F-18

Interesting first person account.

Big John
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ANOTHER GREAT ONE! V
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 12:00 PM
Subject: Pilot's Account : F-18 Hornet Emergency Night Recovery

Here's a personal story of an F-18 Hornet's recent recovery by
barricade . . at night . . on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. [
Note : the barricade is a 20 foot high net that stretches across the
carrier's deck to 'catch' airplanes during extreme emergencies.]

" Oyster, here. This note is to share with you the exciting night I
had the other month. It has nothing to do with me wanting to talk
about me. But it has everything to do with sharing what will no doubt
become a better story as the years go by. So....

There I was .. ' manned up' a hot seat for the 2030 night launch about
500 miles north of Hawaii. I was taxied off toward the carrier's
island where I did a 180 degree turn to get spotted to be the first
one off Catapult # 1. They lowered my launch bar and started the
launch cycle. All systems were ' go' on the runup. And after waiting
the requisite 5 seconds to make sure my flight controls are good to
go, I turned on my lights. As is my habit I shifted my eyes to the
catwalk and watched the deck edge dude and as he started his routine
of looking left, then right. I put my head back against the head rest.

The Hornet cat shot is pretty impressive. As the cat fires, I stage
the afterburners and I am along for the ride. Just prior to the
end of the stroke .. there's a huge flash . . and a
simultaneous . . B-O-O-M ! And my night world is in turmoil.

My little pink body is doing 145 knots or so and is 100 feet above the
black Pacific. And there it stays -- except for the airspeed, which
decreases to 140 knots. Some where in here I raised my gear. And the
throttles aren't going any farther forward despite my
Schwarzze-negerian efforts to make them do so.

From out of the ether I hear a voice say one word: "JETTISON ! "
Rogered that ! And a nano second later my two drops and single MER
[about 4,500 pounds in all ] are Black Pacific bound. The airplane
leapt up a bit but not enough. I'm now about a mile in front of the
boat at 160 feet and fluctuating from 135 to 140 knots. The next
comment that comes out of the ether is another one-worder: " EJECT ! "
I'm still flying . . so I respond . . " Not yet . . I've still got
it."

Finally, at 4 miles ahead of the boat, I take a peek at my engine
instruments and notice my left engine . . doesn't match the right. (
Funny, how quick glimpses at instruments get burned into your brain.)
The left rpm is at 48% even though I'm still doing the Ah-Nold thing.
I bring it back out of afterburner to military power. About now I get
another " EJECT ! " call.

" NOPE. It's still flying."

At 5 1/2 miles I asked tower to please get the helo headed my way as I
truly thought I was going to be ' shelling out '. At some point, I
thought it would probably be a good idea to start dumping some gas.
But as my hand reached down for the dump switch, I actually remembered
that we had a NATOPS operation prohibition against dumping fuel while
in afterburner. But after a second or two [contemplating the threat of
the unnecessarily burden] I turned the fuel dump switches on.
Immediately [ I was told later ] . . . A SIXTY FOOT ROMAN CANDLE . .
BEGAN TRAILING BEHIND. At 7 miles I started a ( very slight ) climb
to get a little breathing room. CATCC control chimes in giving me a
downwind [ landing pattern] heading . . and I'm like: "Ooh . . what a
good idea" . . and I throw down my tail hook.

Eventually I get headed downwind to the carrier at 900 feet and ask
for a Tech Rep [Manufacturer's Technical Representative]. While
waiting, I shut down the left engine. But In short order, I
hear Scott "Fuzz" McClure's voice. I tell him the following : " OK
Fuzz, my gear's up . . my left motor's off . . and I'm only able to
stay level by using minimum afterburner. And every time I pull it
back to military power, I start down at about a hundred feet per
minute."

I just continue trucking downwind . . trying to stay level . . and
keep dumping fuel. I think I must have been in afterburner for about
fifteen minutes. At ten miles or so I'm down to 5000 pounds of gas and
start a turn back toward the ship. I don't intend to land but I don't
want to get too far away. Of course, as soon I as I stuck in that
angle of bank . . I start dropping like a stone. So I end up doing a
[shallow bank] 5 mile [radius] circle around the ship.

Fuzz is reading me the single engine rate of climb numbers from the '
book' based on temperature, etc. And it doesn't take us long to figure
out that things aren't adding up. One of the things I'd learned about
the Hornet is that it is a perfectly good single engine aircraft . .
flies great on one motor. So why do I now need blower [afterburner ]
to stay level ?

By this time, I'm talking to the Deputy CAG ( turning [duty] on the
flight deck) and CAG who's on the bridge with the Captain. And we
decide that the thing to do is climb to three thousand feet and '
dirty up' [gear and flaps down] to see if I'm going to have the
excess power needed to be able to shoot a night approach for a
landing.

I get headed downwind . . go full burner on my remaining motor . . and
eventually make it to 2000 feet before leveling out below a scattered
layer of puffy clouds. And the ' puffies ' are silhouetted against a
half a moon which was really, really cool. I start a turn back
toward the ship . . and when I get pointed in the right direction . .
I throw the gear down and pull the throttle out of after-burner.

Remember that flash/boom . . that started this little tale ?

[ Repeat it here ] . . Boom ! I jam it back into afterburner, and
after three or four huge compressor stalls [and accompanying
deceleration] the right motor ' comes back'. I'm thinking my blood
pressure was probably ' up there' about now . . and for the first
time, I notice that my mouth has dried up.

This next part is great. You know those stories about guys who
deadstick crippled airplanes away from the orphanages and puppy stores
and stuff and get all this great media attention? Well, at this point
I'm looking at the picket ship in front of me, at about two miles, and
I transmit to no one in particular, "You need to have the picket ship
hang a left right now. I think I'm gonna be outta here in a second." I
said it very calmly but with meaning. The picket immediately pitched
out of the fight. Ha! I scored major points with the heavies
afterwards for this. Anyway, it's funny how your mind works in these
situations.

OK, so I'm dirty and I get it back level and pass a couple miles up
the starboard side of the ship. I'm still in minimum blower and my
fuel state is now about 2500 pounds. Hmmm. I hadn't really thought
about running out of gas. I muster up the gonads to pull it out of
blower again and sure enough...flash, BOOM! I'm thinking that I'm
gonna end up punching out and tell Fuzz at this point " Dude, I really
don't want to try that again." Don't think everyone else got it . .
but he chuckled.

Eventually I discover that even the tiniest throttle movements cause
the ' flash/boom thing ' to happen so I'm trying to be as smooth as I
can. I'm downwind a couple miles when CAG comes up and says, " Oyster,
we're going to rig the barricade."

Remember, CAG's up on the bridge watching me fly around doing blower
donuts in the sky and he's also thinking I'm gonna run outta JP-5
fuel. By now I've told everyone who's listening that there a better
than average chance that I'm going to be ejecting. The helicopter
bubbas - God bless 'em - have been following me around this entire
time.)

I continue downwind and again, sounding more calm than I probably was,
call the LSO. " Paddles, you up[listening] ?" "Go ahead"
replies " Max" Stout, one of our LSO's. "Max, I probably know
most of it ,but do you want to shoot me the barricade briefing ?" So,
in about a minute . . he went from expecting me to ' punch out ' . .
to have me asking for the barricade brief [so he was
hyperventilating.] But he was awesome to hear on the radio though . .
just the kind of voice you'd want to hear in this situation.

He gives me the barricade brief. And at nine miles I say, "If I turn
now will ' it ' be up when I get there? Because I don't want to have
to go around again." "It's going up right now, Oyster. Go ahead and
turn." "Turning in, say the final bearing." "Zero six three," replies
the voice in CATCC. " OK, I'm on a four degree glide slope and I'm at
800 feet. I will intercept glide slope at about a mile and three
quarters then reduce power. "

When I reduced power : Flash/boom ! [ Add power out of fear.] Going
high ! Pull power. Flash/boom ! [ Add power out of fear.] Going
higher !

[ Flashback to LSO school...." All right class, today's lecture will
be on the single engine barricade approach. Remember, the one place
you really, really don't want to be is high. O.K.? You can go play
golf now."] I start to set up a higher than desired sink rate the LSO
hits the " Eat At Joe's" wave-off night lights." Very timely too. I
stroke the AB and cross the flight deck with my right hand on the
stick and my left thinking about the little yellow and black
ejection handle between my legs.

No worries. I cleared that sucker by at least ten feet. By the way my
fuel state at the ball call was [now low] at 1.1. As I slowly climb
out I punched the radio button saying . . again to no one in
particular : " I can do this." I'm in blower still and CAG says,
"Turn downwind." After I get turned around he says, "Oyster, this is
gonna be your last look [at the boat in the dark below] so you can
turn in again as soon as you're comfortable."

I flew the DAY pattern and I lost about 200 feet in the turn and like
a total dumbs_ I look out of the cockpit as I get on centerline and
that " night thing about feeling that I'm too high " grabbed me . .
and [ in error] I pushed down further to 400 feet.

I got kinda irked at myself then as I realized I would now be
intercepting the four degree glide slope in the middle .. with a
flash/boom every several seconds all the way down. Last look at my gas
was 600-and-some pounds [100 gallons] at a mile and a half. " Where am
I on the glide slope, Max ?" I ask. And I and hear a calm "Roger
Ball." I know I'm low because the ILS is waaay up there.

I can't remember what the response was but by now the ball's shooting
up from the depths. I start flying it but before I get a chance to
spot the deck I hear : " Cut, cut, CUT !" I'm really glad I was a
paddles for so long because my mind said to me " Do what he says
Oyster ! " and I pulled it back to idle. My hook hit 11 paces from the
ramp. The rest is pretty tame. I hit the deck . . skipped the one, the
two and snagged the three wire and rolled into the barricade about a
foot right of centerline.

Once stopped, my vocal cords involuntarily shouted, " VICTORY ! " The
deck lights came on bright . . and off to my right there must have
been a . . ga-zillion cranials and eyes watching.

You could hear a huge cheer across the flight deck. After I open the
canopy and the first guy I see is our huge Flight Deck Chief named
Richards. And he gives me the coolest personal look . . and then two
thumbs up. I will remember all of that forever.

P.S. You're probably wondering what gave motors problems. When they
taxied that last Hornet over the catapult .. they forgot to remove a
section or two of the rubber cat seal. When the catapult shuttle came
back [ to hook me up ], it removed the cat rubber seal which was then
inhaled by both motors during my catapult stroke. Left engine
basically quit even though the motor is in pretty good shape. But it
was producing no thrust and during the wave-off one of the LSO's saw
"about thirty feet" of black rubber hanging off the left side of the
airplane.

The right motor .. the one that kept running .. had 340 major hits to
all engine stages. The compressor section is trashed . . and best of
all . . it had two pieces of the cat seal [ one 2 feet and the other
about 4 feet long ] sticking out of the first stage and into the air
intake. God Bless General Electric ! By the way, maintenance data
showed that I was fat on fuel -- I had 380 pounds ( 61 gallons) of
gas when I shut down.

Again, remember this particular number as in ten years [of story
telling] when it will surely be . . " FUMES MAN . . FUMES . . I TELL
YOU ! "

Oyster, out.

Interesting,
Reminds me when I was a Marine back in 1986 at CAX at 29 Stumps. I was
headed over to the chow tent for lunch and had just reached the end of the
runway on my long walk . Just minding my own biz, day dreaming about my
girl..all of a sudden just a horrible explosion sound . I looked back and it
looked like someone had napalmed the runway. It was all headed right towards
me!
I saw the pilot eject as his F-18 went for it's last flight by itself.
The pilot was not high enough for his chute to open fully, but at this time
I was really thinking about my own self,....being as I am pretty fond of
myself! I planted myself in the nearest dune of good old Mojave sand, and
watched the out of control Hornet go right overhead. At that moment of
course it seemed I could reach up and touch it, but it was a few hundred
feet up.
It slowly veered over to the right and crashed in the desert. From what
I heard the pilot had suffered a broken leg and numerous other minor
injuries, but he was going to be fine. Our squadron never found out exactly
what happened to that F-18 , but I was just happy I wasn't wearing it!!!!!

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

Sounds like the total bill for damages would have amounted to 1x F/A-18 and
2x pair underware!



"W P Dixon" wrote in message
...
Interesting,
Reminds me when I was a Marine back in 1986 at CAX at 29 Stumps. I was
headed over to the chow tent for lunch and had just reached the end of the
runway on my long walk . Just minding my own biz, day dreaming about my
girl..all of a sudden just a horrible explosion sound . I looked back and
it
looked like someone had napalmed the runway. It was all headed right
towards
me!
I saw the pilot eject as his F-18 went for it's last flight by itself.
The pilot was not high enough for his chute to open fully, but at this
time
I was really thinking about my own self,....being as I am pretty fond of
myself! I planted myself in the nearest dune of good old Mojave sand,
and
watched the out of control Hornet go right overhead. At that moment of
course it seemed I could reach up and touch it, but it was a few hundred
feet up.
It slowly veered over to the right and crashed in the desert. From
what
I heard the pilot had suffered a broken leg and numerous other minor
injuries, but he was going to be fine. Our squadron never found out
exactly
what happened to that F-18 , but I was just happy I wasn't wearing it!!!!!

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

Very cool story Big John. Enjoyed reading it.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-IA Student-Arrow Shopping Student

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

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