F-14 Questions Answered - Ask Away
- Thread starter Astro14
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Hi.
Yes, that is the one. Thank you. It was something of a shock for him when he transitioned from the F14 to the F2.
A bit of a tangent, and a little but closer to home (for me in New Zealand).
HUD tape of an RNZAF aermacchi MB-339 crew ejection. The point of interest in this one is that the back seater was non aircrew, he was a maintainer going for a flight ended up having to walk back instead of landing.
He got hurt pretty bad on the ejection (because aermacchi). The aircraft doesn't jettison the canopy or have embedded det cord to shatter it. Instead, the top of the seat has a steel "knocker" that goes through the canopy first, shattering it.
On most aircraft you can adjust the seat height, particularly in the back in order to see over the head of the front seater. In doing so the entire seat is raised or lowered on rails. In the macchi, this isn't the case. Only the seat pan raises or lowers. So when you gave a maintainer going for a flight he naturally raises the seat to get the best visibility he can. But in this case his head ended up higher than the seat knocker. Not ideal when he eventually had to eject.
I'm on my phone and not sure i have emedded it correctly so the link is also here.
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If you conduct a “planned” ejection, there should be a checklist that is followed, which includes lowering the seat!
They had a lot of time from “@#$%# - we’ve got an engine vibration”, to the “Mayday” and the subsequent radio communication, to the “unable to maintain height”. Then, no prep, and “I’m ejecting, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, NOW!”
As the engine is coming apart, I would have prepped the maintainer, by having him ensure his harness is tight, mask is tight, visor is down, kneeboard and loose gear are removed, seat is lowered, and he is sitting upright.
I’ve flown some non-aircrew in the back of the F-14. Midshipmen (that’s a great story in and of itself), senior officers, flight surgeons (lots of fun, that, because the flight surgeon was my friend and room-mate on the boat) and an Army Doctor, Major Rhonda Cornum*, who I took to the boat from Oceana.
The ejection possibility was carefully briefed, including the difference between one which we had time, and in which I expected all the above steps to be accomplished, and one in which we didn’t have time. In the F11, if the pilot pulled the handle, both seats were going regardless. But there was a command eject lever in the rear cockpit. If it was aft, in “MCO“ then both seats would go if the RIO pulled the handle. If it was forward, in “Pilot”, then only the RIO would eject if they pulled the handle.
Mooch talks about this on his YouTube channel -
Mooch gets the “MCO” acronym wrong, by the way. It meant “missile control officer” - which was the original designation fo the RIO. But Mooch is a RIO, and RIOs think of themselves as “Mission Commanders” and he has re-imagined the meaning of the acronym.
Back on topic - So, when flying non-air crew, I always made certain that command eject handle was forward, in pilot. Just in case the person panicked, we would lose the canopy, and we would lose the backseat, but we would save the airplane. But, if I knew we had to get out, we were both getting out.
What interesting about the Aermacchi, is clearly (from the communication) there is not a command eject. The ejection seats are not linked, they each fire individually.
The last communication on the tape between the pilot and the maintainer made that very clear. The pilot made sure the maintainer knew that he was going to eject, and told him to “eject eject eject NOW” - pretty clear that he was telling the maintainer to pull the handle.
And all the time that I’ve flown with non-air crew, I’ve considered this possibility quite a bit, and I thought this pilot could have done a better job getting his maintainer ready for the ejection.
*Rhonda Cornum, US Army, is now a Brigadier, retired and has both an MD and PhD. She was also a POW in the Gulf War. She was great to fly with, very sharp, and a private pilot herself. That was a great day, five traps, and then we took her Lancair flying that afternoon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhonda_Cornum
They had a lot of time from “@#$%# - we’ve got an engine vibration”, to the “Mayday” and the subsequent radio communication, to the “unable to maintain height”. Then, no prep, and “I’m ejecting, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT, NOW!”
As the engine is coming apart, I would have prepped the maintainer, by having him ensure his harness is tight, mask is tight, visor is down, kneeboard and loose gear are removed, seat is lowered, and he is sitting upright.
I’ve flown some non-aircrew in the back of the F-14. Midshipmen (that’s a great story in and of itself), senior officers, flight surgeons (lots of fun, that, because the flight surgeon was my friend and room-mate on the boat) and an Army Doctor, Major Rhonda Cornum*, who I took to the boat from Oceana.
The ejection possibility was carefully briefed, including the difference between one which we had time, and in which I expected all the above steps to be accomplished, and one in which we didn’t have time. In the F11, if the pilot pulled the handle, both seats were going regardless. But there was a command eject lever in the rear cockpit. If it was aft, in “MCO“ then both seats would go if the RIO pulled the handle. If it was forward, in “Pilot”, then only the RIO would eject if they pulled the handle.
Mooch talks about this on his YouTube channel -
Mooch gets the “MCO” acronym wrong, by the way. It meant “missile control officer” - which was the original designation fo the RIO. But Mooch is a RIO, and RIOs think of themselves as “Mission Commanders” and he has re-imagined the meaning of the acronym.
Back on topic - So, when flying non-air crew, I always made certain that command eject handle was forward, in pilot. Just in case the person panicked, we would lose the canopy, and we would lose the backseat, but we would save the airplane. But, if I knew we had to get out, we were both getting out.
What interesting about the Aermacchi, is clearly (from the communication) there is not a command eject. The ejection seats are not linked, they each fire individually.
The last communication on the tape between the pilot and the maintainer made that very clear. The pilot made sure the maintainer knew that he was going to eject, and told him to “eject eject eject NOW” - pretty clear that he was telling the maintainer to pull the handle.
And all the time that I’ve flown with non-air crew, I’ve considered this possibility quite a bit, and I thought this pilot could have done a better job getting his maintainer ready for the ejection.
*Rhonda Cornum, US Army, is now a Brigadier, retired and has both an MD and PhD. She was also a POW in the Gulf War. She was great to fly with, very sharp, and a private pilot herself. That was a great day, five traps, and then we took her Lancair flying that afternoon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhonda_Cornum
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Pre flight procedures were amended after that flight to include steps to ensure that neither crews head was above the knocker height.
PIC was newly graduated from wings course.
If the date is when I think it was this was a brand new aircraft that had just entered service (there were "issues" with them for a while. Only aircraft I know of that ended up with a zero stage compressor). The head height issue hadn't been identified before that.
Not sure if it had anything to do with crews getting correct alignment of eyes with the HUD.
EDIT: lessons (thankfully) learned, but (unfortunately) learned the hard way.
I cant comment on the ability to command the ejection sequency sorry, as I dont know how that worked for this aircraft.
PIC was newly graduated from wings course.
If the date is when I think it was this was a brand new aircraft that had just entered service (there were "issues" with them for a while. Only aircraft I know of that ended up with a zero stage compressor). The head height issue hadn't been identified before that.
Not sure if it had anything to do with crews getting correct alignment of eyes with the HUD.
EDIT: lessons (thankfully) learned, but (unfortunately) learned the hard way.
I cant comment on the ability to command the ejection sequency sorry, as I dont know how that worked for this aircraft.
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Also on another tangent but RNZAF related, we lost several A4K Skyhawks (three I think) on my first year of joining, it was a pretty morose time. If anybody has interest on the A4K (NZ was the only country to operate this configuration of skyhawk) there is some public domain information available such as here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Kahu
Basically, an A4G with the avionics hump removed (makes them faster), zero time wings installed, and F16 avionics fitted (APG-66 radar etc). It made for a significant upgrade in performance on a budget, but they were definitely dated when retired. I think the Israeli skyhawks had a slightly more powerful engine while the RNZAF had some of the best avionics fit out of the world skyhawk fleet. RNZAF A4's are now being flown by Draken
Basically, an A4G with the avionics hump removed (makes them faster), zero time wings installed, and F16 avionics fitted (APG-66 radar etc). It made for a significant upgrade in performance on a budget, but they were definitely dated when retired. I think the Israeli skyhawks had a slightly more powerful engine while the RNZAF had some of the best avionics fit out of the world skyhawk fleet. RNZAF A4's are now being flown by Draken
I have a few hundred hours in the A4, though it was all in the TA-4J, which I flew both under instruction, and solo. Wonderful airplane. Very responsive on the flight controls, easy to fly and easy to fly well.
Upgrading the airplane made sense for a small country in the limited budget. You get a lot of good performance, even if you don’t need supersonic capability.
I wasn’t aware that many of them had crashed.
I was always amazed that the long spindly nose gear on the A4 could handle being slammed onto the deck of a carrier.
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Those long spindly landing gear on the A-4 are the genesis of the semi-derisive nickname "Tinkertoy." (Those of us that loved the airplane universally called it the Scooter.) Those tall landing gear were necessary, though. If you recall the size of nuclear weapons at the time the A-4 was designed (early '50s), the gear were required to be that tall simply to allow a weapon on the loading cart to fit underneath the airplane.
To your point, I just had to dig up this photo:
Yes, that's me and yes, that's the skippers airplane! I dropped the nose just prior to touchdown and broke the nose gear shear pin. The shear pin was a designed failure point to keep the nose gear from coming up through the cockpit deck in a situation like this.. The NG just folded into the wheel well. New NG door and some zinc chromate, and the airplane was back in service in a few days.
For the non-Naval members, which skipper and how can we see that it's his airplane?
The CO of VA-72 at the time (1966) was CDR Harry Southworth.
If the photo were higher resolution, his name is under the cockpit. But, more generally, aircraft are numbered in "Rocket Number" (seniority) order;
All aircraft in an individual squadron have the same first digit - 5 in this case
X00 always has the wing commander's name
X01 for the CO
X02 for the XO
and so on in seniority order
You guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read somewhere the A4 had one of the fastest roll rates in the inventory.
It was exceeded by only a few others. One of them being the T-38.
It was exceeded by only a few others. One of them being the T-38.
Yes, wonderfully high roll rate! If memory serves me correctly, it was 720°/sec.
That was the NATOPS number. Even the F/A-18 could not match the Scooter's roll rate.
Thanks for including the Wiki reference for General Cornum. She's extremely impressive, to say the least. Incredible woman.
Can you share more about the flight where you were able to transport her to the ship from Oceana?
I think I found out on a Thursday, that on Saturday (June 6, 1993) I was going to fly somebody out to the boat. I got only the most simple details, brief time, aircraft, overhead time at the carrier, in the name of the person. I got told she was some kind of POW. I remembered her name because she wasn’t supposed to be flying (she was a flight surgeon, not a combatant) and got shot down when she was in the back of the helicopter. It was a pretty big news story at the time.
So, I stopped by the bookstore the next day, and bought her book. “She Went to War”, was the title, if I remember correctly. Read it that night.
I was able to find out that she was staying at the BOQ that Friday Night, and I called her. We agreed to meet at McDonald’s Saturday morning, early, for breakfast as the brief was long, and detailed, when flying aboard ship. We needed to discuss procedures, and what to do. I needed to get her gear fitted and sized by our parachute riggers, and then, I needed to get her in the jet, early, so that we could go over the systems, controls, and so that she could operate those few things that needed to work for our flight.
The airplane had not been “carrierized” so there was a bit of a delay there, which included a check on the Tailhook, nitrogen pressure, tire pressure, and a few other things. It was buno 161133. An F-14A
So, we were a bit late launching, and flew supersonic to get overhead the ship. It is considered bad form to show up late when the ship is steaming into the wind and waiting on you.
We had some radio problems, and since some of the radio controls were in the backseat, she had to switch antennas to see if it was an antenna issue, or it was an actual radio issue. I used the front seat radio to communicate with the ship, and I made all of the radio calls. Communication and a ship board environment requires precise, brief, transmissions. There is a protocol in the language. You don’t talk when somebody is “on the ball” for example.
It was a beautiful sunny day, a bit hazy, but relatively steady winds and calm seas.
We made a total of five arrested landings. I think the ship would’ve given us more, but we continued to have radio issues, and the Air Boss was getting impatient with us. Missing a radio call from the boss is also very bad form, and I think that happened a couple of times.
During carrier qualifications, the whole process of arrested landing, taxi clear, reconfigure the airplane, and hook up to the catapult, then launch, can be done in a matter of minutes, so we were busy with all those tasks, and then banging off the front end again, to turn downwind and land again.
I made certain that she locked her harness each time we came in to land, but the squadron representative, who was up in the tower with the Airboss, said that her head and upper body flew forward on each trap, so even though she said she had the harness locked, it’s pretty clear that she didn’t.
As we got our final catapult shot, to fly back to Oceana, we continued to have radio problems. I had her check the radio frequencies, and swap antennas between upper and lower, but I’m not sure that she actually got it right, because we never did resolve the problems and were unable to contact the controlling agency over the water - FACSFAC VACAPES (callsign: Giant Killer).
So, Giant Killer saw this airplane (ours) on radar and wasn’t talking to it. They knew from our flight plan who we were, but they vectored another airplane to intercept. As we were flying back to Oceana, I saw a Tomcat in a rendezvous on our right. Seamus “Flats” Flatley flying.
Flats led us back to Oceana.
We parked the jet, got out and she asked if I wanted to try flying her airplane. I don’t remember if it was a GlassAir or a Lancair, but either way, it was pretty fast. we filed a flight plan, and took off, and flew up the James River towards Richmond. Very nice handling airplane in all honesty and much faster than you would expect piston to be.
I know now about the cost of operating one of those things, and it was very generous of her to fly me around. Please let me add that she was great - very professional and polite. Very sharp. Interesting story about her combat and POW experience.
I did get her to autograph my Copy of her book at one point.
Still have that somewhere.
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Thanks for taking the time to to tell that story! Enjoyed that!
So did I!
Thanks Astro for that very detailed description. I am a big Top Gun fan (The original movie + Top Gun Maverick).
The F-14 is my favorite fighter jet. It is a truly beautiful aircraft with the 2 vertical tail fins and the 2 large engines on either side.
The F-14 Tomcat's top speed and other it's other specs seem so superior to the F-18 and newer aircraft that replaced it.
I know the newer planes can fire a missile from great distances, making dog fighting less important, but still, on the surface it seems a step backwards that the newer replacements are significantly slower. Speed is important, whether to join a dog fight to help fellow pilots, or to escape / retreat when ordered to do so when against insurmountable enemy numbers.
What is your opinion on the lower speeds of the newer aircraft, and did they retire the F-14 Tomcat too soon?
