Scary flying stories

[Guest Lockjaw25]

Sitting jump in the mighty Huey on an NVG LL training sortie, casually looking up ahead in my scan and seeing a narrow, unlit, unmarked tower protruding about halfway up the windscreen.

I honestly forget the exact number or types of words I used, but the guys up front heard them/saw it and got in enough collective to get us over it.

Thanks to whoever built that sucker and didn't light it, tell the FAA, etc, etc, etc...

[bfargin]

An instrument flight in Tweets during UPT. We flew over to Luke for some instrument approaches and on our way back to Willie we were level at 3000. I see a flash of light low and to my left (I was the student in the left seat). I turn in time to see a little private plane heading straight towards where we are about to be. I grabbed the stick (the IP was flying) and yanked hard right while yelling out "traffic". We missed that plane by inches (well, it was probably feet, but either way it was way too close). I almost over G'd that baby but we didn't hit anything. He bought me beers that night at the O'Club.

[Stitch]

...the time my wingman tried to use me to get the first A/A fixed wing gun kill in an A-10.

Similar incident... almost. Arm end EOR in AK approx late summer 1996ish. 4 Ship of Hogs show up, first two go cold gun (for an A/A sortie, just like the schedule said) number 3 goes hot gun. Mmmmm weird, but maybe there was a last minute change. (I know, strange; but it's been known to happen.) Then number four goes cold gun, so I ask Mr Pilot of # 4 if # 3 was was out to play with everyone else and if so why did he go hot gun. Four calls three asks WTF and then requests that we return to # 3 safe his gun. Three was not a happy camper. I'll bet 3 bought a lot of beer that night. And although grateful for what we did, for not a drop to the weapons crew who thought to ask WTF.

[ExBoneOSO]

1. Getting dragged by a tanker into a convection cell. As soon as we hit the wall of cloud, we pitched up and I could see the boom compartment in my EVS screen. The camera for it is under the nose of a BUFF.

That brought back memories of a 12 sec MITO that turned into an, oh, maybe a 7-second one, and seeing the 20mm of the guy in front THIS BIG in the EVS.

[Guest Lockjaw25]

bfargin's reminded me of a similar incident in UPT. Out at Laughlin, T-6 TP stalls in the MOA. RAPCON gives us a call for "traffic climbing through 10,000, fast, type unknown." We're a couple thousand higher, so the IP and I start to clean up the aircraft and crane our necks around, when suddenly a blur crosses in front of me from my lower right to upper left. More expletives, as in the Huey story, as we break sharp right. We look over to our left, and see (no kidding) an F-86 Sabre climbing blissfully through the MOA, not talking to a soul.

Thank God the guy at least had a working transponder so RAPCON saw him. IP filed a HATR, and the FAA asked us both for written narratives, apparently they were definitely pursuing action.

[matmacwc]

AB blow out at 50 feet and 150 knots. 2 Live bombs and 2 tanks, reaching for the OG doorbell and realizing I'm accelerating about a knot a second. Not jetting off the whole shebang cause I lived on base and successfully landing the bitch. Gotta love a single engine airplane, but sometimes they are a bitch.

[Guest rotorhead]

Was once inadvertent IMC (snow) in a Huey at night too low for any comm and too low for any navaids (before GPS days, non-NVG), couldn't see to decend/land and couldn't climb due to icing in clouds. Continued for about an hour.

In a different decade, was approaching a refueling precontact position behind a drogue in a Pave Hawk, and the drogue and entire length of hose departed the Shadow's pod...missed the rotor system by a few inches and my face by a few inches as it zoomed by.

[BQZip01]

2. Hearing the sound of a TTR through the interphone system and knowing there was little we could do about it because of system limitations.

There's a reason the E-Dubs have that volume control and y'all don't need to listen to it. It'll just freak you out! :-)

In all seriousness, where was it?

Edited January 29, 2010 by BQZip01

[BQZip01]

bfargin's reminded me of a similar incident in UPT. Out at Laughlin, T-6 TP stalls in the MOA. RAPCON gives us a call for "traffic climbing through 10,000, fast, type unknown." We're a couple thousand higher, so the IP and I start to clean up the aircraft and crane our necks around, when suddenly a blur crosses in front of me from my lower right to upper left. More expletives, as in the Huey story, as we break sharp right. We look over to our left, and see (no kidding) an F-86 Sabre climbing blissfully through the MOA, not talking to a soul.

Thank God the guy at least had a working transponder so RAPCON saw him. IP filed a HATR, and the FAA asked us both for written narratives, apparently they were definitely pursuing action.

A HATR against who? If y'all are visual, fine, but you're in a MOA, not restricted airspace. They can cross whenever they want and do not require a transponder at that altitude. Was he too close? no doubt. Was he stupid NOT to be talking to anyone? Yeah. Did he do anything illegal? not that I can see. What am I missing?

[outbreak]

Me, a 1st rotation C-130 nav in the desert. Co, a first rotation copilot, in the desert. Co's landing, outside the box. "50, 40, 30, 20, 10" mains touched, I'm still looking at the radar altimeter, and hear the IP on hot mic start yelling "fvck shit, MY FLIGHT CONTROLS!" Then I felt the nosewheel touch, then I heard the eng say "NOW you're clear back, all four."

I didn't get scared until the pilot explained what happens when you go into reverse on a C-130 that isn't firmly planted on the ground. The co made it into ground idle before the IP started yelling.

[uhhello]

Me, a 1st rotation C-130 nav in the desert. Co, a first rotation copilot, in the desert. Co's landing, outside the box. "50, 40, 30, 20, 10" mains touched, I'm still looking at the radar altimeter, and hear the IP on hot mic start yelling "fvck shit, MY FLIGHT CONTROLS!" Then I felt the nosewheel touch, then I heard the eng say "NOW you're clear back, all four."

I didn't get scared until the pilot explained what happens when you go into reverse on a C-130 that isn't firmly planted on the ground. The co made it into ground idle before the IP started yelling.

My no flight time brain is not computing. What happens?

[slacker]

My no flight time brain is not computing. What happens?

The nose slams to the ground and the copilot buys beer for the crew.

[brabus]

Did he do anything illegal? not that I can see. What am I missing?

A HATR doesn't necessarily denote anything illegal took place. It's a hazardous air traffic report...this was a hazardous situation. I'm not real clear on what happens because of it...I think the FAA can use it against the "offending pilot" if they choose to, but it's still not a clear "you broke a rule" thing. I also think it helps keep track of potential repeat problem areas, etc. Can anyone else clarify exactly what it does/accomplishes? I'm curious myself.

[Guest Alarm Red]

A HATR doesn't necessarily denote anything illegal took place. It's a hazardous air traffic report...this was a hazardous situation. I'm not real clear on what happens because of it...I think the FAA can use it against the "offending pilot" if they choose to, but it's still not a clear "you broke a rule" thing. I also think it helps keep track of potential repeat problem areas, etc. Can anyone else clarify exactly what it does/accomplishes? I'm curious myself.

Like the HATR the tanker filed on a wingman last deployment to the desert? During yo-yo ops, #2 goes to the tanker, flies a hot intercept, apparently trips the tanker's TCAS, so instead of being either officers or adults, they don't say anything to him about it while he's on the boom, they just file a HATR when they get back to base (not al Udeid for those who care). We got a copy of the HATR back at our ops a few days later, in which their wing safety had annotated that it their own receiver that they were filing against, and since he was visual and working to rejoin, there was nothing further to address from a safety perspective. It stayed on a bulletin board in ops for a while, with some fun comments, just for the tanker-ridicule factor. The only feedback I would have to the wingman is to kill Mode 3/C next time - which also helps prevent the tanker from turning hot on you at 10 miles every time.

To make this fit with the topic of the thread - it's scary as hell that those clowns are on our side, and are more worried about starting paperwork on a receiver than they are about actually correcting any perceived safety issue realtime.

[stract]

doing HAR in OEF, a Pred decides to fly right in front of us...this is not the scary part...the scary part is when the tanker decides to jink (AFTER the Pred is already at the 1 o'clock and cold, so no factor anymore). We were lucky no one was in precontact at the time, otherwise I'm pretty sure the tanker would have hit one or both of us while following his TCAS commands. We held our position, and ended up below and in front of the tanker, who then decided to call a breakaway. If he had done nothing, we would have been fine...

ignorance is bliss...under the hood in the back of the T-34, shooting a fake instrument approach into Crestview (real approach plate, add 5000' feet), when I hear a "bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" and suddenly the IP takes the controls. Apparently a Twin Beech pops out of the clouds right in front of us heading straight for us, which I found out later. Similar thing happened at Moody while we were doing an FCF for max power checks and had a throttle dragged. ATC pointed out the traffic to us about 10 seconds later...

[afnav]

There's a reason the E-Dubs have that volume control and y'all don't need to listen to it. It'll just freak you out! :-)

In all seriousness, where was it?

OIF

On some jets the interphone bleeds through worse than others. The tone wasn't loud, but our EW's voice pitch rose to match it.

[Guest Lockjaw25]

A HATR doesn't necessarily denote anything illegal took place. It's a hazardous air traffic report...this was a hazardous situation. I'm not real clear on what happens because of it...I think the FAA can use it against the "offending pilot" if they choose to, but it's still not a clear "you broke a rule" thing. I also think it helps keep track of potential repeat problem areas, etc. Can anyone else clarify exactly what it does/accomplishes? I'm curious myself.

Yup. He sure wasn't doing anything illegal, but dumb? Yeah. My guess is Safety forwarded it up to the FAA FSDO and they were ticked off enough to do something about it. What exactly? Beats me, I never heard anything else about it.

[tac airlifter]

I've had my share of close calls, but getting scared while flying? Scared usually happens afterwards when I realize how close to disaster I came and how little my own skill had anything to do with averting it. That being said, I remember feeling genuine panic when I emergency ground egressed a smoking aircraft and ran my ass into an unmarked minefield. That sinking feeling that you've lost control of your own fate is definitely scary.

Edited February 1, 2010 by tac airlifter

[outbreak]

My no flight time brain is not computing. What happens?

According to the IP, and other pilots/FE's in my squadron, there's a possibility of cartwheeling the airplane into a flaming pile of aircraft grade aluminum.

[slacker]

According to the IP, and other pilots/FE's in my squadron, there's a possibility of cartwheeling the airplane into a flaming pile of aircraft grade aluminum.

try it in the sim. I know guys who said they used to do this on assaults back in 'Nam all the time.

[capt4fans]

Trying to practice cloverleafs solo in the Tweet. Screwing the pooch on it as I come over the top, have no idea where I am and then looking at the Airspeed indicator and realizing I'm about to pass through max allowable airspeed, 275 knots, I rip the throttles to idle and throw out the speed brake. When I finally get the airplane slowed down, speed brake back in and check the radar altimeter, I realize I'm 3,000 BELOW the bottom of the MOA.

So, with the throttles at idle and no airspeed, I try to clean out my flightsuit. So, I yank on the stick to get some altitude back under me and get back into the MOA. However, I forgot that I had a little bit of rudder in, was really slow and in flight idle. That's the perfect setup for a spin the the old T-37. And it almost happened at 3,500 AGL. Needless to say, the spin prevent measure was tested that day. And I did border patrol for another 20 minutes, then headed home with an extra 300 lbs of gas in the tanks.

Had nightmares about ejecting all night that night.

[bfargin]

Had nightmares about ejecting all night that night.

Yeah in UPT there were plenty of times out solo when I scared myself a little with too much spit and vinegar for my own good. On most of my T38 solos I'd get close to the top of the area and plug in burner and point it towards the ground to get through mach just to do it. On a few occasions I would get just past mach and level off and then bring the nose up until pretty much straight vertical and slowly let the nose ease over and level off near the top of the area. One time I kept the nose up too long and bled off most of the airspeed and ended up flaming out one of the engines as I shot through the top of the area. I got it restarted as I was making some excuse to Albuquerque center for busting out the top of my area by a few thousand feet. After that I ended up doing a border patrol for the next 30 minutes until time to go home. I flew back and did one to a full stop.

[Toasty]

Hit severe windshear and turbulence in VFR conditions in OIF. Even at 50 flaps, throttles completely firewalled, and 7 degrees nose up, we kept descending, and recovered just under 1000 feet. Plane got put into ISO for cracked dry bays after that. Honestly thought she was going to fold up into two.

[arg]

... I know guys who said they used to do this on assaults back in 'Nam all the time.

And people wonder why the wings didn’t last as long as expected.

[BQZip01]

OIF

On some jets the interphone bleeds through worse than others. The tone wasn't loud, but our EW's voice pitch rose to match it.

Then yes...yes, I would certainly be quite a bit scared...

I've had my share of class calls, but getting scared while flying? Scared usually happens afterwards when I realize how close to disaster I came and how little my own skill had anything to do with averting it. That being said, I remember feeling genuine panic when I emergency ground egressed a smoking aircraft and ran my ass into an unmarked minefield. That sinking feeling that you've lost control of your own fate is definitely scary.

That was YOU?!?