Typhoon wheels up landing at china lake

got this one hot off the press over on pprune - but it seems an RAF typhoon landed wheels up at china lake yesterday ("Finals-No-Greens-Land-Buggah") - no more details over there other than a few `men in light blue` types confiming and trying to locate the video of the event.

anyone here have anything about it?

Nothing that I can see. AWST will have it next week no doubt.

next week is no scoop though

Originally posted by Harlequin
next week is no scoop though

Yeah but have you ever been to China lake? Ive driven around the fringes and man its in the the middle of BF Nowhere. Edwards is an urban center compaired to it So I doubt we will see an article about it for a while unless the Pony Express is really fast

That would be the second wheels up crash for the craft.
www.targetlock.org.uk...

www.flightglobal.com...

A Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon has been damaged in an incident while landing at the US Navy’s China Lake weapons test range in California, the UK service has confirmed.

Believed to be assigned to the RAF’s Coningsby-based 17 Sqn Operational Evaluation Unit, the aircraft “sustained damage on landing,” the RAF says. The pilot did not eject from the aircraft, which came to rest on the runway, and was not injured in the mishap.

did i get a scoop or what


as posted today on flightglobal but by me 2 days ago

apparantly (again on the rumour net) the aircraft was the latest one - ZJ943 delivered 4 months ago

What exactly are the Typhoons doing at China Lake?

reply to post by Fang


Flying.

And then landing gear up.


It's a weapons test range. A good place to test out gear. No reason they wouldn't want to allow them to test the Eurofighter there. RAF gets a nice secluded range with nice equipment. US gets a closer peak at capability of the toys involved in various scenarios.

reply to post by _Del_


Actually there have bene there for a bit of time already and have rotated at least two air frames (I think) in and out.

reply to post by FredT


gonna be `rotating` another soon enough as well

"Everything points to the pilot forgetting to lower the wheels, which does happen from time to time," an RAF insider said.

FOX News


If true then i wouldn't want to be in his shoe's at the moment, just how often do pilots forget to lower the undercarage anyway? surely that would be one of the first things you would remember?

I doubt he 'forgot' to put the gear down... Look at the source - Fox.

Personally I would expect a failure of some sort - instead of ejecting I bet the pilot felt he could belly land, which he did. (I say he, I should really say he/she this day in age)

reply to post by Now_Then


it would appear the source is an RAF "insider"; the presenter was Fox. I have no idea if it is true or not, but it's not as uncommon as you might think. Particularly with pilots new to a type. Happened to a B-1 a year or two back.

reply to post by Harlequin


Yup, British Single 036. Don't understand the Sun's report that says that pilot & co-pilot walked away. Single means one seat don't you know...