Posted on 02/22/2012 6:31:16 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
February 21, 2012 (by Asif Shamim) - An F-16C from the 18th Aggressor squadron made an emergency landing during a Cope North 12 training mission in the U.S. territory of Saipan, no injuries were reported.
Airforce officials said the F-16 (#86-0310) made the landing at about 11.00hrs local time Monday at the Saipan International Airport, then rolled off the end of the runway after suffering hydraulic problems.
Airforce official said there was no reported damage to the airfield, and the damage to the aircraft is unknown.
Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport's main runway 7/25 is now back in operation for outbound and inbound flights after being closed for 17 hours during the recovery of the jet. The runway was reopened at 05.25hrs Wednesday.
Commonwealth Ports Authority acting executive director Edward Mendiola confirmed that the F-16 is being repaired by the U.S. military. Mendiola said they don't know when the repair work would be completed.
The exact cause of the emergency landing is under investigation.
In a single engine jet fighter with the glide ratio of a large brick.
Lots of respect for fighter pilots courage. Training can be deadly.
/johnny
Yup. 12-14 hours flight to Asia (Philippines, Hong Kong etc) from North America and underneath, all water.
One of my buds told me he flew to the Philippines by PAL on a 10 hour flight straight, no stopover a year ago. Because he does business there, he learned one trick..he stood and never sat down before the actual flight to avoid “butt pain”.
“11.00hrs local time Monday at the Saipan International Airport”
Hafa dai (”hello” = half a day and they joke about it), not a good time to land in Saipan. Hubby flew fish out of there for a while. I was so glad to get out of there. It’s another American welfare island Joe Average doesn’t know about.
LAX to Taipei or Seoul, S. Korea are about the same time: 14 hours. Coming back from Korea, our 747 was doing 550 MPH with a 196-210 MPH tail wind. We caught the jet stream and our ground speed was 750 MPH. I was telling people that, relative to the ground, we were going over Mach 1. The return trip was “only” 10 hours. Pretty nice, I’m always happy to shave 4 hours off that flight. 14 hours in a plane is just ghastly. It’s hard to describe the great feeling of coming back through American Customs.
The SR-71 used to fly from Beale AFB, CA to Kadena AFB, Okinawa in 5 hours. (It was faster but 5 hours was the fastest they were allowed to say.) That’s the way to do that trip. But it used to take people weeks, and many times months, to make that trip on a ship back in the old days. 15 hours is light speed compared to the 1800s.
“14 hours in a plane is just ghastly.”
Correct. But try my experience of a 12-hour delay at Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan in 2010. I was so darn bored I made it a “personal contest” to get the names and phone numbers of the desk clerks at the terminal. Eventually, a talkative dude in the same flight as I am was a money manager for a brokerage firm in Hong Kong and gave me stock tips..actually trading info on which stocks to buy. He wasn’t supposed to say these stuff but he was just the type who wanted to make time fly by. I learned more about the stock market in a Taiwanese terminal than watching CNBC.
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