WTF? (**NSFW**)

[waveshaper]

3 hours ago, Runr6730 said:

Any Viper drivers on here that can explain how it’s possible to shoot your own aircraft?  

https://www.foxnews.com/world/dutch-f-16-makes-emergency-landing-after-flying-into-its-own-gunfire-report

This sounds like a "possible" case of the F-16 running into a ricocheted projectile (20mm round) during a typical air to ground strafing run on one of their local training ranges/targets? Low level - strafing/rocket attacks/bomb drops/etc can be risky business.

Edited April 9, 2019 by waveshaper

[HossHarris]

Go find a night strafe video. 

Those bulkets go everywhere off the berm

[SocialD]

3 hours ago, Runr6730 said:

Any Viper drivers on here that can explain how it’s possible to shoot your own aircraft?  

https://www.foxnews.com/world/dutch-f-16-makes-emergency-landing-after-flying-into-its-own-gunfire-report

Pretty low, but always a possibility.  Even our low altitude safe escape maneuvers have a * to them.  No way to account for catching a lug/etc...  Not today golden BB!

[matmacwc]

Who else night HAS over the water?  It was illegal back in the early 2000 except the range just west of Osan, Kooni (sp?).  Under NVGs, during the safe escape, you’d be flying among the ricochets, I couldn’t believe it was legal and I’ve heard, it isn’t anymore. 

[TreeA10]

During an unpleasant time in my life, I was an ALO attached to an armor battalion.   We were doing a night live fire exercise so 105mm main guns, .50 caliber, 25mm chain guns, TOW missiles, and, the winner for spectacular effects and crowd pleaser, APC mounted 20mm vulcan shot at ground targets.  As a Hawg driver, we talked a lot about big sky, little bullet theory but, to quote the military historian Ho Lee Fuk, "That's a whole lot of metal going a long way uphill via richochets."  The big, fast stuff like 105mm and TOWs had to be topping out better than 1000 feet on occasion.  Seeing that stuff bounce at night really changed my thoughts on pressing hard target slant range cease fire distance.

[FLEA]

I was just qualified to build Weapon Danger Zone footprints this year and can confirm the spray patterns of strafe are pretty f'ing terrifying to anyone within a few miles. It's amazing we let people shoot. 

Edited April 10, 2019 by FLEA

[matmacwc]

What are you talking about?  I’m familiar with Pi, Pd, JAWS, JMEM and a handful of others, never heard of this.

[M2]

[SurelySerious]

1 hour ago, matmacwc said:

What are you talking about?  I’m familiar with Pi, Pd, JAWS, JMEM and a handful of others, never heard of this.

TACP/RCO side of training drops. 

[Lawman]

22 hours ago, TreeA10 said:

During an unpleasant time in my life, I was an ALO attached to an armor battalion.   We were doing a night live fire exercise so 105mm main guns, .50 caliber, 25mm chain guns, TOW missiles, and, the winner for spectacular effects and crowd pleaser, APC mounted 20mm vulcan shot at ground targets.  As a Hawg driver, we talked a lot about big sky, little bullet theory but, to quote the military historian Ho Lee Fuk, "That's a whole lot of metal going a long way uphill via richochets."  The big, fast stuff like 105mm and TOWs had to be topping out better than 1000 feet on occasion.  Seeing that stuff bounce at night really changed my thoughts on pressing hard target slant range cease fire distance.

Ricochet is the exact reason for sticking with 7.62 over .50 cal on door guns for the Army. The stand-off gains going to .50cal are minimal when you compare that guns likelihood to send rounds to the target, and then somewhere else at random. 

When you start throwing high cyclic rate like mini guns into it and the proximity of targets for an X landing (like dudes literally in the rotor disk) nobody wants to be the guy that shoots themselves/their wingman down. 

[Breckey]

The min engagement distance (for training) for the GAU-18 was 300m for this reason. Plus the baby-BRRRR of the mini-gun is so satisfying.

[afthunderchief16]

Looks like Julian Assange has also been patiently waiting for GoT to resume this weekend with his impressive cosplay. Guessing the Ecuadorian embassy also failed to renew their HBO subscription. 

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/11/uk/julian-assange-arrested-gbr-intl/index.html

[D_Vezencuando]

Three airline wingtip strikes in as many days: 10 APR ERJ-170 Takeoff @ MMCU, 10 APR A321 Takeoff @ KJFK, and 12 APR CL-600 Landing @ KERI. Details are scant, but aviation-safety.net has the remaining backstory.

Thoughts, perspective from low wing flyers...?  

[nunya]

5 minutes ago, D_Vezencuando said:

 Thoughts, perspective from low wing flyers...?  

I don't think the airlines need a safety down day, if that's what you're getting at.

[arg]

On 4/9/2019 at 5:30 AM, waveshaper said:

This sounds like a "possible" case of the F-16 running into a ricocheted projectile (20mm round) during a typical air to ground strafing run on one of their local training ranges/targets? Low level - strafing/rocket attacks/bomb drops/etc can be risky business.

Funny story that wasn't funny at the time. We were flying the mighty whistlin shithouse (AC-130H) out of Guam practicing for the Iran hostage rescue. Our live fire range was basically a big rock sticking up out of the water somewhere near Guam. We were shooting our regular 20mm HEI rounds down at 2500ft. Bomb dump says they have a "shitload" of tracers they need to get rid of and ask if we can shoot it. We said sure, link it up, a mixture of tracer and HEI. So we are over this rock at 2500ft and the pilot lets loose with the first burst of the tweak, immediately followed by "CEASE FIRE, CEASE FIRE!!!!. Tracers were ricocheting back toward the airplane, some of them went past us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HuggyU2]

5 hours ago, D_Vezencuando said:

Thoughts, perspective from low wing flyers...?  

Had there been a U-2 pilot in a chase car saying "Raise your left..." on the radio, these wing strikes could have been avoided.  

[D_Vezencuando]

Not trying to establish a pattern … just wondering if, how Vrot changes for gusts or high crosswind.  

[JeremiahWeed]

1 hour ago, D_Vezencuando said:

Not trying to establish a pattern … just wondering if, how Vrot changes for gusts or high crosswind.  

To your original post - I have no info on any of the 3 events, conditions at the time, etc.  In general, if the winds are within the a/c limits and the flying pilot puts the appropriate cross-wind controls in during takeoff roll, dragging a wingtip shouldn't happen.

Normally increasing Vr is a procedural option when it's used as a precautionary measure against potential windshear.  The rationale is you unbalance the field and use any extra runway available to put extra smash on the jet (usually a max of 20 knots above the normal computer Vr depending on conditions, runway limits, etc).  The extra energy gained doing this will hopefully aid during a windshear encounter once airborne.  I've never heard of increasing Vr for crosswinds or gusts alone, but maybe some operators do it.  I think proper flight control inputs and the typical performance buffers available for most takeoffs are probably all that's normally required.

[Hacker]

On 4/15/2019 at 7:59 PM, nunya said:

I don't think the airlines need a safety down day, if that's what you're getting at.

Every day is a safety down day at the airlines.

[pbar]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer  Interesting article on the 737 Max and its software issues.

[SuperWSO]

As a former flight test guy, I’m appalled that anyone would have thought the MCAS system as designed was a good idea. If Boeing doesn’t get their shit together rapidly, they will be out of business in a very short timeframe.  The rampant FOD problems and the design decisions on the 737, KC-46 and 787 paint a terrible picture. 

 

Not or a fan of the NYT, but received this from a friend this morning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html

[M2]

 

 

[Darth]

32 minutes ago, M2 said:

 

 

WTF??  That is a couple minutes of my life I'll never get back....

[MilitaryToFinance]

If you thought chemtrails were just a government conspiracy in mind control wait until your eyes are opened to the truth!

 

[M2]