A-6 crash after launch?

"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.

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.

The pilot was Rick "Twig" LaBranche, who is now a CDR and has the
distinction of being the CO of the last operational Tomcat squadron (VF-31
flying F-14Ds at least until September).

_____________
José Herculano

In article .com,
wrote:

I saw the video of the plane punching through the wave while I was in
API. I got the impression that the video made the wave look more
catastrophic than in actually was. Don't think it caused any damage to
the aircraft just some super stunned pilots.

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

http://tinyurl.com/jjjo5

Pugs

"Allen Epps" wrote in message
...

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

http://tinyurl.com/jjjo5

Pugs

I assume that the S-1 did not have ejection seats?

JD

"Allen Epps" wrote...

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

I've seen an A-7 launch through a similar wave off Midway in the northern
Pacific. I think we were all surprised when he flew out the other side!

"John Weiss" jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet wrote in
message ...
"Allen Epps" wrote...

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

I've seen an A-7 launch through a similar wave off Midway in the northern
Pacific. I think we were all surprised when he flew out the other side!

I was just thinking the S-1 was lucky they had recips. I thought for sure a
jet would flame out!

"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...

I think a canopy interlock would have been simple to engineer. Certainly
part of the engineering to retrofit command ejection.

R / John

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

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

On 5/27/06 5:27 PM, in article ,
"José Herculano" wrote:

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.

The pilot was Rick "Twig" LaBranche, who is now a CDR and has the
distinction of being the CO of the last operational Tomcat squadron (VF-31
flying F-14Ds at least until September).

_____________
José Herculano



Twig's STILL CO? I would have thought that he was done by now.

--Woody