F-16 midair with small plane in SC

Oh, God. The article doesn't even say if the F-16 driver survived the ejection. And the reports of an inflight explosion and parts raining down don't bode well for the occupant or occupants of the light aircraft. I sure hope everyone involved survived.
 
Latest report I saw on the news said the GA airplane had no survivors, no report on the health of the Viper pilot.

Last time this happened 15 or so years ago, there was a lot of focus on the F-16s flying faster than their waivered speed below 10K (the waivered speed is 300, but they were going 400+ while speeding up to enter an MTR).

There was also a lot of ignorant bluster about how the F-16 should have been able to avoid the midair because it had a radar...which for those of us that have actually used that type of radar, know that is a whole lot of bunk.
 
The F16 pilot is in the Hospital. Seems like he is alright, however they haven't found anyone from the Cessna. One photo has the F16 exhaust nozzle next to a mobile home, crazy.
 
smack300 said:
The F16 pilot is in the Hospital. Seems like he is alright, however they haven't found anyone from the Cessna. One photo has the F16 exhaust nozzle next to a mobile home, crazy.
Click to expand...

When I was in college, we had a Seminole cross the path of a flight of three or four F-16's (or vice versa, I don't know).
 
Hacker15e said:
There was also a lot of ignorant bluster about how the F-16 should have been able to avoid the midair because it had a radar...which for those of us that have actually used that type of radar, know that is a whole lot of bunk.
Click to expand...

Yup. The F-16 pilot most likely has his head outside, not buried into the "paper towel tube" of SA that's the APG radar, unless there's reason to be using it.
 
Derg said:
When I was in college, we had a Seminole cross the path of a flight of three or four F-16's (or vice versa, I don't know).
Click to expand...

Had the same thing on a XC to southern California in one of our 172s, by three RF-4C Phantoms out of March. Close enough to see the tail flash to know where they were from.
 
I remember a very close call with an Air Tractor over a cotton field in southern Alabama. I think he didn't see us as he was on the top to back-side of his half-lazy eight to start another spray run.

I first thought he was a truck when I saw the "brick" on the radar.
 
Years ago, while flying the CRJ, I had a run in with a 3 ship F18 flight. The trail element had popped up 500 feet to get some film of the two other aircraft below him and neglected to tell center they were no longer in standard formation. Of course VFR Altitude +500 feet meant he was at our altitude exactly. Only the lead had a transponder on so the TCAS target looked fine to us. I can't remember the exact number of feet we had as far as separation went but the altitude difference was zero and the lateral separation was less than 1000 feet. I saw WAY more F18 than I wanted to that day.

Paperwork on that one took over two years to processes all the way through.

Sucks for the Cessna crew on this one, but at least the Viper pilot got out.
 
Coming out of Glendale, AZ during my PPL days in an SR-20 my CFI and I ran afoul of 4 Vipers launching out of Luke, 2 above and 2 below us. We were in uncontrolled airspace so no "real" fault, but damn, that was scary.
 
ozziecat35 said:
Coming out of Glendale, AZ during my PPL days in an SR-20 my CFI and I ran afoul of 4 Vipers launching out of Luke, 2 above and 2 below us. We were in uncontrolled airspace so no "real" fault, but damn, that was scary.
Click to expand...
I can't think of anything scarier than heading to the northwest practice area out of GEU...
 
Champcar said:
I can't think of anything scarier than heading to the northwest practice area out of GEU...
Click to expand...
It was actually South of GEU and LUF over I-10 just West of the 101 interchange. I had talked to a F-16 pilot later on who said their radar would be lucky to pick up any GA a/c, but with a Cirrus' composite construction, there was no way they would have seen us unless it was with their MK1 Eyeballs.
 
ozziecat35 said:
It was actually South of GEU and LUF over I-10 just West of the 101 interchange. I had talked to a F-16 pilot later on who said their radar would be lucky to pick up any GA a/c, but with a Cirrus' composite construction, there was no way they would have seen us unless it was with their MK1 Eyeballs.
Click to expand...

They're not staring at the radar anyway. They're flying see and avoid.....looking outside....like everyone else. Or like everyone else is supposed to. No TCAS of any kind in tactical jets unfortunately. At least not last I knew. Heavies got TCAS after the Africa C-141 midair.
 
ozziecat35 said:
It was actually South of GEU and LUF over I-10 just West of the 101 interchange. I had talked to a F-16 pilot later on who said their radar would be lucky to pick up any GA a/c, but with a Cirrus' composite construction, there was no way they would have seen us unless it was with their MK1 Eyeballs.
Click to expand...

It isn't so much the composite construction -- that prop whirring out front is a heck of a radar reflector. It is more the slow groundspeed most GA aircraft are traveling that make them difficult to detect on the radar.

If you want some interesting reading, Google the terms "doppler notch" as well as "velocity gate", and you'll be able to see why slow movers can sometimes be practically invisible to the AI radars on fighters.
 
MikeD said:
They're not staring at the radar anyway. They're flying see and avoid.....looking outside....like everyone else. Or like everyone else is supposed to. No TCAS of any kind in tactical jets unfortunately. At least not last I knew. Heavies got TCAS after the Africa C-141 midair.
Click to expand...

Yeah it wasn't during the flight, I knew a guy who knew a guy etc and I was just curious if they would have seen me. The perception is those fancy air force fighter jets have all sorts of gizmo's, when it reality, some of your GA trainers have better overall avionics.
 
MikeD said:
They're not staring at the radar anyway. They're flying see and avoid.....looking outside....like everyone else. Or like everyone else is supposed to. No TCAS of any kind in tactical jets unfortunately. At least not last I knew. Heavies got TCAS after the Africa C-141 midair.
Click to expand...

The T-38C is the only pointy-nosed jet that I know of with TCAS. Even then, because the TCAS logic isn't programmed to accommodate the maneuverability of the Talon, we used to fly in TA only, and in the pattern turn it off completely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top