I nearly made skid-marks just reading between the lines of this one:
[military]:
An F-22 Raptor pilot taking off from Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, in April had incorrect takeoff data, reached inadequate airspeed and prematurely retracted the landing gear, causing the stealth jet to slide down the runway, according to a new accident report.
Oh, ow. I’m glad nobody was injured, except for the taxpayers.
“But, wait…” I started to realize, if the landing gear retracted just before it should have then it probably retracted near the F-22’s take-off speed. It would have been moving pretty fast, right? Around 200mph.
The Raptor slid down the runway for 6,514 feet until it came to a stop.
That’s a 1.2 mile skid-mark.
I do not regularly read Fox News; it’s just that sometimes my F-35/F-22 searches on google news give me pointers to those sites.
The link to the story is missing.
I wonder if the pilot had skid marks. That’s one hell of a toboggan ride.
@#1 Ketil Tveiten:
Here you go:
Report Blames F-22 Belly Skid on Human Error
Fixed the link.
Apparently the pilot did not remember that the air is thinner taking off at a higher altitude air base, and raised the landing gear where he normally would. So the plane didn’t lift and became a toboggan.
2 km skidmark? Wow. Luckily there were 2 km of free runway to go.
Charly@#5:
2 km skidmark? Wow. Luckily there were 2 km of free runway to go.
It’s one of those “good news, bad news” situations.
I suspect that pilot will not get in a cockpit again.
Ow indeed, I wonder how much that will cost to put right?
I’m not familiar with F-22 operations, but it sounds to me like the pilot was hot-dogging. Normally, one waits until a positive rate of climb is achieved before retracting the landing gear, and in fact many/most aircraft include sensors on the struts to detect the weight of the airframe precisely to prevent the sort of thing that seems to have occurred in this incident; in such an aircraft, the pilot would have to override the “fuckup preventer” to make a flashy “wheels up *then* rise up” takeoff.
From the post and the links I infer the landing gear is retracted as soon as the aircraft (appears to) lift off. If so I have to ask: why? It can’t possibly be required because that would imply that the aircraft is so unstable during take-off that it can’t handle a set of wheels sticking out at the bottom. From a safety perspective surely it should be recommended and required to keep the gear deployed quite a bit longer until you’re really sure you’re up and staying up.
This wouldn’t be, by any chance, some jock pilot bullshit, would it? “Look at me, so quick, so smooth, so eleg..”*screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*
I am impressed the plane was able to redeploy and lock the landing gear afterwards. That’s not something I’d expect from an aircraft. The light construction seems at odds with a long high-speed slide but I’m probably just underestimating modern planes (and materials).
“The pilot was unharmed and was able to egress the aircraft safely”.
Clear communication being the paramount objective of the journalist, I am ever so happy the military.com correspondent had to hand so transpicuous a word as egress to express the pilot’s action. No other word would have so neatly encapsulated the event.
Komarov @8:
One of the skills that any pilot of an interceptor (which is actually an air-superiority aircraft today — along with ground attack aircraft, bomber escort, intrusion craft, etc. (one of the reasons these damn things are so expensive is we expect it to fill the role of an F-15 (air superiority fighter), an A-10 (ground attack aircraft), and an F-105 (designed as a fighter, but the Thud turned out to be a really good intrusion bomber))). In order for an interceptor to be effective, maximum altitude in the minimum amount of time is necessary (and has led to some oddball aircraft — Me 163 Komet and Ba 349 Natter (both rocket propelled interceptors)). Fighter pilots do this by using a maximum thrust take-off followed by an afterburner climbout which, in order to shave off a few seconds, means the landing gear are retracted immediately. And, fighter pilots being who they are, they learn to do this for all take-offs (or, in the Navy, launches (never let it be said that I don’t know the difference between a take-off and a launch (or take-out and lunch (which can be the same think)))). And, fighter pilots being who they are, the earlier the retraction the hotter the pilot. Which is, of course, kinda stupid.
efogoto @9:
Are you a fan of Terry Pratchett? I think he uses “This way to the Egress!!” in at least two books. Maybe more.
And I got so wrapped up in my parentheticals that I made an homage to Borkquotia. The first sentence should read:
One of the skills that any pilot of an interceptor (which is actually an air-superiority aircraft today — along with ground attack aircraft, bomber escort, intrusion craft, etc. (one of the reasons these damn things are so expensive is we expect it to fill the role of an F-15 (air superiority fighter), an A-10 (ground attack aircraft), and an F-105 (designed as a fighter, but the Thud turned out to be a really good intrusion bomber))) is a maximum power maximum climb take-off. And second sentence should be adjusted in your mind to flow freely from the corrected first sentence. Sorry.
That does make some sense at least, though it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing for the pilot. Thank you for that. (And for the parenthetical correction, I was getting stuck in a sort of loop trying to parse the original)
Now I can’t help wondering what friction burns on the fuselage (and tarmac) do for the pilot’s “hotness”.
@Oggie, I have, sadly, only read Bad Omens of all of Mr. Pratchett’s oeuvre. I know that same line by way of PT Barnum who, to move patrons along, had an exhibition sign that read This way to the Egress.
komarov@#13:
it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing for the pilot.
His career is done. He destroyed just under 1% of the US Air Force’s air superiority fighters.