One wing F15?
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It was on Discovery a few weeks ago. Apparently the speed it kept up prior to and during landing made the lift to the middle of the frame eough to keep the remainder in the air.
Damn right it's real!
Occurred during a dis-similar air combat trg sortie (dogfighting with another type jet if yu want to boil it down to absolute basics) with an A-4 Skyhawk somewhere over Israel. Can't remember what happened to the Skyhawk, think he may (probably?) decided he had had enough excitement for one day and parted company with his jet.
If what I have heard is correct, the f-15 recovered to base with fuel, flames and smoke chuffing out of the right wing. As such, neither crew were aware that they were missing said wing! On landing, and immediately after shutdown, the Nav had a shuffty at the damage and had great difficulty in persuading his pilot that they had landed minus wing.
Boeing, on hearing about this were chuffed to bits - after all, what an advert for a combat ac; if it can survive a mid-air collision and make it home safely, what are it's chances of surviving a combat sortie. Cue Boeing share price through the roof and lots of enquiries about buying F-15.
The crux of it, as discovered by the Boeing engineers, was that the F-15 was so wide thanks to those huge intakes and engines, that if you kept up enough speed the airframe performed like a rocket / missile. You wouldn't have a huge amount of directional control, but go fast enough in a straight line and the thing would still generate enough lift to fly.
Occurred during a dis-similar air combat trg sortie (dogfighting with another type jet if yu want to boil it down to absolute basics) with an A-4 Skyhawk somewhere over Israel. Can't remember what happened to the Skyhawk, think he may (probably?) decided he had had enough excitement for one day and parted company with his jet.
If what I have heard is correct, the f-15 recovered to base with fuel, flames and smoke chuffing out of the right wing. As such, neither crew were aware that they were missing said wing! On landing, and immediately after shutdown, the Nav had a shuffty at the damage and had great difficulty in persuading his pilot that they had landed minus wing.
Boeing, on hearing about this were chuffed to bits - after all, what an advert for a combat ac; if it can survive a mid-air collision and make it home safely, what are it's chances of surviving a combat sortie. Cue Boeing share price through the roof and lots of enquiries about buying F-15.
The crux of it, as discovered by the Boeing engineers, was that the F-15 was so wide thanks to those huge intakes and engines, that if you kept up enough speed the airframe performed like a rocket / missile. You wouldn't have a huge amount of directional control, but go fast enough in a straight line and the thing would still generate enough lift to fly.
Good try but it didn't fool me 
The story I heard was the IDFAF phoned McDonnel Douglas as was, and asked
"Can an F-15 fly without a wing"
McD Man "God no don't be stupid"
So they sent them some photos.
"Can an F-15 fly without a wing"
McD Man "God no don't be stupid"
So they sent them some photos.
Originally Posted by Nige321
is this real??
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Yep - this type of thing has happened a couple of times. Once in Israel, and the other was a Japanese F-15 (can't remember exact dates, but about 15 years ago). Could be why there are different piccys!
Originally Posted by Oz_in_oz
Yep - this type of thing has happened a couple of times. Once in Israel, and the other was a Japanese F-15 (can't remember exact dates, but about 15 years ago). Could be why there are different piccys!
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Anyone got any pics of the F-14s that landed back on the carrier with assymetric wing sweep i.e. one forward and one back. Heard that it happened to aircraft from 2 different sqns on the same cruise and both were required to land on or eject as they were out of range of a land base. One was a relatively minor assymetry but the other was almost fully mis-matched.