He wasn’t a top performer. He had numerous issues dating back to 125 to include a PRB.
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CVN 70 F-35 ramp strike mishap report
- Thread starter johnboyA6E
- Start date
That’s good to know and makes a lot more sense.
The Army treats their entire aviation branch as a whole differently than any other service, and that isn't exactly a good thing. Since they treat their aircraft like just any other truck or armored vehicle their aviation procurement has been a bit of a fiasco the last two decades and their operational employment of their aviation assets is often limited.
In a way, it seems what should be happening pattern breaks in training should evolve to be a "SHB", i.e., break at the bow at the latest. If you can do the continual decelerating circle, you can drone upwind for a leisurely trundle on the downwind.
Start with the extended upwinds on the early hops, but eventually move the turn point back until you are over the numbers. Put it in as a maneuver in high work, going from a decent speed well above 250 KTs, pull to idle, and roll, and be dirty and on speed in 270-360 degrees or so.
It just takes practice.
In the T-2 in a break at the round down, I always brought the throttles out of the bucket while still way fast, just to get some RPMs on the engines and make sure they were still in noise-making mode.
In a way, it seems what should be happening pattern breaks in training should evolve to be a "SHB", i.e., break at the bow at the latest. If you can do the continual decelerating circle, you can drone upwind for a leisurely trundle on the downwind.
Start with the extended upwinds on the early hops, but eventually move the turn point back until you are over the numbers. Put it in as a maneuver in high work, going from a decent speed well above 250 KTs, pull to idle, and roll, and be dirty and on speed in 270-360 degrees or so.
It just takes practice.
In the T-2 in a break at the round down, I always brought the throttles out of the bucket while still way fast, just to get some RPMs on the engines and make sure they were still in noise-making mode.
The weird thing about breaking at the ship is it's actually easier to do the SHB/expedited recovery if you break behind the ship, rather than at the bow. Breaking at the bow is the classic "buildup" mistake pilots make when they're testing the waters, or simply trying to fix late timing.
Here's how I used to think about it, for what its worth: The problem is how you bleed energy in the SHB- trying to get to a normal abeam position leads to being excessively long in the groove, due to the higher-than-normal airspeed when you arrive abeam. The key is keeping the turn wrapped up with g (to bleed knots) until about the 90, but that leads to not enough straightaway if you break directly overhead Mom. So if you break overhead, it's likely you'll either be too fast with NESA, or underline long in the groove (and late, screwing your interval). In a SHB, the gear often comes down around the 90 (as g eases below gear transit limits), rather than by the abeam, as it does in the normal pattern. Other common SHB mistakes are too wide abeam, too fast on final (failure to pull enough g and bleed knots quickly through the 90), and generally getting to a crappy start. As for throttle control, it's definitely worth leading the slowdown a little bit to spool the engines (and engage ATC and PLM). It's a jet, so you have to fly it like a jet.
Not sure how the F-35 bleeds energy, but I would think it's similar enough to the F/A-18 that similar techniques apply.
Over to others on where I f'd up my explanation- there are about 3 opinions per aviator on the SHB.
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Just because someone had issues in one part of training doesn’t mark them as a no-load for the rest of their career. Sometimes people have issues until the light bulb comes on.
I wish I could take that mindset out of aviation and throw it in a burning 55-gallon drum full of JP-5 and shit, which is where it belongs.
You’re not wrong but it’s still relevant info.
Especially seeing as how they pulled him from flight status.
No one said an early struggler will struggle forever.
Yeah, I’m just saying the two aren’t necessarily related. He could have had issues in the RAG, worked through them, been a top performer, and then had one huge career-ending fuckup. Hose up badly enough and one thing can lose you your flight status, even if previously you were the second incarnation of John Young.
Yup. I agree. Trends can be useful, but it doesn’t matter where you were in the quality spread if you crash a jet because you didn’t complete your landing procedures.
When did I ever say that?
What is relevant is that someone who had issues at the RAG to include the CQ phase and falling way behind the jet when things didn’t go exactly according to plan, then crashed a jet when two of those exact things happened.
This.
One of the most struggling students I had as an instructor in the FRS was a shit-hot, locked-on senior JO pilot when I showed up to be his Department Head. It's unfortunate that the only time you hear that the person had issues "going back to flight school" is when there's a mishap.
I think a good ASO and a good mishap investigation crew will acknowledge and flesh out any previous performance issues and make a proper determination regarding if they're causal or not.
But people love to come out of the wood work and say, "Oh he stumbled this one time..." I hope they realize they're playing into our zero defect mentality that we say we don't have.
I think if you have access to RMI and can read the SIR, you'll see that the AMB really did try and dig into the issue(s) of why we had this mishap, beyond what the MP did/did not do that caused the aircraft to hit the ramp.
I may be in the minority on this, but I really don't lament the loss of the SHB. Was it fun? Sure, but at the end of the day landing on the boat is admin, and in hindsight it feels like the risk accepted by doing a SHB is not in line of what we would normally accept in an admin phase of flight.
I may be in the minority on this, but I really don't lament the loss of the SHB. Was it fun? Sure, but at the end of the day landing on the boat is admin, and in hindsight it feels like the risk accepted by doing a SHB is not in line of what we would normally accept in an admin phase of flight.
Also, super below MIF on ‘ol clickbait himself (Ward Carroll) for: #1 trolling at Hook for details to breathlessly share on his YouTube channel, and #2 definitely mentioning a detail I know was in the SIR I don’t recall seeing in the JAGMAN. As if I could respect him any less, he constantly strives for a new low. Hopefully this is a lesson to the new folks on why we allow the safety process to keep the need to know within the circle of trust.
The stack rank and standard career path causes a number of unfortunate side effects. First, as much as aviation tries to cultivate a "laid-back" image to the outside world, there are as many backstabbing aspiring politicians wearing flight suits as there are SWOveralls. When only one or two people can "win," it incentivizes folks to say "look at that jackass" and shine a spotlight even if they're not in the same summary group. Fourth Law of Thermo, if the heat's on someone else it's not on you, etc. etc.
Further, Big Navy has decided that the only way you can ever be a head coach is to have been a QB coach, and the only way you can be a QB coach is to have been a D-I starting quarterback. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. We have plenty of folks with the temperament to be good instructors, yourself and some of our mutual acquaintances included. But it's way more of a crapshoot than it arguably should be. Which kind of feeds into Point #1. We have too many incentives for people to have to figure stuff out as they go, and then if they screw up, there's blood in the water and everyone gangs up on them.
I mean, in this case, it's unavoidable. I can't defend someone continuing on after they trashed a $100M jet because they didn't follow NATOPS. But it does kind of culturally explain the whole "this guy was a no-load going back to flight school" remarks you bring up.