Originally Posted by
Jack D
Does this count as a kill for the F-18 ? The speculation about mountain waves etc. amuses .
Kill is a Kill!
Aircraft came down like a rock with zero horizontal speed.
Very unusual for an F-5 - even with both engines flamed out you can keep it flying at 250 KIAS in a 10-12 degree dive.
Either there was a massive engine explosion that took out the hydraulics to the rear of the aircraft, or the pilot manouvered it into some kind of (very) nose high attitude and ran out of speed.
With the elevation at around 7000' at the crash site maybe not enough altitude/time to recover once the nose came back below the horizon?
"Mountain Waves" can definitely be ruled out :-) :-) :-)