'Flower's handful with her F18.
(This happened fairly recently).
CARRIER LANDING AT NITE, ONE ENG. OUT.
I thought you'd find this interesting reading. A long time friend forwarded me this e-mail sent by his daughter who flys F-18's.... call sign "Flower"
As a parent, I'd be shak'in after reading this....... but says volumes about the quality of the young people at sea today.
Dear Mom and Dad, I tried to call you last night but the phones weren't up. Flying twice today, and am SSSSSSssOOOOOOOO tired. Only got 4 hours of sleep last night because the whole ship seemed to want to talk, and that took a long time and then adrenaline kept me up for a couple of hours more.
Last night when I was coming in for a landing at 1200 feet and 250 knots (gear speed) when I lowered the gear, I felt two VIOLENT jolts , saw two huge flashes in my canopy, and my jet started falling out of the sky.
Passed through 890 feet and 130 knots and then lost my HUD (flight instruments) for a second, which seemed like an eternity to me - knew I would have to eject if I didn't get some airspeed and altitude really quick. Thought my gear had blown off, based on the huge thumps just as I had lowered the gear; then thought I had lost both engines (TWO BANGS/flashes of light) but went to full afterburner hoping that one of my engines would give me some juice. The jet stopped descending/decelerating and I got my HUD back after what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. I couldn't
climb so I raised my gear and got my flaps to half and then the jet started slowly climbing, while yawing REALLY badly. I worked on getting to 5000 feet but knew that I was headed right to where the S-3's (tracker aircraft) hang out overhead the ship, so I declared an emergency, told Approach that I had just lost my right engine, and I needed them to clear the airspace for me.
I wasn't sure if the stall had cleared at first so I went back up with the right throttle and every time I did, got the loud pop/BANG again so I brought it back to idle to try and clear - then got the 'RENG STALL' caution warning and had to shut it down - the engine had gone to crap anyway and just wasn't working for me at all.
Once I had some airspeed and altitude, the XO got on the radio with me and worked the problem. It was nice to have him talk me through the rest of the emergency procedures and coordinate with approach to get me vectored back in. They tried to give me a right turn and I remembered what Dad told me, and said "Negative, I can't accept any right hand turns tonight - left turns ONLY". In an F-18 you can turn into a bad engine but the jet BARELY stays level in a turn single-engine with that engine at military power, so why try it?
Anyway, the engine hadn't frozen up, so we cranked it to get my hydraulics (the gear is actuated with the right engine hyds and so is the refueling probe; usually we would have to emergency-extend but since the engine wasn't frozen we were able to crank it without fuel just to get my hyds back and lower my gear, refuel probe etc.). Brakes are also off the right eng hyd system, so I selected emergency brakes so I wouldn't try and use the normal ones.
Then XO said "OK; tonight is the night to fly the best approach of your life." I was praying as I was doing everything basically from the time it started until the point when I walked off the flight deck. I thought to myself "OK; - let's do what we've practiced SO many times in the sim.
DON'T get behind the power curve because one engine can't keep up with it. Wow, I'm glad I took so much extra time to practice this before I left because I know I can do it."
Meantime, the XO said, "OK, if you don't get aboard the first time, we're going to have you hit the tanker" I thought "Negative; I'm not hanging out over the water with only one engine ANY longer than I have to, I'm getting aboard safely on THIS pass." I went through the worst-case scenarios in my head: "I lose my other engine, I have to eject. If I can't get gas from the tanker and I get down to 1.8, I'm going to have to go into the barricade."
And I just started accepting the fact that these things might happen. I remember grabbing the beads on my SV-2 (what you pull to inflate the survival vest) to make sure I knew where they were. Didn't want to be in the water with full flight gear and not be able to inflate during the one swing that I might get in the chute before hitting the water. I started thinking about "the best pass of my life" that I needed to fly. I wanted to fly a slightly low approach. That way, you're adding power the entire approach, rather than a high pass where you have to be back on the power. Due to spool-up time, you need to be up on the throttle, and not back. And I wanted to fly slightly ahead of on-speed. That way, I still have the attitude to catch a wire but you also have a little pull of the nose to get some altitude if you need it.
I thought to myself: "OK; I want you to sound really smooth on your 'ball call' - no nerves - make THEM calm down there." I also thought about how the com switch is on my right throttle, so I have to take my hand off my good throttle to talk and wanted to make my call as short as possible. You're supposed to say "307 Hornet ball, 3.5 single engine." I wanted to skip the "single engine" part and get my hand back to my left throttle but you're supposed to say it, so I did.
I've only felt as terrified once before in my life as I did when I lost my engine and didn't know what happened, and that was at Fallon (Nevada), when I had jammed flight controls. I almost want to say that this was more terrifying, because I had a few seconds not knowing what was wrong and
the thought that I might die flashed through my mind, because with no engines at that altitude and the amount of drag you have with your gear down, you have such a great rate of descent that you're probably out of the ejection envelope within a few seconds.
I'm going to look it up and find out. But that flashed through my mind. I knew I couldn't wait very long to see if I could hold straight and level before giving it a shot and pulling the handle. The funny thing is that now, there I was coming in for a single engine landing at night having just been completely terrified but now completely calm, completely composed, knowing all the circumstances, all the possibilities but feeling calm and ready to bring it aboard. The XO had read me the NATOPS warning that going to afterburner/single-engine on a wave-off with greater-than-onspeed AOA could cause you to go out of control quickly. So I flew my approach slightly fast (meaning less AOA than onspeed) to give myself a little buffer, but I wasn't able to fly slightly low. So I found myself in the middle (directly between my 'ball call' at 3/4 mile and 400 feet), slightly high, and back on the power where I didn't want to be. I was watching for a little ball movement wanting to get back on glideslope early so that I could be up on the power at the ramp when I saw the settle. What would be a little settle with both engines I knew would run me into the ramp or damn close on single engine, so I went full afterburners. Then I heard "add a little power" from Paddles (the LSO): "Uh-OH! I'm already in AB." So I stayed in afterburner and heard "Po-WER!", saw the settle stop then saw the ball coming back up as Paddles called "EASY with it", and BAM! I was into the 2-wire for a good safe pass aboard.
I sat there in the wires stunned for a second as Paddles and the air boss came over the radio to say "GOOD JOB FLOWER - REAL GOOD JOB!" But I thanked God for what HE had just done.
My hook wouldn't come up, and I had to wait to be towed out of the wires. As they were towing me , I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I knew that how I acted now was how my reputation would be defined, so I got out of the jet, smiled, and said, "This jet is gonna be DOWN!" The deck guys
loved it.
When I went by Maintenance, I said "thanks for the good LEFT engine, but you can have your lemon back now."
When I saw Paddles I said, "Piece of cake," but he knew I was joking.
They gave me the 'OK-underline' score (the best pass you can get - reserved only for a really solid landing under really dire circumstances - usually the highest you can get is just an 'OK'). I've been congratulated by everyone from the CAG and DCAG to the Admiral.
I can tell you of a zillion things that I should have done better. But the end result was a solid safe landing. I have the tape and will show it to you guys sometime. I'll save the "others" for another time.
How can ANYONE not believe in God? They obviously haven't been single-engine in an F/A-18 trying to come home to the ship at night, and lived to sing the praises for having God as their pilot.
I love and miss you guys, I will keep trying to call.
(Sounds like the eng had a HP compressor stall or possibly a bleed valve sticking).
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