MKopack Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Falcon forces Saudi F-15 jet to land By Staff Published Monday, January 24, 2011 A Saudi pilot of a F-15 fighter had to make an emergency landing while his aide parachuted to safety after their aircraft nearly hit a large falcon, a newspaper reported on Monday. The aide, a lieutenant in the Saudi air force, ejected out and parachuted east of the southern province of Asir, leaving the pilot, a captain, to steer the jet down in en emergency landing, Wojooh online Arabic language daily said. Neither the pilot nor his aide were hurt in the incident which took place during a routine morning flight over Asir near the border with Yemen, the paper said. “A fact-finding committee was set up to study the incident, which it found was caused by a falcon,” the paper said, adding that the bird was later found in that area without making clear if it was dead or alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toro Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Interesting. The only F-15s stationed in that area are the S models (their version of the E model), so I'm assuming the "aide" is what their ignorant press calls a WSO. The F-15E and S have a selector valve that is supposed to be placed to "aft initiate" before takeoff, which will punch out both crew members if either pulls the ejection handles. If it is left in "Norm" it will only punch out both crew members if the front seater pulls the handles. If the back seater pulls the handles, it only punches him out. I would guess that the "aide" left the handle in norm, then freaked out and punched out. On the plus side, that mistake probably saved the RSAF a 50 million dollar jet. And this is humorous: “A fact-finding committee was set up to study the incident, which it found was caused by a falcon,” the paper said, adding that the bird was later found in that area without making clear if it was dead or alive. If they found the bird, my guess it that it wasn't ingested, it was a birdstrike. The "incident" wasn't caused by a Falcon, it was caused by some jack-hole who punched out of the jet because a bird bounced off of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MKopack Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 Perhaps a top secret Israeli spy falcon sent on a mission to destroy the Saudi Eagles. Good to see that the "fact-finding committee" wrapped up their work so quickly - must have been a bit of luck to actually find the bird in what was probably a lot of desert. My first thought was that if it wasn't a strike, they must have interviewed the bird to determine the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arg Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Too bad, when I read the title I was thinking it was one of these. Edited January 25, 2011 by arg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Aide...I kinda like the sound of that. I think all fighter pilots should have an aide. And the aide should look like this... Or they could look like this if you don't have a back seat and they just had to be waiting for you after you landed, prepared to assist with the debrief... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzdude Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 http://www.bayminetteaviation.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=59 For some reason, the IPs liked going to Bay Minnete in the T-34... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BQZip01 Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 Related story? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now