Playing the "What If" Game
2/15/2011
Posted in
Flight Training
Tags: emergency, emergencies, training
Playing the "What If" Game or a good way to prepare for real flight emergencies.
Playing the "What If" Game
by: Marc Nathanson retired Lt. Colonel USAF
The Story
You're in an F-15 at 20,000 feet with your wingman spread line abreast by about a mile as you enter the air combat practice area . You are paired against 2 F-4 Phantoms that should be at an odd altitude. In other words, you have even altitudes, 10,12,14,18, 20 thousand foot blocks and the F-4s have odd altitudes. This provides safe separation in the form of altitude. Neither flight is allowed into the others altitude block unless both pilots of that flight can see both of the opposing fighters. These are the rules and safety dictates that everyone follows them for safety.
The leader of the F-4s is a newly minted flight leader and this is his first flight as a leader in an air combat environment. He is doing his best to follow the guidance provided by his WSO (Weapons Systems Operator) or GIB (Guy in back) which is the same guy. The intercept is going well with his WSO directing the flight at your F-15s using Pure Pursuit geometry. This results in the aircraft closing the gap quickly to a point they can use lag pursuit which puts them behind you and at a better distance for simulated missile deployment.
The F-4 wingman sees you first and tells lead "Couch 02 has 2 boggies 12 O'clock low". The F-4 lead pilot strains to pick your flight up visually so he can descend into your altitude block, but he just can't see you. He makes a fatal mistake by replying that he sees you and takes his flight into your block without a visual hoping his WSO can re-acquire you as he lost radar contact a minute ago. Four sets of eyes are outside with only one that actually sees your flight. The number 2 pilot losses sight and now nobody sees either you or your wingman!
You and your wingman have accelerated to mach 1.5 as have the F-4s. This is to ensure you can get separation after taking a missile shot. As a result, you have a closure rate of mach 3.0 ... an incredible closure rate with diminishing reaction time. Then it happens and it happens so fast that you find yourself amazed at the instantaneous forces that now have you pinned to the top of your canopy! The lead F-4's wing has taken your tail off. Your jet decelerates to sub mach and is tumbling due to the loss of your jet's tail feathers. It is intuitively obvious that you must eject, but you can't reach the ejection seat handle as you and all your body parts are pointed towards the canopy as a result of the incredible number of G's or force of gravity as you tumble in a negative manner. Positive G's would have forced you into your seat allowing you to reach the ejection handle, but this is definitely not the case. Then, for just an instant, the jet swaps ends and puts you through one positive G tumble allowing you to reach the handle and eject. The ejection seat functions as it should and, after about 5 seconds, you are in your chute slowly descending towards the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast.
You are blind! The negative G's forced so much blood into your eyes that they are now swollen shut and all you see is red. You are in a surreal world thinking that you are happy to be out of your wounded jet and under the parachute canopy, but you can't see making you wonder when you will hit the water. It is rare for a pilot in a survival situation to forget what they learned in training but, then you are blind which changes everything. You forget to deploy your LPU-5P life preservers, the little units that are attached to your survival vest and are located under each arm pit. You must pull the lanyards located at the lower front of each unit in order to inflate them. You can't check your raft because you are blind and the only things that you can activate that will save your life are still in their holders neatly stowed away and can't do a thing to keep you afloat.
You hit the water, which is a surprise as you couldn't see it coming and as you go under the water, you think, "so this is how it all ends... oh yes, now I remember, I'll go down once, then bob to the surface and then head back down to the briny deep not to resurface again and drown." Well, the first part is true. You bob to the surface and as you flail away with your hands in an effort to stay afloat, you put your hand in your life raft! What incredible luck! The raft was attached by a length of lanyard which would not have been very close had there been wind which would have allowed the raft to hit the water first, then you would have landed downwind quite a distance from the raft. You hold on for an undetermined amount of time just to get your composure and thank the person above for allowing you to live and to wonder how you got so lucky. You think- "I will see my family again."
It doesn't take too long for a rescue boat to pick you up. All you know is that you can hear it coming towards you as you still can't see and won't for several days. You are rescued and you ask about the aircraft that hit you. There is no report as the rescue boat only knows that 2 aircraft went down and they were to search your sector and another boat was to search as well. You later learn that the F-4 WSO made it out and was rescued. The pilot's seat's rails that the seat travels up during the ejection sequence were twisted as a result of the impact disrupting the ejection sequence. The pilot never came out of the seat and could not extricate himself as the fasteners called Sticker Clips were jammed at impact. The pilot drown as the seat pulled him under the water. A fisherman found the deployed parachute lying on top of the water and, after pulling it all up, found the pilot still in his seat-dead.
The next day, the command's Chief of Flight Safety calls and asks if you are up to telling him the story. You do for the purpose of ensuring this does not happen again as the safety officer needs to brief the forces and tell them what happened and how to avoid it.
The Question
Could you prepare for this situation? Not unless you knew that this situation was a possibility. The Air Force mishap prevention program is designed to reduce accidents and incidents to zero if at all possible. Those who ran the program wrote mishap reports that were sent to all the squadrons and briefed to all the crews. Sometimes, the fleet was grounded until the cause of the accident was determined, fixed, and all understood how to ensure the same thing did not happen again. By briefing this accident and making the report available to all crew members, there were no other accidents of the same nature.
By the way, the Chief of Flight Safety was me. To this day, I am thankful that this airman was saved. I said a prayer for the F-4 pilot.
Resources
Had the F-4 flight lead only followed the rules, the accident would not have happened. Would this accident and loss of life been prevented if all involved played the "What If" game? Hard to say. But this game is something that we learned early on. It is a method you may use to think through the procedures you will use and the resources available to you if you have are faced with an emergency situation.
For Example
Next time you have a ground session with your instructor, ask to go over an emergency situation on the ground before you have to worry about it happening airborne. Let's say you want to cover a blown tire after takeoff.
The "What If" Emergency
You are in a Cessna 172 and you feel the aircraft jerk to the left as you lift off. You get your bird airborne and, after climbing to a safe altitude, you look down and see the left tire has come partially off it's rim as has lost all of its air. Now, "what if"? First, you have as much time as you have fuel in your tanks. You should think of the possibilities available to you. Do you want to land at the airport you departed or fly to an airport better suited for this situation? It would be best to land on a wide runway, say 150' wide as opposed to a narrower runway. Should I land in the grass or on a hard surface? Would the remaining structure of that wheel dig into the dirt and cause damage-you bet it will. The hard runway surface will create the least drag and less damage. Should I land in the middle or to one side? Landing on the side opposite the bad landing gear will result in that gear pulling the aircraft to that side, to the left in this case. This will allow room for the aircraft to swerve to that side (left) and use of the good wheels brake to minimize the swerve.
The Book
As with any emergency or abnormality, you want to refer to the Pilot Operating Handbook (POH). You can find the emergency procedures in section 3 of modern POHs. You should have looked these over and, at the very least, know the items typed in bold face. If you have a POH that does not have emergency procedures in bold type, ask you instructor to help you decide which ones should be memorized.
Switch, Breaker, Book
There may be times when you flip a switch and the system you wanted to activate does not activate, turn on, make noise or work as designed. Think: Switch, Breaker, Book.
First, is the switch positioned correctly? If not, put it where it should be. If it is positioned correctly, yet the system still does not work, check the circuit breaker. If it popped, don't be in a hurry to reset it. Is it hot? If so, let it cool down. Reset a popped circuit breaker only once. This will reduce the chances of an electrical fire. I had a breaker catch on fire and it burned up the rear cockpit-it was very impressive and scary! Never re-set a popped fuel pump breaker! You should know the ramifications of the loss of a fuel pump. Will you still be able to feed or transfer fuel from the tank the pump serves? Know the system and the "What If" of this situation. The last step is to go to the book. The book being the POH emergency section. There is more information in the systems description section and this should be referred to to expand on the procedures in the emergency section. This will help you understand the whys and hows of the emergency procedure.
31 Emergency Procedures of the Day:
Your POH will have a number of emergency procedures in it. It is a good idea to cover one a day while in training. We call this the "Emergency of the Day". Work to not only memorize the bold type items, but to also understand the systems and the reason why a procedure is written the way it is.
Don't wait for your flight review. That's 2 years of non-study and an increased chance of not being knowledgeable enough to handle even the simplest emergency or abnormality.