Hi, Had the following pics sent to me. Apparently they collided HO during training at 'Top Gun' fighter training school, and both managed to RTB. Regards, Oz
Wow! I doubt that was a HO collision though. Not only would it be extremely unlikely for the a/c to survive that both, but also when you look at the nose damage: Looks like a pretty clean and clear cut. As if a knife went through from one side - or a vert stab . I'd rather think the tail-damaged a/c flew a break turn or something and came in too close proximity with its attacker, whose nose was cut off by the vert stab as a result. But that's just my guess. Did it say anything more specific? And where do you get that stuff sent from anyway? Regards heartc
Yeh, once had a similar pic sent, only an F-15 that time, the F-15 (Israeli Air Force) had collided with an A-4 I believe it was and lost almost its entire wing... nonetheless the pilot managed to land safely, cudos were to the F-15's special air intakes that feature variable geometry (believe that was the term)... I'm sure you'll find it out there [on the net] (too lazy to look it up myself) <Z>
I'm pretty sure it's "Variable Pitch", Zemb. PRETTTY sure, i was watching the history channel the other week and it had something about F18s on it, so hopefully my short-term memory serves me correctly
Is this by any chance the pic of the F-15??? Looks too fucked up though... I think the whole wing is missing!
@ Heartc The original sender among the long list of email addresses in the forwardings, was an Australian Defence Dept. email address. (If that means anything??) The following is the text from the email:- The story: Two F/A-18 Hornets from Top Gun were dog fighting and made a head on pass, but just a bit too close. These guys are lucky.. a miracle occurred perhaps. It shows how rugged these aircraft are. Also shows how good our pilots are. These are two heavily damaged aircraft that the pilots would have been justified in "punching out", but instead they chose to bring the jets in. This endangered their lives but saved the taxpayers about 80 million dollars. What is especially intriguing is in picture 03 (middle pic in original post), notice the radome, radar and all of the avionics equipment, everything, is gone. This created several problems for the pilot: aerodynamics, eventual loss of hydraulics due to loss of fluid, navigation, and probably the most amazing, as the pieces fell away, some debris had to be ingested by the engines (F.O.D.) and he still was able to bring it home. Regards, Oz
You mean they had something on F-15's? Or were it F-18's? F-18's don't feature variable pitch of the intakes AFAIK... yup cbfs, but there are more pics on the net, saw a report on a forum, too bad the forum's one of those crappy ole "we don't know this is no longer the year 1985" interfaces... (in other words: no search) <Z>
LOL, I never expected such a damaged plane (the F-15) to survive! Not even with that 'variable thingie'! Ok, ok, once I took a one-winged Ki-43 from an enemy field to a friendly field and then bailed, but it's FH, not real life! Kudos to the pilot
Thx for the infos ozemale! I stand corrected. But that's really hard to believe, wow. Sounds somewhat contradicting, does it not? . I guess they had all the luck anyone could ever get in a lifetime. Or more like two lifetimes, since they made it into the fighter slot in the first place as well lol . Regards heartc
And what do u say about these ones??? A refueling hose breaks and shatters an F-18 canopy on a mission over freezing Afghanistan... maybe the pilot was best regards to all
cbfs, that F-15 was able to RTB because the fuselage also generates an important amount of lift together with the wings, that's why the pilot was able to fly it back to the base. This "pancake" fuselage design is very common nowadays, helping to generate more lift and decrease wing-loading: F-14, F-15, Su-27, MiG-29 and so on.. BTW: the variable pitch of air intakes has nothing to do with keeping the plane flyable, it is just to keep the airflow always smooth to the engines (no turbulence - thus avoiding flameouts and other undesiderable effects to turbines) at sub and supersonic speeds.
That's not how the McDonnell Douglas guys explained it... they credited it partially to the fuselage lift as you said, but also to the variable geometry, the intake moved in such a position that the resistance prevented the plane from rolling over because of a twisted point of gravity... IIRC @ Afi, maybe smoke less of them Dutch products eh? (though over there you probably don't get Dutch but Columbian or so) <Z>
