Well, I hate to disagree with you, but I remember many incidents of
FOD'd engines on S-3's (I have 1600 hours in them). On one occasion,
we flew into Warminster PA and the engine got FOD on touch down on the
runway. By the time we taxied up to the hangar area, #1 was nearly
fully engulfed in flames. We came very near to a strike A/C on that
one. Riding in the back seats, I recall many instances of seeing
things sucked up at high power on the deck (including birds in
flight). I also saw many instances of damaged fan blades form FOD.

That being said, you are correct about one thing. Because the TF-34
is a high-bypass turbofan configuration, just because an object is
sucked into the fan duct, doesn't necessarily mean it will ingest in
the engine intake. That's the big difference between an S-3 and and
an A-7 sucking something up.
Regards,


On 8 Dec 2006 17:30:39 -0800, "Gordon" wrote:


BTW, in two years in VS-31, we never FOD'd an engine due to debris
being sucked up into the intake. In fact, the S-3 had very few such
incidents over the years and far fewer than other a/c such as the A-7.
As a high bypass turbofan, the S-3 had far less suction than
turbojet-powered aircraft. I spent quite a bit of time between the
cats on the Eisenhower and some on the Midway and the supposition that
Vikings were more prone to FOD than other carrier aircraft is, no
offense, just plain wrong. The only reason the Vikings were called
Hoovers was that distinctive noise.

v/r
Gordon