A-6 crash after launch?

Woody,

If this occurred late in the A-6's service (i.e., after 1990) and both souls survived, it was likely the following, per Morgan & Morgan:

BuNo 154148/A-6E, VA-85, 09/18/91, Mediterranean, CV-66, Lost engine on cat shot.

******

The engines had de-tuned over time making the single-engine performance charts incorrect. Pax re-vamped them in about 1994-5.

....just in time for that last flight to the boneyard, or to "NAS Barrier Reef." g

Any number of gremlins begin popping up in elderly aircraft after many years of otherwise uneventful service. Witness B/N Keith Gallagher's partial ejection, caused by aging components. In his case, the ejection seat components were ~28 years old:

http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_se...al_aspects.htm

--
Mike Kanze

"It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker."

- Anonymous


"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message ...
On 5/27/06 6:58 AM, in article , "John
Carrier" wrote:


"DDAY" wrote in message
. net...
I was watching a documentary called "Top Gun" on the Military Channel.

They had some footage of some cat launches gone wrong. In one an A-6 took
off the waist catapult of a carrier and started losing altitude almost
immediately. Then something really big fell off the plane, it started to
roll, and the pilots ejected at very low altitude.

Probably engine failure on the stroke. Possibly wrong weight setting on the
cat. The older catapults would use a given steam pressure to achieve a
particular end-speed for a particular gross weight. These would malfunction
on rare occasions. The newer cats use a rotary valve that allows full
pressure (600psi IIRC) for a particular duration and are just about fool
proof (unless its set for the wrong weight).

A fully-loaded A-6 didn't have very good single-engine fly away capability.
The "something" was probably all the underwing stores. Pilot pushed the
emergency jettison and the pylons were cleaned off.


You're right, John. It was a single engine failure on the stroke. Pilot
gets a full chute. B/N skips off the water. Both live.

Max thrust
Gear up
Stores jettison
Bleed Air Gang Bar - OFF
Establish 19 unit climb in balanced flight...

First five steps of the engine failure procedure from memory after a 10 year
hiatus.

If you didn't get those steps done IMMEDIATELY, you didn't stand much of a
chance of bringing the jet back. Later, an east coast squadron discovered
in Fallon in a tanker that even if you DID get those steps done, they jet
could be un-flyable single engine. The engines had de-tuned over time
making the single-engine performance charts incorrect. Pax re-vamped them
in about 1994-5.

--Woody

John W.

A-6 tribal folklore during the early 1970s dictated that one NEVER blew the canopy prior to ejection, for the very reasons you cite.

Better to get Plexiglas cuts than...
--
Mike Kanze

"It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker."

- Anonymous

"John Weiss" jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet wrote in message ...
"John Carrier" wrote...
One of the peculiarities of the A-6 was its lack of a command ejection system.
There was some kind of reverse (perverse) logic in the community that had
sufficient following to keep it that way (IIRC) for the life of the aircraft.

Part of it had to do with the lack of automatic canopy sequencing. You could go
through the canopy or after the canopy, but not while it was in transit (because
of the forward bow). If one Crewmember hit the canopy jettison while the other
pulled the ejection handle, it was bad news for at least one of them -- both if
the canopy got hung up on the first seat...

IIRC, command ejection was part of the A-6F proposal.

John C.,

My reverse (perverse) logic:

When each of you can see what the other is (or is not) doing as thoroughly as one could in the A-6 cockpit, there is less call for command ejection, IMHO.

I also believe that good crew coordination had much to do with this attitude. You either learned to work well as a crew, or your squadronmates began sniveling to the Ops Officer.

--
Mike Kanze

"It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker."

- Anonymous



"John Carrier" wrote in message ...
One of the peculiarities of the A-6 was its lack of a command ejection
system. There was some kind of reverse (perverse) logic in the community
that had sufficient following to keep it that way (IIRC) for the life of the
aircraft.

R / John

"Mike Kanze" wrote...

A-6 tribal folklore during the early 1970s dictated that one NEVER blew the
canopy prior to ejection, for the very reasons you cite.

Better to get Plexiglas cuts than...

Even when I flew it in the 80s through '93, there were MANY "old hands" who
wouldn't even think of blowing the canopy! Off the cat it was a no-brainer, but
even for the times when you had the time to think about it, there were few who
would risk a partial canopy jettison (regardless of whether it would take off
the vertical stab).

Yep, Owl, it was the Buckeyes. Correctly identified.

On 5/29/06 4:56 PM, in article ,
"Mike Kanze" wrote:

Woody,

If this occurred late in the A-6's service (i.e., after 1990) and both souls
survived, it was likely the following, per Morgan & Morgan:

BuNo 154148/A-6E, VA-85, 09/18/91, Mediterranean, CV-66, Lost engine on cat
shot.

******

The engines had de-tuned over time making the single-engine performance
charts incorrect. Pax re-vamped them in about 1994-5.
...just in time for that last flight to the boneyard, or to "NAS Barrier
Reef." g

Any number of gremlins begin popping up in elderly aircraft after many years
of otherwise uneventful service. Witness B/N Keith Gallagher's partial
ejection, caused by aging components. In his case, the ejection seat
components were ~28 years old:

http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_se...al_aspects.htm

On 5/29/06 6:20 PM, in article ,
"John Weiss" jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet wrote:

"Mike Kanze" wrote...

A-6 tribal folklore during the early 1970s dictated that one NEVER blew the
canopy prior to ejection, for the very reasons you cite.

Better to get Plexiglas cuts than...

Even when I flew it in the 80s through '93, there were MANY "old hands" who
wouldn't even think of blowing the canopy! Off the cat it was a no-brainer,
but
even for the times when you had the time to think about it, there were few who
would risk a partial canopy jettison (regardless of whether it would take off
the vertical stab).


Legend had it that when you wanted the canopy to jettison it wouldn't.
Sometimes when you wanted to keep it though, it would jettison. I
personally never had any problems.

--Woody

"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote...

Legend had it that when you wanted the canopy to jettison it wouldn't.
Sometimes when you wanted to keep it though, it would jettison. I
personally never had any problems.

Ditto. Never tried to jettison one; never lost one. Had a few pop open in
flight, though...

On Sat, 27 May 2006 04:30:42 GMT, "DDAY"
wrote:

I was watching a documentary called "Top Gun" on the Military Channel.

They had some footage of some cat launches gone wrong. In one an A-6 took
off the waist catapult of a carrier and started losing altitude almost
immediately. Then something really big fell off the plane, it started to
roll, and the pilots ejected at very low altitude.

Any idea what happened there? I remember hearing about some aircraft launch
where the fuel in an external tank acted like a ram and caused some heavy
damage, but I'm not sure if these are the same events.

In another shot, a large prop plane, possibly an S-2F, took off the waist
catapult of a smaller Essex class carrier and immediately slammed into a
wave. Again, does anybody have any details?
The video you are referring to ( I believe) was the USS Ticonderoga.
In the video, you should be able to clearly see the "14" on the pointy
end. The squadron was VS-38 out of North Island. And it was not a
cat shot. As others have mentioned, no angle deck cats on Essex
class. The S-2 in question was not shot off the cat - it was a deck
run from the aft part of flight deck. The aircraft was partially
filled with salt water but the R1820's just kept on chuggin'.
Aircraft was put in the hanger bay for maintainers to dry out, which
was only partially successful. Corrosion set in (duh!!!) and the A/C
never flew again. Oh yea - no back seaters in the A/C at the time -
just 2 O's in the front.

Hope this helps.
Regards,






D

On 28 May 2006 21:50:35 -0700, "Mike Weeks" wrote:


Yofuri wrote:
Allen wrote:
In article ,
Bob Moore wrote:


Allen Epps wrote

This the S-1 video through the wave you were looking at?

http://tinyurl.com/jjjo5

What is (was) an S-1?

From the web:

The skipping of the P-1 designation in the 1962 Joint designation scheme
was most likely due to the fact that it was convenient to redesignate the
P2V, P3V, P4Y, and P5M to P-2, P-3, P-4, and P-5, respectively. 28. Similar
to note 27, the S-1 designation was most likely skipped out of the
convenience of renaming the S2F to S-2 and continuing from there.

Bob Moore
S-2F NAS Kingsville 1959


Accck of course I meant C-1

Pugs

The MAD boom in the tail makes that photo an S-2.

As do the tail markings, if I saw them correctly; "NS" (CVSG-53 -
which didn't operate from Tico until the 1970s.). That's either VS-21,
-29, or -35.
Mike - see my other post below. I am almost certain that it was VS-38
which would have been CVSG-59 (I think) I was in the squadron at the
time, but this goes back many years and many flight hours ago for me
(and many brain cells destroyed) - I could be mistaken.

Regards,


MW

"John Weiss" jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet wrote in
message ...
"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote...

Legend had it that when you wanted the canopy to jettison it wouldn't.
Sometimes when you wanted to keep it though, it would jettison. I
personally never had any problems.

Ditto. Never tried to jettison one; never lost one. Had a few pop open
in flight, though...

Agreed. Somewhat disturbing at 40K'.

R / John