F-16 midair with small plane in SC

"If you think that referencing cockpit instruments to fly/navigate precludes the ability to see and avoid.......,"

This statement shows the complete disconnect between military and civilian. With whatever respect is due, I'd ask you to consider that the FAA does NOT allow the ability to see and avoid while referencing cockpit instruments.
 
DE727UPS said:
"If you think that referencing cockpit instruments to fly/navigate precludes the ability to see and avoid.......,"

This statement shows the complete disconnect between military and civilian. With whatever respect is due, I'd ask you to consider that the FAA does NOT allow the ability to see and avoid while referencing cockpit instruments.
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Its a difference in wordplay here. The composite crosscheck is an outside/inside thing. It's a crosscheck, not staring at any one thing for a given period of time, but a division of time. Even when VFR, when there is a responsibility to see and avoid, people still look inside and reference instruments as part of an overall crosscheck, otherwise radio freqs would never get changed, VORs would never get tuned/tracked, GPS would never be referenced, etc. Alll stuff donein VFR flight. Which is no different in this case, the only difference being that the instrument being crosschecked, happens to be tuned to a a Navaid thats part of an approach. You're still referencing outside, while glancing occasionally inside...its no different than that. One's head isn't buried inside. That again, is why it cannot be logged as sim instrument.....because its not an instrument crosscheck, as in foggles or heads down stuff; it's a composite crosscheck.
 
MikeD said:
Does the Super Hornet have it?
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no, though it has been on the back burner "would be nice to have but we will never fund it" list for many many years now. Prowler got it, can't remember if Growler did too off the top of my head (I guess for exped/shore based kind of stuff).
 
MikeD said:
Its a difference in wordplay here. The composite crosscheck is an outside/inside thing. It's a crosscheck, not staring at any one thing for a given period of time, but a division of time. Even when VFR, when there is a responsibility to see and avoid, people still look inside and reference instruments as part of an overall crosscheck, otherwise radio freqs would never get changed, VORs would never get tuned/tracked, GPS would never be referenced, etc. Alll stuff donein VFR flight. Which is no different in this case, the only difference being that the instrument being crosschecked, happens to be tuned to a a Navaid thats part of an approach. You're still referencing outside, while glancing occasionally inside...its no different than that. One's head isn't buried inside. That again, is why it cannot be logged as sim instrument.....because its not an instrument crosscheck, as in foggles or heads down stuff; it's a composite crosscheck.
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That's splitting hairs. In the civ world, instrument approach practice is a huge heads-down activity. Simply instrument crosscheck while looking outside is a visual approach. A fighter jet collided with a civilian aircraft and killed two people so it needs to raise questions and demand a full and thorough investigation. Us civvies don't have the convenience of pulling an eject handle and living at the end of something terrible.
 
Mike, what your saying is a military pilot doing instrument training splits his time between see and avoid and instrument flying cockpit duties. The division of attention makes for a less safe environment than the way it's done in the civilian world. The FAA won't allow this with civilian instrument training. Flippen drones need a safety pilot escort if they are big enough to cause damage if they hit an aircraft.
 
TN_Pilot said: ↑
Not that I'm defending the military. Their negligence in not installing a $50k TCAS unit in airplanes that are armed to the teeth with millions of dollars worth of weapons technology is downright reprehensible.

I'm not crazy about it either but we have to look at their primary mission. Also in some of the fighter cockpits I have seen there is absolutely no place to put the display and imagine there is probably less space left in the avionics racks. You would think it would a standard requirement on all the large military aircraft and future aircraft due to the crowded airspace.
 
Look, I can put an adsb system in a Cessna for $3000 and two days worth of work. It doesn't even need a control in the cockpit if you have a mode c transponder already. I know you're still looking at at least $15k after the government discount but geez that's a drop in the bucket especially if you build it into a New design like the -35.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
That's splitting hairs. In the civ world, instrument approach practice is a huge heads-down activity. Simply instrument crosscheck while looking outside is a visual approach. A fighter jet collided with a civilian aircraft and killed two people so it needs to raise questions and demand a full and thorough investigation. Us civvies don't have the convenience of pulling an eject handle and living at the end of something terrible.
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I can't imagine a scenario where the complete loss of an aircraft, as well as fatalities, would not warrant a "full and thorough investigation". Exactly what sort of program do you think that we run, as a group of professional aviators, who care just as much about preventing loss of aircraft and death as anyone else? I realize that military SIR's (the official investigation vs the concurrent legal investigation) are "privileged info" and not typically released to the public, which might perhaps draw some mistrust from those who do not understand the process or the reasoning for the controls that are placed over such a release, but I have yet to see one that wasn't "full" or "thorough". In fact, the entire reason for not releasing to the general public is to ensure that people are as honest and candid as possible (without fear of retribution) during the investigation process, thus allowing us to get the most accurate reconstruction and causual understanding as we can.......with the ultimate goal being to learn from our collective mistakes. It might seem as much, but it is certainly not designed to allow an event like this to be "swept under the rug" as some have insinuated. I have seen several of my buds be forever removed from flying for much less serious mistakes, mistakes that resulted in no accident and no loss of life.......for lack of a better term, fighter aviation is still the school of hard knocks......there is very very little room for error......bad judgement, failure to adhere to regulations, etc are all treated very seriously and with frequently career ending results. What I would bet money on is that the legal investigation will be released in this case (always releasable under FOIA), and the legal document normally VERY closely resembles the accident investigation, at least in all the truly important parts. So before we all rush to judgement, perhaps allow the investigation team to conduct their full and thorough investigation that would be done for any mishap, and we can all learn from it. As for the crosscheck argument, I'll put it this way......we do "practice approaches" to put required checks in the box to retain "currency"......it is in no way, shape, or form, training to deal with IMC flight. That was taken care of early on in flight school, and very regularly after that throughout one's career, and has to be like breathing when you get to the operational level. We do however have requirements to log a certain amount of precision and non-precision approaches every year, and this is the way that you do it if the weather doesn't cooperate. I hope that kind of explains some of the stuff you had questions about.

I don't write any of this to start a fight or continue the argument. I take it personally when folks out there have it in their minds that we are a bunch of cowboys who don't care about the lives of civilian pilots. My worst nightmare would be to be in this scenario myself, and I can't think of a pilot, military or otherwise who wouldn't agree.
 
Gents:

As referenced earlier, the rules which military pilots fly under are negotiated with the full concurrence, knowledge, and permission of the FAA. If you are concerned that there is a safety issue, then I encourage you to contact the FAA military liaison team and voice that concern.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Do it in a MOA. Create one if it's that busy an area. There's no excuse for this.
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A MOA...that has less positive control and less radar coverage than in the terminal environment? An area where non-participating VFR traffic is legally allowed to fly, versus a controlled terminal area where they're not?

Come on, this doesn't even slightly pass even surface-level scrutiny.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
What is the difference between a F16 flying a visual approach, practicing IFR procedures, and an airliner flying a visual approach, practicing IFR procedures ? Does the PF of the Airbus not scan his instruments too? Sans Heads up display?

Seems the same to me.

This is what CC can't understand.
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The argument would be that in the Bus there is a PNF whose sole responsibility is to look outside and clear for traffic.

Which, is funny, because if you go back and read threads we've had here about TCAS and see-and-avoid, apparently the inside of an airliner cockpit is just too busy for that.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
How does a single person practice an instrument approach? By definition that is a heads down maneuver. In IMC is one thing but in VFR condition us GA guys need a safety pilot while the practice guy is under foggles/hood. How does it work for the military?
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The same way anyone does. By loading it up and asking ATC for a practice approach.

Training for an approach and training for IMC are two different things. Why is this so hard to understand?
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
How does a single person practice an instrument approach? By definition that is a heads down maneuver. In IMC is one thing but in VFR condition us GA guys need a safety pilot while the practice guy is under foggles/hood. How does it work for the military?
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The same way anyone does. By loading it up and asking ATC for a practice approach.

Training for an approach and training for IMC are two different things. Why is this so hard to understand?
 
Jesus H, some of you have vastly unrealistic expectations on what you expect of us in military airframes.

Our training is driven by Time, Mission, and Airframes. You can't ask us to be proficient in our wartime mission on existing budgets and maintenance capes without cutting corners on some things.

We do so at our own risk- and predictably, we crash airplanes *way* more often. That's why we're not contractors, we're military aviators accepting a risk to prosecute a dangerous mission.

Would you believe it if I told you we've been known to fly self-built approaches, on the fly, in IMC to dirt runways at night in Afganistan? If we didn't push it in training, we wouldn't be able to execute the non-standard, probably illegal things we have to do to accomplish our mission overseas.

We do our very best to minimize those risks while CONUS, but there are realities to face. You gonna pay for outfitting 1000 airframes with ADSB and TCAS purchase and upkeep? For the profiles we fly, I think we're extremely safe at it.

This discussion would have more basis if we were constantly crashing airplanes or running into each other, but...we work it out most of the time. Flying is dangerous.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
That's splitting hairs. In the civ world, instrument approach practice is a huge heads-down activity. Simply instrument crosscheck while looking outside is a visual approach. A fighter jet collided with a civilian aircraft and killed two people so it needs to raise questions and demand a full and thorough investigation. Us civvies don't have the convenience of pulling an eject handle and living at the end of something terrible.
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DE727UPS said:
Mike, what your saying is a military pilot doing instrument training splits his time between see and avoid and instrument flying cockpit duties. The division of attention makes for a less safe environment than the way it's done in the civilian world. The FAA won't allow this with civilian instrument training. Flippen drones need a safety pilot escort if they are big enough to cause damage if they hit an aircraft.
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I say again. Instrument crosscheck = flight by reference to instruments, such as under a hood, where that time counts as sim instrument time. Composite crosscheck = dividing time between outside and inside.

May I ask how in VFR, if this is so unsafe, how do you guys manage to tune a VOR frequency and track a radial, or load up a GPS unit and follow it, when single pilot? You divide your duties, right? Or were all your solo XCs done with pilotage and DR with you staring out the window the whole time? What I'm describing is no different. That is the reason it is not instrument time loggable. Because one would need a safety pilot for it to be.

And c'mon Don, drones need a safety pilot because there's not a pilot physically present at all. Are you really making that comparison here?
 
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