Me-262, NOT Bell X-1 Broke SB First

On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:27:59 GMT,
(Corey C. Jordan) wrote:

I don't think we should judge Mike too harshly. I for one have written things
here in a fit of pique which I came to regret immediately.

Sometimes we go too far, we're human (in my case at least, that's the rumor).

Appreciate the kind words, CC. With regards to this "arrogance" vis a
vis "humility" thing and showing "respect" for others, I took your
advice and have been reading up about Herb Fisher and other fighter
pilots on your great website.

After digesting what I read on your site and perusing through the
notes posted earlier in this thread, one of the outstanding
characteristics that strikes me about pilots is how contradictory
we often are as a group.

For example, one minute we're embracing the "...no old bold pilots"
adage and then some jock turns around and exclaims, "show
me a humble fighter pilot and I'll show you a dead fighter pilot." The
dichotomy is amazing, but I suppose it has to be that way given how
absolutes in aviation are rare as hen's teeth.

Another classic contradiction that smacks of hypocricy is the guy
who trots out his qualifications in his .sig in each one of his posts
then turns around in the same breath and writes, "I don't know what
the hell your pilot quals are and I frankly don't give a flying f**k."
That, after he just told me to "grow up!" Mind boggling stuff.

Of course, for the most part I'm only kidding when I write "fly pretty
anyone can fly safe" or use the term "grease monkey" (hell, I'm a
grease monkey myself!) but the fact is that I know what my right
size is as both pilot and a mechanic (I'm much better at breaking
'em than I am fixing 'em). If I didn't know my limitations, chances
are I would've died back a few thousand hours earlier in my flying
career especially considering the relatively hazardous nature of
the type of flying.

OTOH, I've lost count of the number of my pilot buds who, for whatever
reason (such as lack of humility or equally as bad -- FALSE humility)
failed to come to recognize their own personal limitations and paid
the ultimate price. Ironically, they often spend their entire lives
submerging their pride, feigning humility and saying all the right
things at the right time so as to obtain their goals in this life.

I knew one such guy who killed himself flying a flexwing trike (yep,
an ULTRALIGHT) last spring in Ohio. This guy had some mighty
impressive credentials indeed; thousands of hours in the F-15, a
graduate of the USAF test pilot school and currently gainfully
employed as a B777 co-pilot. Despite all his experience and
credentials, everyone considered him a likable, humble and
basically just an all-around great fellow. But deep down
I personally always thought the guy was cocky as hell and
watched him from a safe distance with a discerning eye.

Don't get me wrong, given his impressive qualifications and
experience I never doubted that he was indeed an excellent military,
airline and test pilot. But, flexwing trikes are whole different ball
game due to their low mass, kinetic energy etc. and their
susceptibility to wind/gusts causing a sudden loss of control both in
the air and on the ground.

A local pilot reported that two evenings earlier, he saw him flying
a number of steeply banked unpowered approaches in his trike
and each pattern was characterized by very precise and clean flying.

Now, practicing engine-off landings is all well and good, but
according to one weather report I've seen, on the day the guy died the
wind was gusting to 21 kts. If we use the "1/2 wind velocity plus best
L/D speed" guideline we can assume a safe approach should be made
at 50 kts. in CALM air in that particular machine.

Stall on the wing he was flying is about 30 kts. so if he was in a
steep bank at say 40 kts. on approach (e.g: 10 kts. above stall or
best engine-off L/D speed) while attempting to stretch the glide to
the runway, a drop of 21 kts. wind speed due to a gust would easily
put him in a stall by 10 kts. That wouldn't be a shallow stall either,
but a deep stall. Imagine you are swooshing down at best L/D speed
in a 45-deg angle of bank then suddenly at 30 ft AGL the airspeed
drops 21 kts. You are now in a deep stall at only 30 ft AGL.

Furthur exacerbating the problem, as you attempt to recover and enter
the wind gradient near the ground the airspeed doesn't increase as
expected. Must have felt like the fuggen wing was broken! The ground
rush really must have been alarming and the rise in airspeed would
have been slower than the rate of decent toward the ground because
of the gradient.

The bottom line is that this particular "humble" yet highly trained
and experienced ex-military fighter and test pilot was flying too slow
and too steeply banked for the conditions. Whether he was practicing
his emergency procedures (e.g: dead-stick landings) or simply shining
his ass by landing in gusty winds with the engine intentionally shut
down is debatable. But whatever the reason, he paid for his mistake
with his life and I don't plan on repeating his mistake. Flying
"pretty" and flying "safe" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.