Tornado GR.1 auto-land question...

[Rhino power]

I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere in the dim distant past that the Tornado GR.1, indeed the Italian and German IDS as well, had an auto-land feature. Did I imagine it, or did this feature actually exist? Did RAF GR.1s and current GR.4s have it, or ever use it?

-RP

[cornish-stormrider]

All aircraft have it, mostly we know it by the acronym.........
GRAVITY

On a serious note, are you sure you've not got our wires crossed over stuff like Kreugar (sp) flaps or the intake ramps..

I don't recall auto land on either GR1/4 or F3

[Dominator2]

The F3 did have Auto ILS, however, it was not cleared for use in the Release to Service. Some TP at BD had some reservation about its operation and so it was never cleared for use. A "friend told me" that it was very good if used correctly. Apparently, it was better at 67 wing approaches than most pilots.
I believe that you would have to go back to the Lightning to find a RAF fast jet that was capable of auto land. Oh how we have progressed in the last 50 years!

[Rhino power]

Thanks for the replies chaps, much appreciated! :ok:

-RP

[just another jocky]

D2 has it correct for the GR1 also.

You could couple the autopilot into the ILS and it would fly a pretty decent approach, but it wasn't Released to Service and there was no "flare" or landing auto-capability at all.

Don't recall if it remained when the ac was updated to GR4.

[Ivor Fynn]

it was still available in the GR4 but same rules applied.

Ivor

[safetypee]

Lightning: – auto ILS, autothrottle, but no flare. Manual landing only, where if the autothrottle was not disengaged it resulted in a visit to the far-end barrier at 175kts.

[Courtney Mil]

F3 would do it, but, as D2 said, not cleared - same as auto wing sweep (lack of clearance cost two lives). The snag was that the system used the rad alt in the final stages of the approach and there was a concern that it would be interfered with by the nosewheel. Having tried it, it worked really well. Auto ILS, auto-throttles and and reasonable plant on the runway.

Makes you wonder why we paid for so many features and then decided not to pay for the clearances. But I guess they had to replace the Blue Circle, which cost a few kids. Just being a bit playful there, you understand.

[Ali Barber]

Lightning auto-ILS legally gave you a 50ft lower decision height than if you flew it yourself.

[Courtney Mil]

I can't beleive anything could fly an approach better than a Lightning pilot. Your claim makes no sense. :cool:

[Dominator2]

Courtney, The failing was in the system at the time of how to achieve MAR. The rules stated that the authority should seek "best advice". Historically this had been from Boscombe Down. On many occasions their advice has been proven to not have been the best available. One would not what something that is dangerous to be introduced into service, however, the TPs and their advisers do seem to have been at the forefront of the risk adverse Air Force that is present today.

[Courtney Mil]

Yes, Mate. That chimes with my recollection of the events. Am I right in recalling that the system (like auto wing sweep) was never found to be lacking, just never proved to work safely. Saudi got on pretty well with AWS.

[Easy Street]

We don't even have the luxury of in-house advice any more. Now we just pay through the nose for QinetiQ to make a half-arsed study that recommends a barely-useful minimum level of clearance and concludes that a more useful release would need further study, at a cost of £excessive. Yes, a lot of new kit can be complex. But one would imagine that, occasionally, with the simple stuff, they would be able to recommend a full release at the first time of asking. Never seen it myself; it's beyond a joke.

If a competitor could assemble a team with expertise in a particular area, and undercut QinetiQ in both cost and time, there would be muchos money to be made... providing they could persuade DE&S to contract them. Seems to me that DE&S has become accustomed to the "reassuringly expensive" advice they get from QinetiQ; anything cheaper must be coming from a cowboy outfit. It needs shaking up, big time.

[DADDY-OH!]

Were any RAF airfields fitted out for autoland operations?

[JFZ90]

D2 - refreshing to read some plain talking on here on BDs reputation for perhaps being overcautious. Was this pre or post 94?

[Courtney Mil]

Daddy-oh,

It only required and ILS.

[DADDY-OH!]

Courtney Mil

For what purpose? All Weather attack capability so All Weather recovery capability required?

[TBM-Legend]

US Navy ACLS works everytime....

[stilton]

Dominator, what is a 67 wing approach ?

[threeputt]

Half crown sixpence for the GIB!

3P:eek:

[barnstormer1968]

67 is the angle of wing sweep, although a formation landing of 67 wings of fighters would be much more impressive :)

[Dominator2]

The aircraft had variable wingsweep. The furthest aft position was 67 wing (degrees of sweep) designed for supersonic flight. It was possible for the wings to get stuck in 67 wing which would lead to a difficult approach. With an approach speed of 240kts and the nose so high that it was almost impossible to see the runway until very late on the approach. As threeput has said, very uncomfortable for the GIB who could see nothing of the airfield until touchdown. Auto ILS could fly this approach very well and would put Biggles at 100ft exactly in the right place.

[Stuff]

He's a shot comparing the Tornado in the 3 cleared wing sweep positions. 67, 45 and 25.

You don't see it from this angle but the front aircraft will be very 'nose up' in comparison to the rear aircraft to maintain level flight. Of course, this assumes they are all flying at the same airspeed and this wasn't a very clever planned overtake!

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y146/Shefftim/trio.jpg

[Courtney Mil]

63 wing with big jugs on.

[Stuff]

Fair point. I was hoping to avoid the pedants pointing out that it'll happily fly at any angle it's just issues with fatigue counters that mean you aren't meant to do so which is why I added the "cleared" only to forget the 63/67 spangle :(

[27mm]

67 wing approaches from the back seat in the F3 were interesting, but made much easier by the dodge of using the HUD video on one of the TV/Tabs in the rear cockpit. What was quite tricky was flying rear seat IFR approaches on the standby ADI in the early F2s; it was mounted on the pedestal panel, directly in front of the base of the stick - made for a a curious and busy scan.....:cool:

[Squirrel 41]

Fair point. I was hoping to avoid the pedants pointing out that it'll happily fly at any angle it's just issues with fatigue counters that mean you aren't meant to do so which is why I added the "cleared" only to forget the 63/67 spangle

Curious dumb question time: did the auto-wingsweep consistently adjust to ensure optimal wingsweep for a given speed? Or did it just sweep between the cleared 67/63/45/25 angles?

S41

[Stuff]

IIRC it triggered on speed and only scheduled between 25,45,(63/67) something in the back of my mind tells me it might also have gone to 58, someone certainly fitted a fatigue meter for 58 so it must have been there for a reason.

The problem was that once the movement had been triggered then it would complete before any further movement was possible so if, for instance, you were in 45 wing and accelerated beyond the trigger point the wings would begin to move to 67. Lets say you then immediately roll and pull hard into a turn bleeding the speed off, the wings will merrily continue to move to 67 before deciding that actually you did want 45 and starting their sweep forward again. By this point you had completed your turn, rolled wings level and accelerated and the wing moved back to 67 yet again.

The thinking was that by having it manually operated you could "think ahead" and know if moving the wings now was a good idea or not.

[Courtney Mil]

...and to give the navs something to do before the radar arrived.

"Wings!"

"Manoeuvres!"



And, yes, rear seat swept wing approaches on the IRET were a barrel of laughs. Come to think of it, a bit like a normal F4 rear seat approach.

[Griz]

Navs can arguably 'see' better than the BIF in a swept wing approach. Just delivered in the J band via DSC/TARDIS :)

[LOMCEVAK]

There were a couple of reasons why auto approaches were not cleared. Firstly, the gains on the AFDS control laws varied with rad alt value and therefore if the rad alt locked up to the landing gear the gains were wrong for the distance from touchdown and some very speactacular divergent oscillations could develop on both localiser and glideslope. Note that the current radalts in the GR4 do not have this problem and so if someone pays money a clearance it could be re-investigated. The second problem was that when on the localiser the AFDS would try to match the aircraft's heading, rather than track, to the QDM set in the course window on the HSI. Therefore, in a crosswind the aircraft would offset downwind. This was ironinc as the same company had moded this function correctly on the Jaguar ILS flight director and, so I have been told, on the Lightning. This would not have been a show stopper although a crosswind limit for coupled approaches would probably have been needed.

With respect to auto wing sweep and auto manouvres on the F3, both systems received a very strong recommendation from A Sqn at Boscombe Down but the F3 OEU at Coningsby said 'NO' because 'they could do better than the auotmatics'! It was pointed out that, as 1000+ hour QWIs, they probably could but that new first tourists would have a significant reduction in workload if the systems were incorporated. After much wrangling the OEU agreed to recommend the use of the system but by then one or two finacial years had passed and it transpired that the test sets for the equipment had never been procured. In order to then release the money for these, other projects would have had to be cancelled or delayed and, based on priorites, the AWSMDS system was just inhibited. As for functionality, it did select 58 wing, and the CAS/IMN at which the wings swept was a function of of underwing fuel tank fit. One very useful feature of the automatic manoeuvres was that in 25 wing above 350 KCAS only the slats extended and the 25 MVR and 25 CRS g limits then became the same (all to do with flutter). The comments made previously about there being a problem in that once the wings started to move they had to travel fully is not quite correct because at any time the wings could be selected manually to any position which immediately disconnected the AWS; reselecting the AWS was then just a single push of one button. This was often done by just pressing the clutch lever on the wing swqeep handle on a 25 wing 'bug out' when you did not want the wings going to 45 wing at 0.73M but wanted to maintain 25 wing to just under 0.8M then pitch back into the fight.

And please, before you start Boscombe bashing, get your facts straight!

[Circuit Clear]

From an outsiders perspective, after working in the Ivory Tower for over 34 years, I witnessed 2 locked in 67 swept landings. At a certain secret soon to be closed Scottish base, this occurrence brought everyone out of their respective offices etc.
Watching an F-3 approach at an alarmingly huge speed, nose pointing up certainly had our hearts pumping. Inside the cockpit, heartbeats would have been at alarming numbers I`m sure.
Thankfully, both landings were successful and neither required RHAG`s to arrest their speed. Reverse thrust was always preferred over a hook engagement from my experience in the F-3 world, although the GR fleet used more cable stops.
The many years of controlling swept approaches meant that these two occasions had a happy ending. I wonder if the Tiffy has any different and unusual approaches other than flapless and single engine?

[Courtney Mil]

Inside the cockpit, heartbeats would have been at alarming numbers I`m sure.

Only if they were Tremblers crews!

[stilton]

A little thread drift here but it sounds like this auto wing sweep function was / is quite different than that on the F14.


I believe that system was normally totally automatic throughout a continuously variable range based on AOA ?


Of course manual intervention was allowed at any time.


I stand to be corrected.

[Courtney Mil]

Your belief is correct, Stilton, but based on Mach number rather than AOA.

Courtney

[AGS Man]

The main reason why an approach end RHAG engagement was not used with wings fully swept back is that the maximum safe engaging speed for the RHAG at any weight was 160 Knots. Engagements did take place above them speeds and were usually successful however hooks and cables did break sometimes. The accepted industry standard is an absolute maximum of 190 Knots on any arresting cable although, again there have been faster.

[Courtney Mil]

Quite right, AGS. The plan would be to land and use thrust-reverse and then brakes to kill the speed and then lower the hook for a departure end engagement if required. Thing is that the TR and brakes did such a good job that the overrun wasn't usually needed - except in the sim.

[Lightning Mate]

I believe that you would have to go back to the Lightning to find a RAF fast jet
that was capable of auto land.

The Lightning F3 and F6 did not have autoland, as someone has already said.

However, auto ILS and autothrottle were fitted, but the landing was manual.

Full autoland requires the installation of Cat3 ILS. which gives localiser guidance down to, and along, the runway. RAF airfields in the Lightning days has offset localisers.

[bakseetblatherer]

Every F3 I've ever been in had auto-land, voice activated too "Oi stick monkey, park it there please"

[just another jocky]

Quite right, AGS. The plan would be to land and use thrust-reverse and then brakes to kill the speed and then lower the hook for a departure end engagement if required. Thing is that the TR and brakes did such a good job that the overrun wasn't usually needed - except in the sim.

What was the max T/R engagement speed on the F3?

[Lightning Mate]

I have not flown the Tornado F3, but I'm fairly sure all it required for engagement was the weight-on-wheels squat switches to be closed.

I stand to be corrected by those qualified on the jet.

[just another jocky]

LM, yes it did require the WoW switch to be made on both models, but I was enquiring about the max permitted speed for selection of T/R on the F3.

[Lightning Mate]

I don't think there was an airspeed limit.

By definition, even at max landing weight, the airspeed is below any dynamic pressure limitations.

[Dak Man]

They were called WoG switches in my day, bloody PC brigade.

[artyhug]

There were a few different limits for T/R selection based on whether you were using Idle or Max Dry and whether you were asymmetric or not.

Most all of them elude me now however! Sorry.

Ps 140kts was one, I think...

[LOMCEVAK]

The F3 T/R engagement speed limits were, with symmetric thrust, 200 kt at idle then max dry at 150 kt. With asymmetric thrust 140 kt at idle and then at max dry.

[just another jocky]

arty....indeed, there were several on the GR1 but I was wondering if they had the same on the F3.

The main reason for overrun cable engagements was because you were too fast to engage the T/R on a swept landing. IIRC, most guys briefed using the wheel brakes to slow down to T/R engagement speed.

I think. :hmm:

edit: thanks LOM, you posted whilst I was slow typing.

[just another jocky]

Quite right, AGS. The plan would be to land and use thrust-reverse and then brakes to kill the speed and then lower the hook for a departure end engagement if required. Thing is that the TR and brakes did such a good job that the overrun wasn't usually needed - except in the sim.

So how did you slow from 240-ish kts to 200kts so you could engage the T/R?

I completed a couple of 'higher speed' approaches in the GR and they usually ended up in the overrun cable because it took time to slow to T/R engagement speed which used up a lot of runway at those speeds (except at Dhahran, where we turned off before the end, cos the runway was humungously long). :}

[essdee]

... auto wing sweep (lack of clearance cost two lives)

Seems a pretty sweeping statement, Courtney (no pun intended). What were the circumstances?

[AGS Man]

At Dharhan you obviously had a much longer Runway but you also had BAK 14 Arresting Systems which have a 180 knot max safe engaging speed as opposed to the RHAGs 160 Knot

[Courtney Mil]

Crew unloaded at low altitude to accelerate and selected the wings fully back, but still at relatively low speed. The aircraft stared to decend as the speed was still in the 25/45 speed range. Pulling like a bastard did not stop them hitting the sea. Actually, I think the nav may have survived. But auto wing scheduling would have put the wings in the right place and they may not (I suspect would not) have hit the sea. Slamming the wings forward became second nature after a while, but it could still be a gotcha.

My details there are pretty sketchy for which I appologize. Someone please put me right on this one.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

This is a very difficult one Courtney. The nav survived. I was flying the F3 on the same base at the time. Indeed, I flew that day and, IIRC, there was a low level haze over the North Sea at the time. The pilot deliberately selected max sweep (so the auto-wing sweep argument is irrelevant, as he would have deliberately over-ridden it) and his reasons for doing this are highly debatable, i.e. we don't know why he did it. I suspected it was because he believed the reduction in both drag (unloaded) and visual signature were more important, and I think it was because these factors were overemphasised in OCU training vs the loss of nose authority (I did the OCU course immediately before that pilot). The nav was, as usually briefed, maintaining tally in the '6' and noticed the decent rate too late for the pilot to avert the accident. The pilot was an ex-Lightning pilot and would have instinctively expected reasonable nose authority at low speed with swept wings. The loss of another ex-lightning pilot in the Red Arrows roll-back accident a few years earlier may be relevant, as a similar expectation of greater nose authority may have caused this accident too.
You may recall I subsequently emphasised the low nose authority of the F3 swept wing/slow speed during the OCU flying controls lecture I gave to you 3 years later, by which time I was the lecturer not the student.
I'm very willing to hear the thoughts of others on this one.

[Courtney Mil]

I recall only too well. And, to be honest, that is where the story was lodged in my tiny brain. After all these years this is an accolade to your lecture: the importance of wing sweep became and remained in my head to this day even though I clearly cracked neither the details of the story nor the issues behind it at the time. Cool. And thank you.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

If a point made saves one life (and doesn't kill anyone else), then it was all worth it.

[Courtney Mil]

It was. It certainly was. Worked for me!

[Courtney Mil]

Oh, and no one's mentioned the wonders of 35 wing yet. Including the fatigue issues.

[essdee]

Thank you Fox3 and Courtney for adding to the corporate memory about a tragic accident. I thought that was probably the one Courtney was thinking about in his original post, and agree with Fox3 that the lack of AWS was not a cause of this accident. I don't recall the conclusions of the BoI at this distance in time, but would have been surprised if they had said more than that AWS, had it been fitted and not overridden, might have prevented the accident. As with most aircraft accidents, many factors come into play, and it is clear from Fox 3's post that weather and lack of experience on type were in the mix here.

[Courtney Mil]

Yes, I can see that now.

As for TR. yes, 200kts at idle, 150 kts at max dry, 85% RPM max to select, weight on wheels and TR (and LD White for pre-arm) captios out, down to reinjest audio = idle again. What else was there?

Losing the speed down to 200kts. The worst case landing speed was 217 kts plus 10 kts for the realy big tanks - 5 for the smaller ones. We could decide to jetison the tanks. Allowncw for fuel weight with wings swept was 6 kts per 1000kgs, but tht was above 16,000 kg. So we could dump a lot of weight and obtain a reasonable (comparatively) touchdown speed in the F3. With stick fully back on the runway we could be at idle TR speed with plenty of runway to spare. Select TR at 200kts (and move the stick forward again or else) which was very effective at that speed. 150kts, full chat. With brakes as well, it could, as we have seen, be done. If you need the overrun, so be it. That's one of the reasons it's there.

[just another jocky]

Ok CM.

I was just curious as to the perception that the F3 needed fewer overrun cable engagements than the GR1 for high speed approaches.

For the life of me I cannot remember the T/R limits for the GR. :ugh:

Oh, and I was shown, by my German instructor at TTTE, that 33 wing was 'ze most eefficcient', despite not being R2S.

[Courtney Mil]

...and on a long cruise/transit, just get high at the right AOA and keep inching the wings back to all the non-existant sweep settings as the girl burnt the fuel and watch the fuel consumption keep going down.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

A few points on issues raised, now I have the time.
A RHAG engagement by an F3 in 1992(?) at 180 kts snapped the cable at the drum. The free end twanged off toward the a/c at what were later calculated to be near supersonic speeds. There were witness marks just aft of the cockpit, which nearly spoiled the crew's whole day. Fortunately most of the energy was absorbed by it striking the fin, which Cat 4'd the a/c. I was both the SFSO for the BoI, and the dumbf#ck knobbled to do the first flight of the a/c once they'd changed the fin. I seem to remember landing "Zulu everything" (and there were 15 Zulu codes). Moral of story - don't exceed RHAG limit speeds in Tornados.
I was appointed Sqn Fatigue Officer when the first FI restrictions came in (1990?). After some beavering around in the books I mentioned to the chaps, amongst other things, that setting wingsweeps to other than the big '3' did not 'count' for FI. Not that I recommended it, oh no; that would be naughty:=
Strangely, we managed to fly the same aggressive programme that year as previous - lots of Affil and ACT - but with a lower FI count. Bang on what Group had asked for, in fact. Funny old thing. The Sqn Boss was a very happy man.

[just another jocky]

That's a curious attitude towards fatigue m8.

A GR1 took a BAK-12 at Alconbury (I think it was a -12 @ ALC) and stretched the hook. :eek: A/c stopped somewhat quickly.

[JFZ90]

some interesting thought here.

is it possible however that it maybe too simplistic to say aws could not have been a factor in preventing the accident described? if aws had been taught to be relied upon unless you were really sure you knew better, then perhaps the selection and accident might not have happened. it'll never be know what the intent of the sweep selection was, but with a more ingrained, trained reliance on aws in most cases, perhaps the selection would not have been made?

ps i really hope fox3 is joking about the squadron approach to fatigue above.

[AGS Man]

Fox 3
I have attended RHAG Engagements above 180 Knots where the cable has not broken. The age and amount of engagements on the cable could be a factor. For example, last year we had a tape and cable snap at 145 Knots but the tape (which snapped first) was 6 weeks away from being reversed which is done at the 2 year point of it's 4 year life and had 32 engagement units out of a maximum of 64. Incidentally the tape connector with about 10 feet of cable (approx 30kg) were found 580 feet away!
The stretched hook at Alconbury was possibly caused by a 1 1/4 inch cable, we use (1 1/8 inch cables for Tornado / Typhoon / F15) and it is probable that the BAK 12 was set for worst case scenario within the aircraft fleet which would have been a fully tooled F111 high speed take off abort.

[Just This Once...]

I took the approach end at Marham mid-90s just after a new RHAG had been installed. It didn't go quite to plan as it just paid out with no retardation until a rather dramatic stop. The cable didn't break but in places it looked more like wire wool and according to the tower there were some rather impressive catherine-wheel like sparks.

It was all a bit of a surprise in the cockpit as one of us had just muttered 'guess we missed it' before the sudden 'ugghhh' moment and the abrupt lift and descent of the nosewheel.

The aircraft was fine and the hook looked fine too but they changed it anyway after advice from the DA.

[AGS Man]

Just this once
I never heard of that one but I would guess that there was no water in the Brake Units because if it had been a mechanical failure on one side you would have departed the runway in pretty spectacular fashion!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

F3 fatigue. It's a long time ago now, so memory may fail me at points.
The intial calcs were based on FI counter readings, sortie code and sortie length. My job was to summarise these for Joe Bloggs aircrew and offer 'advice' on how FI could be managed. The calcs were rather crude, so for example one could suffer a high FI coding by doing ACT and landing after 20 mins, but less by landing after 30 mins. The advice thus consisted of stuff like "Do a practice emergency such as a SE PAR at the end to ensure landing after 30 mins".
Were we 'cooking the books?'. Well, by ensuring we didn't fall foul of the highest FI 'penalties', our average FI would have been lower than the boffins perhaps intended.
I did not fly ACT in 35 wing. I don't think anybody did. Some may have flown routine PIs in 35 wing.
I didn't lie about sortie code. A small minority may have done so occasionally.
I did not sharp or soft pencil any sortie lengths. I was probably in a minority here, but that had been going on for ages beforehand to meet other Group targets before FI ever arrived.
I did ensure my sortie codes and sortie lengths minimised the FI usage. Were those practice emergencies unnecessary? Who knows. I know that when I experienced real emergencies like SE & hydraulic failures etc, these passed off without incident and the practice would have had something to do with that.
Did we overuse the 'real' FI which caused the subsequent restrictions? Probably, a bit. Did the Sqn maintain operational effectiveness better than by obeying the FI 'rules' would have allowed? My Sqn execs though so, and we were at war 6 months later - everybody was bloody glad of the 'extra' LL Affil and ACT training at that point.
Lastly, could the 'correct' FI have been calculated after the fact by analysing the Sqn auth sheets/log books with a better model? Yes. There was nothing dishonest here. I regard it as the same as avoiding 'unnecessary' tax.