Good Close-ups of a pranged Bone

The investigations cited are not mishap (safety) investigations, but rather legal investigations (in the F-16 article, it is listed as an Accident Investigation Board (AIB)- safety investigations are Mishap Investigation Boards). Those (AIBs) are releasable and become part of the public record once published. The MIBs are covered under executive privilege, and are not generally released (they have been leaked from time to time, however).

Mike W.

Yeah...I keep forgetting that the USAF has developed a habit of actually prosecuting personel for mistakes...the Navy doesn't do that, to my knowledge.

but accidents can put a big dent on your career. hit one lousy sandbar.....

Or fishing boat...

horseplay. good way to kill.

nodnodnod I've seen the same sort of thing. It was amazing. The gunpods were written off, of course, but there wasn't a scratch on the jet!

That's why they put Weight On Wheels switches in the circuit these days. If the oleo is compressed, a microswitch is opened and the retract circuit is broken. Once the oleo becomes fully extended, the microswitch closes and the circuit is made again.

One "clever" trick that you might see done is to select gear up as the aircraft commences its take-off roll. As soon as the wheels leave the deck the gear retracts. It's quite spectacular but the pilot has to be absolutely certain that the jet has the speed to remain airworthy.

RAF Honington in Suffolk, England, has/had a hump in the middle of the runway. I've seen two Buccaneers and a Hunter leave the ground temporarily over that hump, only to have their gear retract because the pilot had selected "gear up" during the roll. All three jets ended up on their bellies!

Yeah, or just plain cause a major nusiance...back when I was working T-45A, some guys were hosrsing around playing frisbee in the hangar during a break. They were done and putting the frisbee away, so one guy flung it at his bud...who missed...and it hit the button for the fire suppression system...and set it off.

If you've never seen an AFFF system in full opeation (I have...twice now...) let me insure you, it's impressive. Flooded the hangar, a few aircraft in various states of teardown, slipped some schedules...

Yeah - one of the things we discoverd post-mortem out of this particular incident was that if this particular wire bundle torched the way it did, there was no electrical path to get the gear down - not even with Emergency Extend.

We did a write up and a Service Bulletin was issued to correct the problem. All currently flying AV8s should be free of this particular issue now.

Heh...heh-heh...we had a guy leave the factory on a Fleet delivery with an F/A-18 that did that coming out of a fuel stop on a level runway...just because weight is "off wheels" don't necessarily mean the airplane is flying, dude...

Jet got light, gear came up, jet settled to the runway and went skidding to the end on the external tanks. Good thing he had three on...and they didn't flame.

Jet came back to the factory on the back of a flatbed...gear up and with the damaged tanks still in place. Hoisted it off, surveyed it, found it to still be straight, put three more EFT on it and different pilot in it and delivered it.

that's intend to suppress huge chemical fires, right? that would be impressive. i saw a gas station system go off and that was pretty freaky.

Systems in aircraft hangars are spec'ed to supress a max-stacked fuel fire, I should think. Wittnessed a kid shell out of a T-2 about a half mile short of the approach end while I was down in Kingsville...now THAT was a fireball. (Kid lived, BTW.)

Our local firefighters have an F-4 hulk they practice on occasionally...even that practice fire is pretty impressive. When the suppression system went off in our hangar (which will stack about five jets comfortably) it flooded the place knee deep - even with the hangar doors open.

i believe damn! would cover that.

Stuff smells nasty, too...from what I'm told it's made from organic materials - slaughterhouse waste; non-edible cow parts - in oder to be both non-toxic and bio-degradable as well as surpress the fire. The organic stuff is there to help it form a persistant foam. Hangar smelled like a butchershop with the AC busted for awhile.

good thing it's in a low humidity place. somewhere with fat air would still stink.

...the run-off troughs across hangar entrances take up that slack. That jet fuel smell is really just a hangar deodorizer.

oh yeah. playing with the emhar hermaphrodite. crappy plastic and sloppy fit, but i think it will build up. there's pe for the

Correct - you didn't.

But the reliably looking article in "Why the B-1 landed gear-up" thread sure stated that.

That's ok - no need to keep punishing those pilots by continuing this discussion. Peteski

LOL The riggers on our squadron used to have a stock answer for what was required for any repair: "Speedtape and green paint!"

Whatever state a jet came back in, someone would survey the damage, nod sagely and solemnly intone "yep... bit of speedtape and green paint..." The funny part of that was about 25% of the time that's actually all they used!!!