Refuelling on a Saturday?

[cats_five]

Was outside the house, heard plane noise, looked up and was pretty sure I saw two planes very close - they looked the same span, one leading, one following, not quite overlapping. Refuelling on a Saturday? BTW this is not so far from Leuchars, and there were maybe at 5,000' or so - they weren't tiny specks.

[TheWizard]

Cant be. Everyone knows that you have to put extra in the tanks on Friday to see you through till Monday morning...... :=

[Pontius Navigator]

Lost?








:confused:

[getsometimein]

With almost exactly the same wording as in the "Saw 9 planes in formation" thread...

Interesting trolling one has to say...

[BEagle]

Obvious spotter trolling - who else would talk about 'planes'?

Maybe the one at the front was tired and his friend was just pushing him home?

[Tankertrashnav]

Go on Beagle, been racking my brains to think who the originator of the above explanation was, but can't quite dredge it out of the memory banke.

Put me out of my misery please.

[Yozzer]

Air to air push has happened on at least two occasions; both USAF.

In Korea a Sabre did it to a Sabre. The pilot jumped out over the sea but got caught in his para lines and drowned.

In Viet Nam on March 10, 1967, the sky was clear for a bombing run, but both F-4 Phantom IIs were hit by anti-aircraft guns. Aman's plane took the worst damage; his fuel tank had been hit, and he quickly lost most of his fuel. He did not have enough fuel to make it to a tanker aircraft over Laos.

To avoid having Aman and Houghton bail out over hostile territory, Pardo decided to try pushing the airplane. Pardo first tried to use Aman's drag chute compartment to push the plane. However, turbulence was too great and this failed.

Next, Pardo tried to use Aman's tailhook to push the plane, the Phantom having been originally designed as a naval aircraft equipped with a heavy duty tailhook for landings aboard aircraft carriers.

Aman lowered his tailhook and Pardo moved behind Aman until the tailhook was against Pardo's windscreen. Pardo told Aman to shut down both of his J79 jet engines, as Aman was nearly out of fuel and the engines interfered with Pardo's plan. The push worked, reducing the rate of descent considerably, but the tailhook slipped off the windscreen every 15 to 30 seconds, and Pardo would have to reposition his plane. Pardo also struggled with a fire in one of his own engines and eventually had to shut it down. For the last 10 minutes of flight, Pardo used the one remaining engine to slow the descent of both planes.

With Pardo's plane running out of fuel after pushing Aman's plane almost 88 miles, the planes reached Laos airspace at an altitude of 6000 feet. This left them about two minutes of flying time. The two pilots and their backseaters ejected, evaded capture, and were picked up by rescue helicopters.

Although Pardo was initially criticized for not saving his own aircraft, he and Wayne eventually received the Silver Star for the manouvre, albeit nearly two decades after the incident.

>>Then there is the deadstick F105 that 'pushed' a KC135 into a dive whilst taking on board some fuel to relight his engine. Also Viet Nam.

[BOAC]

Bob Houghton did a tour on the Lightning OCU at Coltishall.

[cats_five]

FFS. Sorry I used the wrong word for aircraft (or whatever you want to call them), but I saw what I saw, the surprise was because the RAF seem to put all their toys away at the weekend.

It was a genuine question but no-one seems interested in providing a genuine reply, just in providing abuse.