Tornado gliding ?
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Tornado gliding ?
Can anyone tell me if a successful dead stick landing can be made following a double engine failure on the Tornado, or would the aircraft have the flight characteristics of a brick ?
Has this ever been done successfully or would the SOP be to bail out in such a situation ?
Cheers
VTB
Has this ever been done successfully or would the SOP be to bail out in such a situation ?
Cheers
VTB
Join Date: Apr 2004
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It would certainly have been medal winning stuff - the fin is a comparatively poor flyer with both motors running. I seem to remember that you only have about 4 mins of emerg hyd power after a double flame-out - so best have it near to home...
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Can't be done unless you want to land wheels up at over 250mph. The control surfaces need hydraulic power to move and the only hyd supply apart from the engine driven systems are an emergency RAT that stops producing enough power below about 200kias. Also the RAT is just behind the left main wheel, so if you drop the gear the RAT stops working! If you were brave/stupid enough and could judge the forced landing pattern exactly, one could land wheels up. However the Tornado without power would take on the aerodynamic characteristics of a bunch of car key. Saving the seats would be a much better option.
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Deadstick
But you could deadstick an F4. High Key was circa 16000' QFE. There was a section in the US Navy F4 drivers manual on how to do it, and there was a 74(F) Sqn pilot at Wattisham who used to try it (with throttles at idle not off) whenever the weather allowed. Hope he isn't pulling the same stunt with Cathay
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Hope someone jumps in with double generator failure tales, Just happy it never happened to anybody on Q 200+ north of Saxa. I remember the reports of torch lights over pilot's shoulders and the volts showing below 14 volts before shutdown on the runway. 
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum
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Back in my PSA/MoD days, so bear with my failing memory here, while waiting to survey the sewage holding tank 
in the ops building at a RAF fighter base not a million miles away I recall reading a notice detailing what a Tornado crew should do in the event of a double engine failure. Cannot remember the detail, but know there was a long list of things the crew should try in an attempt to restart the engines. Dropping below a certain height having failed to restart the engines left only one option; eject.
in the ops building at a RAF fighter base not a million miles away I recall reading a notice detailing what a Tornado crew should do in the event of a double engine failure. Cannot remember the detail, but know there was a long list of things the crew should try in an attempt to restart the engines. Dropping below a certain height having failed to restart the engines left only one option; eject.
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As has been correctly stated above (soddim, MTN & LJR) - no donks = take to the rocket assisted armchairs.
"you only have about 4 mins of emerg hyd power after a double flame-out" = wrong, the RAT will do its thing till doomsday comes (which it will)
Dead-stick gear up - you have been watching too many movies / drinking late again! Mum and Dad gave me brains & Martin Baker loaned me a bang seat - I'll use both
There is no "certain ht" to step over the side. Common sense would tend to prevail though once you notice that the sheep have legs!
If you tried it, succeed or fail, I suspect the only medal you would be likely to see is the one pinned to your chest by matron in the loony bin stating - "keep this mad tw@t away from all Sqns ~ for ever"
F4J high key = correct. Low Key about 11k and start the round-out at about 2k. Very scary on normal length runways, never achieved one from which I considered that I might walk away (not Cathay)
"you only have about 4 mins of emerg hyd power after a double flame-out" = wrong, the RAT will do its thing till doomsday comes (which it will)
Dead-stick gear up - you have been watching too many movies / drinking late again! Mum and Dad gave me brains & Martin Baker loaned me a bang seat - I'll use both
There is no "certain ht" to step over the side. Common sense would tend to prevail though once you notice that the sheep have legs!
If you tried it, succeed or fail, I suspect the only medal you would be likely to see is the one pinned to your chest by matron in the loony bin stating - "keep this mad tw@t away from all Sqns ~ for ever"
F4J high key = correct. Low Key about 11k and start the round-out at about 2k. Very scary on normal length runways, never achieved one from which I considered that I might walk away
(not Cathay)
Self Loathing Froggy
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There is a story about some French fighter pilot dead stick landing a Mirage III after a flameout, long time ago.
He is said to have got a 15 days suspension because that was against SOP, and a medal because the engineers were able to find out why the ATARs were flaming out.
Could not find a confirmation of it, however.
He is said to have got a 15 days suspension because that was against SOP, and a medal because the engineers were able to find out why the ATARs were flaming out.
Could not find a confirmation of it, however.
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Gliding the electric flick-knife to a dead-stick landing - no chance. But, just for a laugh, I did once do a wheels up landing following a total hydraulic failure. As someone has already said, the RAT feeding the controls stalls when the gear is put down, so we slowed down until the RAT stalled, and then plugged the burners in to unstall the RAT. Used RAT stall plus 10 knots as a landing speed for a wheels up landing. I forgot to mention, it was only in the sim!
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stillin1
No offence taken! Just acutely aware that beyond a chance observation I have little authority in what I can say here, so thought I had better keep what I say very accurate!
No offence taken! Just acutely aware that beyond a chance observation I have little authority in what I can say here, so thought I had better keep what I say very accurate!
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Don't know which sim you used, Ali, but no F3 sim I know has a RAT in the software. After a double hyd fail it is necessary to restore the left hyd to simulate a RAT and therefore it does not simulate RAT stall or the loss of RAT following gear lowering. It is therefore easy to land the sim with "double" hyd fail.