Report: Thunderbirds pilot killed in crash lost consciousness in high-G maneuver

airforcetimes.com | Oct. 16, 2018 | Stephen Losey

[PROCON]

Link only.

[DuncanWaring]

About 30 years ago an F-15 pilot flying out over the Atlantic off Langley AFB lost his situational awareness and had to pull about 15 g’s staying out of the water.

If I recall the story correctly, the airplane was scrapped and he spent several days in the hospital while the doctors pushed his internal organs back into place.

[yarddog]

About the same time an F-15 pilot at Eglin had his canopy break, blinding him.

A fellow pilot was with him and flew beside him guiding him back to a landing.

[Mathews]

They really are. When the Blues fly down here in Pensacola it is the go to event. Happens twice per year and is attended by folks from all over the world. I-10 from Mobile to Pensacola is absolutely bumper to bumper... at 75 mph!! That’s driving.

[DesertRhino]

There is. I know Embraer has such a system in it’s newest bizjets. If there’s a sudden loss of cabin pressure, it immediately takes over and performs maximum possible descent to an altitude where supplemental oxygen is not needed. Then it levels, and the autopilot and TCAS operate the aircraft safely until the Pilot regains consciousness. It probably could be installed in a fighter plane in some parameters. But there are numerous situations in a fighter where that may not be desirable. Probably someone here more expert in that.

[Chode]

may God bless

[chronicles]

In 1981 I took my teen sons to see the Thunderbirds at Hill AFB Utah (their Dad was TDY). Close to the end of the show, the opposing solo T-38 lost power and crashed a short distance from the end of the runway. He had time to punch out, but did not because spectators were on the road below. When we saw the smoke, I knew what happened. It was heartbreaking when the “missing man” formation flew over. Capt. David Hauck was lost that day.

[PROCON]

Oh, how very sad..

[Doogle]

RIP

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Skilled pilots.

[ken in texas]

When we saw the smoke, I knew what happened.

I can't imagine seeing that. Appreciate your info though, I didn't know that David "Nick" Hauck flew with the Thunderbirds... knew him back at the Academy.

[GreenLanternCorps]

I was there that day too. I remember the confusion and wondering where the sixth plane was and the smoke at the end of the field...

https://www.standard.net/news/from-the-archives-thunderbird-pilot-dies-in-hill-air-force/article_1d008673-f9e8-5f44-8443-9564e5097dee.html

[BwanaNdege]

I suspect movies like "Top Gun" reach a far greater audience and have a more positive effect upon recruiting.

Tom Cruise's character ("Maverick"?) was a complete jerk. No decent squadron commander would have sent him to Top Gun. Pilots are sent to LEARN and then return to their squadrons and TEACH.

I had several friends killed because they were taught by a "Rules-are-not-for-ME" jerk like that. Once the Safety Officer and then the C.O. found out about his attitude, he was shipped out of the transition squadron.

Unfortunately, one of his acolytes had already picked up his attitude. He was not the pilot we sent to China Lake. He later led a flight of two aircraft "scud running" into a 1500 ft high cliff face.

We did send another pilot who was a very competent "Stick", but he was also level-headed, analytical, modest and a great teacher.

Maverick ranks right up there with those other Hollywood military greats, Hawkeye & Klinger and Captain Kirk. "Kick the tires, light the fires, first one in the air is Lead and we'll brief on Guard" may be great for a joke, but it is no way to approach flying. As the saying goes, "There are Old pilots and there are Bold pilots, but there are no Old, Bold pilots."

[Paal Gulli]

Why Blue Angels Pilots Don’t Wear The G Suits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGQlG_PE44

They fly with the arm holding the stick resting on a thigh, which works kind of like cheek weld and gives them finer granularity with their control touch. The pressure trousers randomly in- and de-flating would screw with their cheek weld.

[chronicles]

When I first told my boys that he was down, they couldn’t accept it. After the missing man fly-over there was no doubt. My husband was on mobilization with the F-16s.

[chronicles]

Sorry to bring bad news, even if it was many years ago. I noticed that the “lead solo” pilot that day, Capt. Sonny Childers, was also a classmate of Capt. Hauck.

[Bikkuri]

There is a video out there somewhere of a pilot in an F16 that demonstrated exactly that. The warnings started yelling at him, then the computers took over and leveled the fighter out.

[trebb]

Yep - even a seemingly insignificant sugar spike or drop can make a huge difference when under maximum physical stress...I’d wager their diets are closely monitored to try to have them at peak when performing.

[I cannot think of a name]

“the Thunderbirds do”

That's really odd, I wonder if it is something they just started doing?

An old friend of mine has a son that was a pilot in the Air Force. Many years ago his son was trying to ‘make’ the Thunderbirds. The Air Force was just changing over to the F-16 for the Thunderbirds. This was in the early 90’s. He said his son told him that the F-16 had such better maneuverability than the T-38s that they decided not to wear suits. He said that was what washed his son out of the program. He just could not take the sustained higher Gs without a suit.

Maybe the Air Force thought better of it and kept the suit.

[pfflier]

I think there are a couple of major factors:

The F-16 has a side stick controller with it's own dedicated arm rest. That makes it different from all previous Thunderbird airplanes flown by the demo teams up through the T-38, because they use a conventional joystick.

The Blue Angels narrator specifically says during their performance, because they have the conventional stick, that G suits do interfere with the precision necessary for their control inputs. It is entirely possible that the T Birds had the same approach before the F-16.

The F-16 is the first demo plane capable of pulling sustained 9 Gs while maneuvering. Most designs before that were in the 7 G range, the T-38 was an older design in the 6.5 G range.

The F-16 ejection seat reclines at 10 degrees more that other ejection seats. It is supposed to help the pilot pull more Gs longer, so the maneuvers used by the Thunderbirds are more extreme to take advantage of the design.

[Buffalo Head]

Get serious! “Top Gun” was an entertainment movie, not a training film.