Navy Struggles With 'Fighter Gap'

IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when removed from the
pilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for both models. It was
called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done in a hover, and
was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that accentuated some instability
in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.

YMMV.

Dave in Sandy Eggo

SNIP a lot

Ouch. Do you have any idea How Dangerous those things (AV-8B)
are to OUR guys?

Dan


Oops. I forgot a couple of words.

Dan

No more dangerous than the F4U, F7U or F8 were back in the day. Hard to
fly, but the rep is overblown. There have always been birds that tend to
get that dangerous label.


You may want to look at the safety records before you make such
statements...

Dan

While the F4U had problems initially with carrier landings (over the nose
visibility and strut bounce), I don't think it ever had a rep for mishaps.
The F7U was quite notorious, earned several monikers (Ensign Eater was one)
but I have no data. The F-8 had the highest mishap rate of any carrier
aircraft in the modern (angled deck) era. AIRPAC, never competitive with
AIRLANT in mishap rate, started publishing two numbers: Mishap Rate, and
Mishap Rate less F-8's (AIRLANT got out of the F-8 business several years
ahead of AIRPAC).

R / John

"Dave" wrote in message
...
IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when
removed from the
pilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for
both models. It was
called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done
in a hover, and
was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that
accentuated some instability
in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.

Seems to me there was also a problem with "weathervaning"
under certain wind conditions that caused instability and
loss of control.

I've seen a couple of mishap videos where "airshow" type
manuevers caused losses.

Dave wrote:
:
:IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when removed from the
ilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for both models. It was
:called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done in a hover, and
:was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that accentuated some instability
:in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.
:

There were several flight regimes where overly-close tolerances
between the turbine blades would lead to a flameout of the engine.
When you only have one, that sort of sucks.

I'm only aware of one 'bow' crash and it didn't look like it was
caused by instability. It looked like an engine casualty, with a big
gout of flame and the aircraft shooting down into the water.

I have no idea if they still do this at air shows or not, but I
wouldn't be surprised if they do.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden

"williamjkambic" wrote in news:1207884859_83242
@news.newsville.com:


"Dave" wrote in message
...
IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when
removed from the
pilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for
both models. It was
called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done
in a hover, and
was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that
accentuated some instability
in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.

Seems to me there was also a problem with "weathervaning"
under certain wind conditions that caused instability and
loss of control.

I've seen a couple of mishap videos where "airshow" type
manuevers caused losses.

I recall at least three Harrier crashes from the "bow to the crowd" (one
over water, and two over land), and when I left AD (1989), it was no longer
a permitted maneuver. They may have relented on that since then.

The weathervaning may have been contributory to those crashes,

Dave in Sandy Eggo

"Dave" wrote in message
...
IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when removed from
the
pilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for both models. It was
called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done in a hover, and
was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that accentuated some
instability
in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.

YMMV.

Dave in Sandy Eggo


AIUI; the 'harrier' a/c balances itself on four 'legs' of thrust; two from
the front of the engine and two from the back of the engine. The front
thrust legs are cold air while the rear thrust legs are hot exhaust gases.
The 'hover' methodology works fine when the a/c is 'horizontal' ; pitch and
roll axes = zero; but is prone to the phenomena of 'hot gas re-ingestion'
when the pitch is positive as the rearward hot plumes may be reflected up
and the engine ingests hot air into the compressors - leading to lack of
thrust and lift becoming less than weight. Early models (GR1/AV8A/Matador)
had an analogue JPT gauge where the tell-tale rise in JPT -indicating to
the pilot that hot gases were being ingested and thrust was about to
diminish - was a mere needles width (and almost impossible , given the
pilot's workload, to detect)

A very early 'mod' into USMC service was to replace these gauges with a
'Digital JPT Gauge - in this case the term 'digital' actually meant a
'odometer style ' set of digit wheels- this made it much easier for the
pilot to notice that hot gas re-ingestion was occurring and gave advance
warning permitting him to adapt the pitch angle prior to losing thrust.

The later a/c incorporated a 'Stability Augmentation System' which has finer
control of the pitch. roll, yaw axes thrusters than a 'mere' human -not that
any pilot will admit to that .

--

Brian

williamjkambic wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when
removed from the
pilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for
both models. It was
called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done
in a hover, and
was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that
accentuated some instability
in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.

Seems to me there was also a problem with "weathervaning"
under certain wind conditions that caused instability and
loss of control.

I've seen a couple of mishap videos where "airshow" type
manuevers caused losses.

The problem is/was it is a horribly delicate piece of machinery to take
out to dangerous conditions, let alone war.

Evidently, after a large fraction of the fleet was scrap, people started
realizing that it wasn't all pilot error, and so design, maintenance, &
training were improved to the point that it is a reasonable craft.
Unlike the FBW craft, where it was realized that the weak point was the
wetware behind the stick, restraints weren't never put in place to keep
the inherently unstable vehicle within its operational envelope under
emotionally charged situations. Imagine an F-117 without computer
control...

Dan

On Apr 10, 10:43*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Dave wrote:

:
:IIRC, There was a specific non-combat maneuver which, when removed from the
ilot's repertoire, cut the accident rate in half, for both models. It was
:called, among other names, "bow to the crowd". It was done in a hover, and
:was a tip the nose down and return maneuver that accentuated some instability
:in the hover, and caused several crashes over the years.
:

There were several flight regimes where overly-close tolerances
between the turbine blades would lead to a flameout of the engine.
When you only have one, that sort of sucks.

I'm only aware of one 'bow' crash and it didn't look like it was
caused by instability. *It looked like an engine casualty, with a big
gout of flame and the aircraft shooting down into the water.

I have no idea if they still do this at air shows or not, but I
wouldn't be surprised if they do.

There was a Harrier in the show here Saturday (Thunder Over
Louisville) and I don't believe it bowed.
The hover portion of the routine was biased towards the crown on the
other side of the river though, so I may simply have not noticed it.