CF-18 Down in Lethbridge

[canwhitewolf]

and he ( the witness) saw sparks coming out of the engine.."whats up with that" do ya think

Ever heard of Afterburner? No, I am not talking about the drink.

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yes im familiar with afterburner

does an afterburner make "Sparks" (or does it burn fuel and oxygen)

[AuxBatOn]

and he ( the witness) saw sparks coming out of the engine.."whats up with that" do ya think

Ever heard of Afterburner? No, I am not talking about the drink.

**********************************************************************
yes im familiar with afterburner

does an afterburner make "Sparks" (or does it burn fuel and oxygen)

Dude, all I'm trying to say is stop speculating. We don't know what happend and without access to the pilot and the wreckage, we cannot say for sure what happen.

Again, from an uninformed spectator, and AB light may well look like sparks...

That would be my last post in this thread.

[canwhitewolf]

im not speculating or at least tryng not to, I presented a fact that the exhaust nozzles were not the same and then that of course makes one ask a question and the question is why not? why were they not the same, and then one could even take it to the next step and that would be what happened? was there an engine failure of sorts or some engine problem, did one AB cut in and the other not when he decided to fly out of high alpha etc etc
you call it speculation i call it thought process and curiosity..misunderstanding i guess

take care

[SAR_YQQ]

Please don't take our comments as condescending - like I said before, we are really biting our tongues and holding back from commenting further.

Once the report is released by DFS, we can add our further comments.

That being said - please don't think that we are trying to stifle further discussion. We can and will answer questions that are within our means to discuss.

Cheers

[mag check]

I guess I miss it every time there is a crash, but can someone please tell me what is wrong with speculation? Why is there always a big rush to shut the thread up by saying not to speculate?

[AuxBatOn]

mag check,

Because it doesn't do any good. This forum is public. Someone from the media might as well come here, see your comment, assume you are an "expert" and publish it. It has happenned in the past.

[mag check]

mag check,

Because it doesn't do any good. This forum is public. Someone from the media might as well come here, see your comment, assume you are an "expert" and publish it. It has happenned in the past.

I disagree. The REAL learning happens when people speculate because that is when all the experiance of the collective group tries to figure out what happened. When the official report comes out, usually the cause is an all too expected cause, with NOTHING new to learn from.
As far as the media is concerned, who cares. Let them print whatever they want, it is usually all wrong anyway, and no one takes them seriously when it comes to a crash.

[GoinNowhereFast]

How long does it typically take for the DFS to publish anything? [No, I don't mean the full report] I've been looking around their website and havn't found anything.

[CpnCrunch]

Agree with Mag. Usually the speculation in avcanada is highly informed. The media do their own speculation anyway, so if they want to take some info from avcanada I don't see a problem. Better to have educated speculation rather than uninformed guesses.

Do you not remember the Wainwright crash? As far as I remember the TSB guy said right at the beginning that he didn't think it was pilot error. On avcanada we had people saying that they had seen the plane significantly overloaded on many occasions. Then a year later we get the final report and what does it say? The plane was overloaded by over 850lbs at takeoff.

[trampbike]

mag check,

Because it doesn't do any good. This forum is public. Someone from the media might as well come here, see your comment, assume you are an "expert" and publish it. It has happenned in the past.

I disagree. The REAL learning happens when people speculate because that is when all the experiance of the collective group tries to figure out what happened. When the official report comes out, usually the cause is an all too expected cause, with NOTHING new to learn from.
As far as the media is concerned, who cares. Let them print whatever they want, it is usually all wrong anyway, and no one takes them seriously when it comes to a crash.

Talking about speculation that leads to real collective learning, you might want to re-read what you posted in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=56334&start=100

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

You are going to have to be more specific as that thread is 7 pages long.

[robbreid]

Click Here Canadian F-18 ejection histories.`

I was in El Centro California and witnessed the crash of a USMC F-18D, it passed overhead, and didn't sound quite right - I looked up to see two F-18's, the first one about 900 feet with it's belly on fire, I heard a very loud sound of thrust being applied - and a huge flame came out of the port exhaust - the sound and flame quickly stopped.

Moments later both pilots punched out, one went straight up, the other up and back. The aircraft turned around facing me, but fell straight down, just a huge explosion and black-black smoke. The 2nd F-18 did a tight circle around the downed aircraft and within two minutes a helicopter landed - both pilot were uninjured.

Final reported stated the port engine had ingested a large bird, and the aircraft had suffered multiple large bird strikes.

[grimey]

You are going to have to be more specific as that thread is 7 pages long.

He believes that the moon landings are faked based on easily disproven crackpot theories put forward on other websites.

I'll make this brief, so as not to sidetrack the thread...

The existence of man-made objects on the moon at the Apollo landing sites can be independently verified by any university physics department equipped with a reasonably high powered laser and a couple other pieces of equipment. The topography observed in 40 year old photographs can be verified with recent 3D mappings of the lunar surface by a Japanese satellite. Radio communications between the earth an the moon were observed by numerous 3rd parties during the Apollo missions. None of the so-called discrepancies in the photos are difficult to explain.

mag check's speculation hasn't led to collective learning, it has led to collective delusional thought.

[Ogee]

Just my two bits on speculating...

Normally the speculation on here is about crashes which happen in the working environment of most of us here, either 703-704 stuff or private. I think speculation does serve one important purpose for us who fly in that regime. There may be an urgency in coming to some knowledge or understanding about certain types of crashes because the same weird thing may happen to us tomorrow. I am minded of the Twin Otter crashes in BC in the eighties/seventies with one of the props going into reverse. And the Cranbrook helicopter crash was another example of legitimate speculation on the part of knowledgeable chopper pilots who had every right to wonder aloud WTF happened there. It has its good and its bad side. Knowledgeable people can make their comments here and its very worthwhile. But so can the Microsoft crowd.

In this case, I think we can all see the aircraft was at low airspeed, that it began to yaw and roll right, and that there is a difference of appearance of the nozzles that is consistent with an idea that there was less power on the side the yaw went to. Speculation is less necessary here. Hardly anybody here flies a Hornet, and those who do are very professional and will wait until their own investigators and the pilot tell them. 99.99% of us have nothing at stake.

[mag check]

mag check,

Because it doesn't do any good. This forum is public. Someone from the media might as well come here, see your comment, assume you are an "expert" and publish it. It has happenned in the past.

I disagree. The REAL learning happens when people speculate because that is when all the experiance of the collective group tries to figure out what happened. When the official report comes out, usually the cause is an all too expected cause, with NOTHING new to learn from.
As far as the media is concerned, who cares. Let them print whatever they want, it is usually all wrong anyway, and no one takes them seriously when it comes to a crash.

Talking about speculation that leads to real collective learning, you might want to re-read what you posted in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=56334&start=100

Actually, if you read that thread, the REAL speculating that I made in that thread was that the Wright Bros likely weren't the first to fly(most likely the third) and I suspect that most people here didn't know that, so there was probably some REAL learning taking place.

[boeingboy]

Some interesting stuff from a US Navy F-18 pwoerplant mech. Both quotes are from the same guy.
"The variable exhaust nozzles on the F-18 are controlled by the engines. In the first pic it seems one is at power by the VEN being closed down in the right, and one is at a lower thrust with the VEN open on the left. But, the VEN will also open like that in after burner. If he was doing a high alpha pass as reported it is likely he was in burners when he lost thrust to cause one VEN to close as it went out of after burner In the third picture you see the left engine with fire out of the VEN which shows that engine still operating, but you can't tell about the other. If he was in burners, which is common with high alpha maneuvers, the VEN's show me an engine failure in the right engine.

Just my $.02 as a Hornet power plants mech. "


When I asked him if the nozzles would close should there be an engine failure or shutdown......

"The VEN's will be closed down when the engines are off.
When the engines are started, they open fully and remain that way until the throttle is advanced. The VEN's then close accordingly to the percentage of power output by the engines. So at 100% military power or full throttle, the VEN's will be at their most closed down state.
Now when the throttles are advanced past the military power or full throttle detent to afterburner, they reopen fully to allow proper exhaust and operation of the burners.

From what I know, the high alpha is done with burners on which would explain why one VEN is fully opened on the left side of the Hornet, The VEN being closed on the right side tells me that engine is not at the same thrust as the one on the left, and when impact is made you see the FOD shooting out of the back of the left engine.

Yes, we'll see what the investigation shows, but don't be surprised if they say something happened to kill, or reduce thrust in the right engine causing the yaw.

If it wasn't a high alpha maneuver, it would have been completely recoverable, but the low airspeed didn't allow for it. The Hornet was designed with the exhaust close together to reduce the risk of the flat spins and loss of yaw controls found in the F-14. Yes, the flat spin in the movie was a real thing that happened to Tomcats, hence the yaw string on the wind screen. Funniest thing seeing a yaw string used on sail planes on a multi-million dollar computer controlled supersonic fighter.

Sorry for rambling, I've been around airplanes my whole life, and loved every minute of working on Hornets. Where else can someone right out of high school work on multi million dollar equipment and get paid to travel around the world."

[boeingboy]

I agree 1000% with not trusting eyewitnesses.

They hardly know what they see at the best of times and the rest of the time they make up things they think may have happened.

[Hedley]

The aircraft uncontrollably yawed right. Hm. You probably don't need to be a rocket scientist to surmise that the left engine was probably putting out more thrust than the right engine.

It will be fascinating to learn what his alpha was at the time the engine failed.

The demo pilots are supposed to keep the alpha down below a particular value, for precisely this case of an engine failure.

If the pilot flies with too high an alpha, there is excessive drag - see "back side of the power curve" - which cannot be overcome after an engine failure, without producing excessive thrust by one engine, which produces yaw which cannot be overcome by the flight controls at the slower speed.

This really isn't very hard to understand. Pretty well anyone with a civilian multi-engine endorsement should probably be able to comprehend the above.

[CFR]

I agree 1000% with not trusting eyewitnesses.

They hardly know what they see at the best of times and the rest of the time they make up things they think may have happened.

Every air crash to which there are eyewitnesses usually has at least one state that the plane was on fire, even those that have run out of fuel!

[boeingboy]

High alpha pass at 7 min. Same pilot and plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zril_JB ... r_embedded#!

[Hawkerflyer]

Dear USA:
Harper here, please add 1 more F35 to the order.

All kidding aside, glad he made it out, that was a close one.

[Meecka]

Just a note here.... What matters more to you folks? The ability to beat the cause of this crash to death and back again, or the fact that the driver got out, and noone on the ground was killed? Seems to me that to the majority here the RIGHT to speculate without all the information, is of more value than anything else. Flogging this horse to death will serve nothing at this early stage. Be glad that nobody lost their lives and carry on with yours.

[cpl_atc]

mag check,

Because it doesn't do any good. This forum is public. Someone from the media might as well come here, see your comment, assume you are an "expert" and publish it. It has happenned in the past.

Uh, then the reporter is an irresponsible journalist, and you don't stop discussing things simply because a journalist might take it as gospel.

[AuxBatOn]

mag check,

Because it doesn't do any good. This forum is public. Someone from the media might as well come here, see your comment, assume you are an "expert" and publish it. It has happenned in the past.

Uh, then the reporter is an irresponsible journalist, and you don't stop discussing things simply because a journalist might take it as gospel.

Yes. I will not speculate for that reason, amongst others.

[ETOPS]

So much for center-line ("restriction") thrust...