Blue Angels F-18A Hornet on E-Bay

Thank you for the responses. It appears as if the aircraft
in question, is nowhere near flight worthy at this time.

Just curious though,

What's a typical Vref speed for landing ? (presuming all
ordnance has been expended). And are these numbers something
the pilot calculates himself, or is it given to him ?

Can ACLS be considered helpful at all ? (similar to perhaps
a Category III ILS auto land ?) Does any Hornet driver here
actually trust it ? (and why would you even use it?).

What is the crosswind technique alluded to below ? (in lieu
of the forward sideslip)?



"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...


There are a couple of "gotchas" in just flying the thing, but nothing a
few
flights wouldn't iron out.

If you've never experienced flight gear, that would be a new treat
(helmet,
mask, torso harness, g-suit).

Since the motors are way in the back (35 or so feet behind you), you'd
have
to get used to the "detached" sensation of flying the jet. There is no
air
noise or airframe feedback with regard to airspeed or engine power setting
whatsoever. The airplane feels the same flying at 180 kts at 30000 feet
as
it does at 550 kts at 500 feet. A good instrument scan is a must.

WRT landings, the HUD makes them pretty easy. On this Lot 6, you may find
single chamber struts which means CV type landing is probably not a good
idea (max trap for single chamber struts was 30,500 lbs vice the 33k UNR
or
34K Restricted for the current F/A-18). Pretty simple stuff to flare a
landing in the Hornet though. I have taken guests into the simulator, and
the ones with some flight time do fairly well at getting it on the runway.

The biggest landing obstacle would be encouraging you NOT using a forward
slip as a crosswind correction--makes the airplane do the funky chicken on
the runway. OBTW, no localizer, ILS, VOR. Either fly TACAN approaches or
PAR in the weather (if you want a precision approach).

--Woody

All the Hornet drivers here, if I'm a Citation X pilot
with 4500+ hrs, how difficult is landing a Hornet ?
I imagine the ONLY place one can acquire training on
them is in the Navy (Marines included).

The F-18 has perhaps the most benign flying qualities of any high
performance jet aircraft. X-wind landings require a particular technique
(as Woody states). Otherwise, it's difficult to hurt yourself if you honor
its envelope, know your procedures, and have a well-maintained airframe.

The big issue with any high performance military jet is getting it airworthy
and keeping it airworthy. Warbirds can be had for ridiculously low prices
(particularly compared to small corporate jets), but getting them up and
keeping them up makes even Travolta's 707 toy look like a relative bargain.
Of course, 1300 gallons give-or-take of JP per sortie (often a particularly
SHORT sortie) makes it pricey as well.

I wonder how difficult it would be to retrofit a nice modern GPS-based nav
system and ILS (not many airports .... any? ... have an operational
TRN-28)?\

R / John

In article , "John Carrier"
wrote:

All the Hornet drivers here, if I'm a Citation X pilot
with 4500+ hrs, how difficult is landing a Hornet ?
I imagine the ONLY place one can acquire training on
them is in the Navy (Marines included).

The F-18 has perhaps the most benign flying qualities of any high
performance jet aircraft. X-wind landings require a particular technique
(as Woody states). Otherwise, it's difficult to hurt yourself if you honor
its envelope, know your procedures, and have a well-maintained airframe.

The big issue with any high performance military jet is getting it airworthy
and keeping it airworthy. Warbirds can be had for ridiculously low prices
(particularly compared to small corporate jets), but getting them up and
keeping them up makes even Travolta's 707 toy look like a relative bargain.
Of course, 1300 gallons give-or-take of JP per sortie (often a particularly
SHORT sortie) makes it pricey as well.

I wonder how difficult it would be to retrofit a nice modern GPS-based nav
system and ILS (not many airports .... any? ... have an operational

Not that hard at all, as long as you don't mind re-wiring parts of the aircraft.
The old 1553 bus on the A's won't handle the data rate of more modern
GPS/nav systems.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

On 2/6/04 7:49 AM, in article , "John
Carrier" wrote:

All the Hornet drivers here, if I'm a Citation X pilot
with 4500+ hrs, how difficult is landing a Hornet ?
I imagine the ONLY place one can acquire training on
them is in the Navy (Marines included).

The F-18 has perhaps the most benign flying qualities of any high
performance jet aircraft. X-wind landings require a particular technique
(as Woody states). Otherwise, it's difficult to hurt yourself if you honor
its envelope, know your procedures, and have a well-maintained airframe.

The big issue with any high performance military jet is getting it airworthy
and keeping it airworthy. Warbirds can be had for ridiculously low prices
(particularly compared to small corporate jets), but getting them up and
keeping them up makes even Travolta's 707 toy look like a relative bargain.
Of course, 1300 gallons give-or-take of JP per sortie (often a particularly
SHORT sortie) makes it pricey as well.

I wonder how difficult it would be to retrofit a nice modern GPS-based nav
system and ILS (not many airports .... any? ... have an operational
TRN-28)?\

R / John

Well put.

There are a few rubs in the flight instruments and systems areas to owning
your own F/A-18.

All the black boxes (circa 14 IIRC from my China Lake days) in the Hornet
are integrated. Some are more important to flight safety than others. For
instance, I'm pretty sure you could remove the radar without significant
penalty and fly the thing around lead-nosed using TCAS for traffic
deconfliction, but if you decided to remove the INS (for cost), you'd
severely degrade your primary flight instrument (which is the HUD)--unless
you could refit a cheap substitute (optical gyros and a GPS? AHRS only?).
But the INS and the ADC both feed the HUD, so you'd definitely degrade the
info on it.

Brings up another point. What FCC PROM is the jet running? My guess is
pre-10.7, but if you're running PROM 10.7, then there's a definite need for
an INS. There'd be some definite engineering and support issues all over.
Better have very deep pockets and be willing to pay a fairly large $/hour
cost. Fuel is probably the least of your worries given the team of folks it
would take to keep it airworthy.

--Woody

Nice post John, now what is the FAA's definition of airworthy? LOL


On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 07:49:47 -0600, "John Carrier"
wrote:

All the Hornet drivers here, if I'm a Citation X pilot
with 4500+ hrs, how difficult is landing a Hornet ?
I imagine the ONLY place one can acquire training on
them is in the Navy (Marines included).

The F-18 has perhaps the most benign flying qualities of any high
performance jet aircraft. X-wind landings require a particular technique
(as Woody states). Otherwise, it's difficult to hurt yourself if you honor
its envelope, know your procedures, and have a well-maintained airframe.

The big issue with any high performance military jet is getting it airworthy
and keeping it airworthy. Warbirds can be had for ridiculously low prices
(particularly compared to small corporate jets), but getting them up and
keeping them up makes even Travolta's 707 toy look like a relative bargain.
Of course, 1300 gallons give-or-take of JP per sortie (often a particularly
SHORT sortie) makes it pricey as well.

I wonder how difficult it would be to retrofit a nice modern GPS-based nav
system and ILS (not many airports .... any? ... have an operational
TRN-28)?\

R / John

He also stated it has not been de-mil'd. Were F-18A's
in the Blue Angel's mission capable (outside their PR
role) ? I can't see how it would be legal to sell an
untouched, strike capable aircraft.


The F/A-18s that the Blues fly are slightly different from Fleet F/A-18s.
I know that one difference is in the fuel system. The Blue Angel F/A-18s
have something in their fuel system that allows them to fly negative Gs
longer than the regular F/A-18. I guess its bad form to have your engine
conk out from fuel starvation in the middle of an airshow.

There are probably other mods to the BA F/A-18s that other people could
list.

JD

Bob McKellar wrote:

Mr Smith wrote:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 72
What do you guys think ??
Legit or bogus ?
This is the entry from Joe Baugher's database:

161973 was Blue Angels aircraft. Offered for public sale by Air Capitol
Warbirds as of Feb 2002

This is the search site ( very handy for issues like this!):
http://users.rcn.com/jeremy.k/serialSearch.html

Bob McKellar

appears to be what they claim..

http://www.airwarbirds.com/f_a-18_pics.htm

However I doubt that the F-18 could be flyable.
their website sez that the aircraft is complete, but judging from the photos
it appears to be some "damage" may just be photo angle.
but since this company flies military aircraft, and is offering this
bird for such a low price, I'll bet that its not flyable, and would be good
for display or movie work only......

According to
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/thirdseries21.html

The BuNo 161973 a Legit F/A-18 Hornet that at one time flew with the
Blue Angels Naval Flight Team... Also.. More pictures of Said Aircraft
is at this website...

http://www.blueangels.org/Aircraft/S...18/973/973.htm

Hope i was of some help...

-Damien
ABH3 US Navy (Active)


"Mr Smith" wrote in message ...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 72


What do you guys think ??

Legit or bogus ?

According to
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/thirdseries21.html

The BuNo 161973 a Legit F/A-18 Hornet that at one time flew with the
Blue Angels Naval Flight Team... Also.. More pictures of Said Aircraft
is at this website...

http://www.blueangels.org/Aircraft/S...18/973/973.htm

Hope i was of some help...

-Damien
ABH3 US Navy (Active)


"Mr Smith" wrote in message ...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 72


What do you guys think ??

Legit or bogus ?

http://www.blueangels.org/Aircraft/S...18/973/973.htm


From the photos it appears that the wings have been cut off and the canopy
removed. Also looks like nose landing gear is missing. It definitely
looks like it needs more than a "once over" to me.

JD