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2006-05-10 Home Front: WoT

B-1 makes wheels up landing at Diego Garcia

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Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-05-10 13:26|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Comments on the in-line:
1) Any landing where you can reuse the airplane is a great one.
2)a) anybody can land on the rollers and b) really hard to get a B-1 to hold a hover long enough to pull the gar down by hand.
3)No longer front line sexy, not with F22 on the ramp and the JSF warming up.
4) was that the 'buy it now? feature????

Seriously, bringing something that big down and keeping it more or less toether until all the grinding stops AND be able to escape with all body parts together took a lot of skill, some amount of luck and the real Copilot was obviously on board!

Posted by USN, ret. 2006-05-10 14:31|| 2006-05-10 14:31|| Front Page Top

#2 The Air Force wont say why the crew landed the plane with its landing gear retracted.

Journalists are idiots.

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2006-05-10 14:48|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2006-05-10 14:48|| Front Page Top

#3 Aviation mishaps are investigated by different folks seperated by dollar thresholds. I'm not sure what the exact amounts are for the Air Force but low costing mishaps can be investigated by a safety officer from the unit, larger dollar amounts mean higher up the chain of command goes the investigation. It sounds like the million dollar mark is is where it becomes a class A misshap and where big Air Force steps in to run the investigation.

Posted by 49 Pan">49 Pan 2006-05-10 14:52|| 2006-05-10 14:52|| Front Page Top

#4 Only one runway on DG. I hope the airfield is back up soon. Back in the 1980's an Egyptian C-130 closed Bermuda's national airport for weeks after it was stuck on the runway after a wheels up landing. (word has it that they FERGOT! to put em down) Not good.

Posted by Hupomons Omase5417 2006-05-10 15:46|| 2006-05-10 15:46|| Front Page Top

#5 Gear up landings: those that have and those that will. The key to avoiding this is tight crew coordination (drill drill drill) and religiously adhering to the Landing Checklist. You can go through the motions and put the gear lever down, but you HAVE to see those three Green lights that tell you that the gear is Down AND Locked. I wonder if fatigue had anything to do with it.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2006-05-10 16:33|| 2006-05-10 16:33|| Front Page Top

#6 When I was at Travis AFB in the mid 80's, some lucky pilot landed wheels up on a C-5. Forgot to put them down. Needless to say the Wing Commander and Base Commander were pissed. A C-5 pilot neighbor of mine said the crew had been doing touch and go's that day and ignored the audible warning in the cockpit. I'm pretty sure his flying days were over.

Posted by texhooey">texhooey 2006-05-10 16:36|| 2006-05-10 16:36|| Front Page Top

#7 I only care that the four walked away clean. Let's get some new equipment for these folks, damn it.

Posted by Captain America 2006-05-10 17:29|| 2006-05-10 17:29|| Front Page Top

Posted by 3dc 2006-05-10 17:38|| 2006-05-10 17:38|| Front Page Top

#9 Back in the 1980's an Egyptian C-130 closed Bermuda's national airport for weeks after it was stuck on the runway after a wheels up landing. (word has it that they FERGOT! to put em down) Not go

That is why there are checklists. But it does not
mean that the crew was incompetent: during a landing involving a very heavy storm (the company lied to the crew about the weather), a landing circuit usnuaually short (ie the workload was bigger than usual), the crew of an american liner forgot the line of the check list about arming the spoilers. Meaning that brakes had no effect since only 20% of its wight was on the wheels, the reamining 80% was being taken off by the lift generated by the wings. The plane went out of the lane and many died.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-05-10 17:43|| 2006-05-10 17:43|| Front Page Top

#10 Dyess AFB

[mod note: please learn to do links, 'kay?]

Posted by Parabellum 2006-05-10 19:28|| 2006-05-10 19:28|| Front Page Top

#11 We had a series of accidents (eight in 13 months) at Holloman in the late 1960's, including one wheels-up landing with an F-4 (a possum climbed into the nose-wheel well at night, not spotted when the bird took off). Standard procedure is foam the runway, have every crash vehicle standing by, and pray. Worked for the guys at Holloman, and obviously worked for the B-1 crew.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2006-05-10 21:08|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2006-05-10 21:08|| Front Page Top

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