomes? Sure, we've got about a hundred of them. How many do you need?"
We also had a Phantom drop 6 Snake-eyes and 2 cannisters of Napalm from an altitude of about 75 feet. He was about 75 meters BEHIND us, aiming for an NVA mortar in front of our lines. Scary!
I am laughing soo hard I am crying...
LOL - what is that, a turkey?
LOLOLOL
Glad you made it back, thanks for your service.
Yeah, we got a real good laugh about it too, in the ready room.
The neat thing was that the safety magazine, “Approach” was so well written that you had to guard your copy to keep someone from swiping it. The editors & writers were the gourmet chefs of safety education.
On another note, I was flying the CH-53 Sikorsky Sea Stallion at the time. One night flight just after takeoff we heard a loud “BOOM”. We returned to base, landed and did a walk-around, looking for damage.
The other pilot called to me from the nose of the aircraft, “I think I’ve found the problem!”
There, dead center on the avionics hatch at the nose of the helo was plastered a seagull. No damage to the aircraft, but the 130 knot encounter ruined the seagull’s evening. It kinda got our attention, too.
:-)
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