Searching for interesting Stories ... Uh-Oh's, if you like

Happy, before you throw it in here, send it via u2u to me and we will check it out!? Don't know what it is regarding but trying to keep this thread on topic if possible so that it retains its purpose! Thanks, Mondo

I will jump over and read the u2u and see if it pertains here or maybe to start another thread, right!?

Peace

Originally posted by firepilot
No offense, but you also told us a B-57 variant glided from Moscow to South Korea, which was impossible.

No offense, but I suggest you learn to read. *I* NEVER said that a B-57 variant could glide from Moscow to South Korea. I RESPONDED to someone who said that.

Posted by meshuggah1324, on November 24, 2005 at 17:35 GMT

This is what my family member wrote back:

Not sure where you got you W/RB-57F info -- but it is very close. There were only 10 made with the TF33 engines and the solid fuel under wing JATO power packs. They were all stationed at Yokota AB Japan with the 56 WRS (Weather Recon Squadron), from 1966 to until 1972 when they were send back to McConnell AFB, Kansas. Two were retained by NASA for special missions. They could climb to 100,000 feet without using the JATO packs and in-fact flew over China and Russia to air sample for Nuclear tests. Many were shot at and none was ever hit.

For a Test-- we had one shut down engines over Moscow and land at Osan AB in Korea in late 1968 - they are basically a very large high powered glider - with the pilots in space-suits to handle the high altitudes they cruised at. Good work -- The earlier versions that had the TF100 engines were at Kirkland AFB, but while I was in Japan, I never saw any of those launch to fly over China. The Ten with the TF33 engines that I worked on all had Tail-numbers ending in - 500 through 509.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

You were saying? Way to pass that reading comprehension class.

Zaph,

Not trying to give you advice...actually trying to downplay it is all. You know what you know, good enough for me man. I have not and won't ask for any proof, it's evident in your words to me and via our talks along the line. As far as these other people who feel the need to spout off what they haven;t really researched, please be patient and let them see their own mistakes.

For those of you who feel the need to harass and cause some trouble on the thread..........DON'T, it's a thread to share stories and make each other laugh, not to pick apart. If you feel that need, just please go to some other thread to do it!

Peace, Mondo

Sorry guys, it's been a long and painful weekend for me, and getting called out for something I didn't say always pushes my buttons, even when there aren't things going on behind the scenes making things worse.

Zaph,

All good my brother, I just don't want anything to keep you from posting great stories. Sometimes a person jumps on and ticks a person off to the point where they stop writing and i don't want that to happen. We all love your posts and stories and want to support is all!

Peace, Mondo

Your other thread brought to mind another one.

In 1995, we were having a HUGE airshow at Hickam to commemorate the end of WWII. We were going to have just about everything that could get there in a giant formation flying past Waikiki Beach. We even had some warbirds come in on an aircraft carrier.

They were practicing one day, and landed about an hour to an hour and a half before Air Force One was due in. We were sitting in my fathers office, when the pilot of the F-15E came in and said "Hey, you might want to check out the B-1. He landed right before us, and I think he left some debris on the runway." So we promised to go take a look and see if the plane had any damage.

Before we could go anywhere, the State of Hawaii, Runways Division drives up to the front of the office. The guy gets out, reaches into the back of his truck, and pulls out a landing light pole. These poles are THICK, and rather strong, but this one was bent into a bow shape.

He walked into the office, looked at my father and said "We haven't found the light yet." So, knowing the F-15 had said something about debris on the runway, they went out to the plane.

Sure enough, right next to the left engine, there was a big hole, about the size of a fist, and a bunch of wires sticking out. They started tugging on wires, and there came the light.

The agreement with the State of Hawaii is that Hickam uses the HNL runways, and is responsible for the first 2000 feet of 8L, and the barrier systems on 4L/R, and 8R. So CES had to scramble out there, and replace the light, knowing that Air Force One was scheduled to land in an hour, and they were shutting the runways down in about 30-45 minutes, and if they were out there the Secret Service would be all over them. Fastest landing light change you've ever seen.

Originally posted by Mondogiwa
Zaph,

All good my brother, I just don't want anything to keep you from posting great stories. Sometimes a person jumps on and ticks a person off to the point where they stop writing and i don't want that to happen. We all love your posts and stories and want to support is all!

Peace, Mondo

Ill ditto Mondo's response good sir. Its been great reading. It makes me feel like my glider and cessna stories are childish. I dont know I'll try and maybe find 1 or 2 more good stories to try and keep a high bar up for this thread. Thanks again to firepilot, Zaph and boz.

Zaphod, you are correct. My recollections about that thread were a bit faulty to say the least. I remembered someone saying an RB-57 glided almost all the way across the USSR, and we were discussing glide ratios towards the end of that thread, and I mistakenly thought without checking that thread, that it was you that said it and I was not correct in that. My apologies.


There is something military pilots refer to as "cone of stupidity", and it basically extends upwards and outwards from any house you may have friends and family in.

Competent and skilled pilots have been killed, trying to show off in front of family. I can think of two instances off the top of my head.

Late 90s, an F-16 pilot buzzes his parents farm in Texas, striking the barn and crashing.

In 80s, a T-37 pilot circles his parents house, gets really slow and stalls, crashing.

Probably LOTS of other stories out there.

Originally posted by firepilot
Late 90s, an F-16 pilot buzzes his parents farm in Texas, striking the barn and crashing.

The true meaning of "bought the farm" perhaps its true origines?

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

firepilot, I also apologize for snapping at you in that post. It's been a tough weekend for me, and I just took it out in that post.

Mondogiwa, Canada_Eh, and thebozian thank you all for your support, I'm just glad you all appreciate the stories. My father had a long and interesting career, and I'm thankful that I was able to share in as much of it as I was able to. It's also good to know that there is somewhere his stories will be able to continue on, and allow others to appreciate them.

You know, until I started writing them down in here, I really didn't realize how many things I was able to be involved in, or how many great stories I had been involved in over the years.

Here's one that you guys will probably laugh at from my early days.

We went to Pease AFB in New Hamphsire when I was about 5 years old. Our 2nd year there, my mother got a phone call telling her to bring my brother and me down to the hangar my father worked in. He wouldn't say why, just to bring us right down there. So we hopped into the car and went down to see him.

We got down there, and he said he had something special to show us. We went around the front of the hangar, and went in, and to our shock, there was an SR-71 Blackbird sitting there. We stopped for a minute and just stared at it.

We got up to the guard by the ropes, and my father said "Can we go across?" The guard said "Sure." My father and my brother went right across the ropes, and up to the bird, but I stayed on the other side.

My father looked at me and said "Come on, it's ok." I looked at the guard (he was a pretty big guy, with a big gun) and said "unh uh." All I could see was that big gun he was holding. The guard saw me looking at the M-16, laughed and said "Don't worry, I won't shoot you." So I very cautiously crossed the ropes and got to go up to the Blackbird while she sat there.

________________________________________________________________

Years later, we were back at Hickam. We had to do an antenna modification to the tail antennas on the EC-135s we had there. Unfortunately, the only way to do it was to fold the tail down.

They had done the first bird, with no problem. A couple of days later, they were getting ready to do the second one. I had gone in to help out.

The way this worked was to loosen the bolts at the base of the tail (all two of them, but they were BIG bolts), and have ropes attached to it, leading to one side. There would be a crane attached to keep it from just falling and slamming into the fuselage.

They got it all prepped and ready to fold. I was on the ropes with a bunch of other guys (probably about 8 or 9 total). They said they were ready, so we started pulling. Let me tell you, it's not easy to get that sucker to come over, even with the bolts as loose as they were. It took us almost an hour to get it to start over.

Well, the tail starts to come over, but unfortunately the crane operator hadn't quite taken all the slack out of the cable. The tail starts falling until it hit the end of the slack, then slams to a stop. After we got it laid over, we were talking about how scary it was to see that thing flying towards us like that, and we all would have taken off running in another second. This one really big guy, he was a weightlifter who could probably press at least half again his bodyweight, says "I don't know what you guys were so scared of. I would have caught it if it didn't stop."

Another famous UH-OH is the F-16 pilot who had to ejected when his piddle pack got caught on the control stick.

And the backseater (F-16D or F-15E) who had a bit of intestinal distress during the flight. Its on a wav or mp3 you can find online.

Ok last 1, i saved the best for last. While in England we had an F-4 shoot down a British Jaguar.

The F-4 was out flying around and came upon the Jaguar. They decided to have some fun and do some dogfighting. The F-4 got behind the Jag and decided to arm his weapons so the Jag pilot would get a lock on alarm. While the weapons were armed the F-4 pilot decided to get the fight on gun camera. On the F-4 you pull back the trigger to the first click starts the camara if you pull back futher you shoot the gun or launch the weapons. Well the F-4 pilot pulled back to far on the trigger and fired a Sidewinder at point blank range at the Jag.

The F-4 pilot yelled over his radio for the Jag pilot to eject. The Jag pilot ejected just before the missile went into the exaust and blew the Jag into a million pieces.

Needless to say the British government was not to happy about the situation and took the F-4 pilots to court. The court case was televised (one of the first)

One more from the RAF archives.

I don't recall what airbase this was at, but I couldn't believe what was contained in the accident report when I read it.

RAF Buccaneer is doing practice circuits of the base, preparing for an air display, when Air Traffic control gets an distress call from a Canberra with engine trouble, requesting clearance for an emergency landing. ATC contacts the Buccaneer pilot and instructs him to clear the runway immediately.

Pilot pulls back on stick. Instinctive, but incredibly stupid when you've just started an inverted pass over the runway.

B-1B crash in Rapid City SD, Ellsworth AFB.

Pilots get disoriented on the approach with low clouds. One of the pilots says something like "I have the McDonalds in sight"

After that, the VASI (vertical approach slope indicator) lights were nicknamed McVasi.

B-52s have twice been hit by A/A missiles from other USAF fighters.

Once a B-52 was shot down by a NM ANG F-100, that accidentally fired an AIM-9.

B-52G hit by AGM-88 during GW1 by an F-4G. B-52 is able to make it back to base.

OK so here's one with a picture , the first for this thread I believe.

Many of you may have seen this one before as it's done the rounds on the web. The events took place at Parafield Sth Australia. One night a Dr decided to start his Piper Saratoga and found a dead battery, so he elected to hand start. This was fine except he was alone, had no one to jump on the brake pedals, didnt think about chocks and forgot the handbrake. The aircraft went on a destructive rampage damaging four aircraft and Shredding this Piper Seminole. I bet I know what the good Dr said when that aircraft started moving, "Uh Oh".



Imagine the look on the chief LAME's face next day when he was asked to asess the damage. was it or or
You be the judge.
LEE.

Boze,

What happened to that plane, looks like it was sort of dissected for a lab experiment!!
What maden it look like that??
Peace, Mondo

The prop from the runaway Saratoga sliced into the Seminole as it collided with it from behind and to the starbord side of the fuselage. The only thing Im puzzled by is the angle the Saratoga would need to be at in order for it's wing not to collide and arrest its travel so far down the fuselage. You can clearly see damage to the Seminole's right wing behind the engine. I am quite certain that this is not a fake as it was reported in reliable industry press at the time (2001). Further the TV show Mythbusters was able to replicate the effects in one show on this story, using an old fuselage and an engine and prop mounted on a moving dolly at the correct speed. The cuts they got match those we see in the photo.

LEE.

Boze,

Now I remember...I saw that mythbusters episode, but I just could not place where I had seen that effect on a fuselage, now I remember. Thanks for the info, yeah, how do you explain the multitude of mistakes that had to have happened to make it possible?? Somebody got chewed out hard on that one I bet!

Peace, Mondo

link to the findings of the episode

en.wikipedia.org...

And the episode for your enjoyment.

www.dailymotion.com...

Personally I think it was as they and the "myth" said a hand proped started plane that went out of control and impacted not exactly as they did it striaght on but on a bit of an angle. The reason I say this if you look at the photo the first impact marks are not very deep at all leading me to believe the plane came in on an angle and combined with the high T tail on the plane you get those crazy shredding marks.

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]