Spin avoidance question

[MikeD]

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Anybody notice how big MikeD has been recently on the aerodynamics of swept-wing aircraft?

Come on Mike...don't you Air Force fly-boys have anything else to contribute?

You're stories about the gun on the A10 were much more exciting!!! (sarcasm of course)

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I only include that because guys will tend to make definitive "always" statements about aerodynamics, sometimes forgetting that it's different when you go different places. If you carry over the habits from straight-wing to swept when you get there, you could find yourself in a bind. Just trying to insure people remain mindful of that, especially CFIs that pass on the knowlege.

 

[cime_sp]

Point well taken. Although it sounds like there's a story in all of this.

Did you almost get bit in the but by the 117?

 

[MikeD]

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Point well taken. Although it sounds like there's a story in all of this.

Did you almost get bit in the but by the 117?

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No, but you're very close. In UPT, I was sitting #1 for takeoff in my T-38 when a classmate of mine came off the final turn on a solo flight. I casually watched him come off the perch for the final turn, then went into the cockpit to set my HSI, then casually glanced back up at his approach. His jet was in nose high and dropping like a rock in a moderate bank, about two-thirds through the final turn, and still about 2 miles from the runway. He realized it at that point, since I saw his wings level and his afterburners light up, but he couldn't get the plane to immediately climb.....he was only able to arrest the descent at that point until he accelerated to the "front side" of the power curve. Problem was, he was approaching the highway that ran perpendicular to and before the runway (this is all happening in seconds, no time to get off a radio call or anything....I was on a different freq anyway, me on tower, him on RSU freq); and the train tracks and powerlines that parallel the highway. A train was approaching from the east at a good speed and about 4 miles from crossing the centerline of the runway. So I watch as he lowers the nose while still in burner, simultaneously raising the gear and raising the flaps to approach setting, and accelerating like a madman.....flies under the wires...keeping it extra low so as not to snag the vertical fin, and only about 10 AGL (literally, the bottom of his plane was about a little higher than my head as I was sitting in my jet). He screamed over the approach end, went down the runway, pulled closed, and (for some reason) made the next one a full stop.

He was an experienced civilian guy like me, mostly was a CFI. Fully admitted that he had gotten a little complacent, was letting his mind wander to things he was going to do after his flight, and fouled up. Quick thinking, and some luck, saved his butt. Had he been in the same situation 3 minutes or so later, he would've been impaled into the side of the Union Pacific locomotive or one of the cars.

 

[cime_sp]

Yeah, yeah, yeah,.....all of our "friends" have done something like that

I'm just kidding. It's a good reminder though to continue to fly the plane until it's parked. Anything less can lead to some nasty crap. Complacency kills

 

[MikeD]

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Yeah, yeah, yeah,.....all of our "friends" have done something like that

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It was a friend of a friend of a friend, who knew this guy.

Seriously, I would like to think I'd have had the presence of mind to do what he did to escape the situation, and keep it from becoming very bad. One of those things...I'd never know til experiencing it.