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Reaching For The Loud Handle
- Thread starter AllAmerican75
- Start date
UInavy said:
We talk alot about judgement and making sound decisions as Naval Officers. Most of us really enjoy taking on a problem and making the defining decision to solve it or move ahead. We are, after all, leaders. But you have to know when not to make decisons on your own and follow those that came before you. Like the guys that made up procedures in a bright lit climate controlled office after considering tons of info and many courses of action. Althought NATOPS provides for deviation from the rules you had better be able to articulate exactly why you did what you did and hope for a good outcome to boot. That is the thought process that A4s went through when he considered a dead stick. No problem, the situation (time and altitude) allowed for a possible alternative to ejection. But in the end, he stuck with the more relieable outcome, as recommended by NATOPs. Boiled down, the job of flying planes is actually very easy. Simply do what is in the book. You have all heard it before, those procedures are written in blood. If it says eject, eject. No need to fill you head with other possiblities. Some one else was kind enough to make the decision for you. You will not be hung for following NATOPs no matter what the distruction or cost. If there isn't a procedure in the book for your problem, again, no great brain tease, simply do the safeist thing possible. If your idea of a safe way of handling a problem is counter to NATOPS procedure you had better be ready to testify as a test pilot, aircraft engineer, operations officer, safety officer and fortune teller. If you live through it.
JIMC5499 said:
During workups for my 1995 cruise on the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The mechs had just replaced the starboard tailpipe on the jet in port San Diego due to some cracks in the old one. Per their instructions, they did a low power turn and everything worked well.
So, we manned up for the second go of the day. Start, taxi, no problems. Taxi to the cat, spread the wings. Catapult officer gives the take tension and wipeout signals. As my pilot does his control checks, he notices that the flaps have gone barberpoled so he shakes his head to the catapult officer. At the same time, everyone on deck was giving suspend and fire signals and then the boss called for us to throttle back and shut down.
The tailpipe actually split and was ducting exhaust into the wing root area. Turns out there was no real tracking system for reworked tailpipes and we just got a bad one.
Breaks of Naval Air.
wink said:
Exactly.
Had a couple of friends involved in the following story.
EA-6B launches out of PSAB. In short order (15 secs or so), they get a RUDDER THROW caution light, an AEB (aft equipment bay) TEMP light (big red fire light), and uncontrollable pitching. In the EA-6B community, these are classic indications of a fire in the aft part of the fuselage that is burning through your contorl linkages. Command eject and all four got out OK.
What actually happened was a short in a wire bundle that illuminated the lights and short circuited the autopilot (which is used in a stability augmentation mode when airborne in the Prowler) causing spurious inputs. To regain control all they had to do was trun the autopilot off and that step has been added to our NATOPS in case of fire indications due to this mishap.
BUT, not one person faults that crew for ejecting. Based on the knowledge they had and what was in NATOPS at the time, they made the right decision.
I remember experiencing that one in the sim as part of a certain "velvet hammer's" NATOPS check. Instructive lesson in multiple, simultaneous, but independant malfunctions that look like something they're not. Just goes to show you that you can spend an entire career studying an airframe and still know jack (except Jelly - he's not human).SteveG75 said:
Brett
Wink said it better than I could have .... we used to "fly" aircraft instead of "managing" them. Someone else correctly pointed out that the difference between the Navy NATOPSand Air Force procedures is that the Navy tells you what you "can't do" ... the AF tells you what you "can". Big difference in philosophy. If it says don't do it today --- then don't do it -- use the ejection handle and get out. That's not too hard ..... unless the seat doesn't work.
We practiced them -- PPEL's --- High-key -- Low key -- Straight in's --- power set constant and power-off --- the only speed/altitude control you "might" have was speed brakes, gear, and flaps/slats --- why is that so hard for some to understand?? Too many guys died in the A-4 because the seat/canopy interlock did not work as advertised --- I wanted options instead of "only one way out". The tower was onboard with it, the CO was onboard, the Safety-O was onboard --- in point of fact, if they had all "shut-up" on the radio, it would have been a lot easier on me.
There was no "prohibition" against "dead-sticking it" in when I flew --- it was relegated to JUDGEMENT. If I'd made it --- I would have been a huge hero. Instead I punched, got injured and almost run over. Personally, I would have preferred the deadstick into an arrestment.
But that's just me --- lazy ..... no smiles.
We practiced them -- PPEL's --- High-key -- Low key -- Straight in's --- power set constant and power-off --- the only speed/altitude control you "might" have was speed brakes, gear, and flaps/slats --- why is that so hard for some to understand?? Too many guys died in the A-4 because the seat/canopy interlock did not work as advertised --- I wanted options instead of "only one way out". The tower was onboard with it, the CO was onboard, the Safety-O was onboard --- in point of fact, if they had all "shut-up" on the radio, it would have been a lot easier on me.
There was no "prohibition" against "dead-sticking it" in when I flew --- it was relegated to JUDGEMENT. If I'd made it --- I would have been a huge hero. Instead I punched, got injured and almost run over. Personally, I would have preferred the deadstick into an arrestment.
But that's just me --- lazy ..... no smiles.