Rather confused about "well done to that chap, marvellous skill saved him and the aircraft". If you're ever in a situation even close to that you will know that he parked the throttle top left, pulled like a bugger and hoped for the best. Lucky yes, skilful hmmm!

Typhhon Display
 

I won't comment on the background to this incident, though by all accounts it was a bit hairy. However, as an erstwhile display pilot (1970 vintage!!) I will make some informed comment on the likelihood or otherwise of someone in a similar position ejecting.
Displaying any aircraft at low level entails a risk. Every display pilot knows which manoeuvres in his display put him closest to the limits and he will have thought of the likely pointers that all is not going to plan and will have his escape routes pre-programmed. That is not to say that mistakes or errors of judgement will not occur. I can think of 2 such incidents in the 3 seasons I did (others might have witnessed more!) and in neither case did the thought of pulling the handle enter my head.
I ocassionally flew practice displays with 'rookie' back seaters who - mad fools that they were - wanted to 'experience it'. Part of my briefing to them concerned ejection. I admitted that I really didn't know what I'd do if I screwed up, whether I'd try to correct the pigs, or accept the inevitable and try to save my skin. However, if they felt they were about to die, then they should not think twice, they were just to pull the bottom handle and go.
Incidentally, on the 2 occasions I did get into a spot of bother, the back-seater (my regular one, as it happens) didn't think about ejecting either!

Oh what a lot of know-it-alls ready to kick a man when he's down!

Take M. Schumacher Esq. Probably the greatest F1 driver the world has ever seen. I don't personally like the bloke but so what, I don't deny him his accolade. Now, if he spun his Ferrari on the hairpin corner but went on to win the Grand Prix race, everyone would say how brilliant he is. Nothing much different here.

This pilot got away with his life and the aircraft, after something went not quite right for him, by the skin of his teeth. Good on him, he would have been perfectly justified in pulling the stripey handle which would have lost the aircraft for us, the taxpayer and spoiled the day for all (except perhaps the detracters).

It appears that afterwards he sat down, thought about what had happened, went up and flew it again and got it right. As a professional should. Good on him again.

Those wanting to pour scorn, better wait until you have displayed an aircraft yourself and understand what it's all about.

P.S. Great piccies, Thanks!

TYPHOON
 

ShyTH

Spot on - give the pilot his due! Indeed, it was a close call but even Typhoon drivers are human and humans make mistakes, even the best....... don't we?!

To any detractors and 'yes-but-he-porked it' wailers -

"let who he is without sin cast the first stone"

(and if you have never flown low-level displays - please keep quiet!)

Whatever the reason, it takes a brave person to get back on his horse so soon after a fall - so well done chap!

(tho' he probably needed a change of underwear!)

Flip

Did the Typhoon's sophisticated FBW FCS save the day by giving the pilot complete confidence that however hard he pulled the aircraft wouldn't depart?

Or would the ability to pull just a bit harder than the 'hard FCS limit' and accept that there would be a progressive increase in the risk of departure allowed him to pull it round with just a bit more separation from the ground?

Or does Typhoon have a detent on the stick, giving a 'soft' limit?

I was once talking to a well known display pilot of yesteryear, whose speciality included some very low pullouts from manoeuvres - he always aimed to be able to safely recover from a loop with a normal pullout at height X, but at airshows just pulled slightly less hard during the final part of the recovery and gave the crowd the illusion of pulling out low - about X/2.

From the looks of it I thought you were flying, Jacko...

From the descriptions and photos, it looked a lot like a repeat of the Flanker at Paris in 1999, the crucial difference being that the Flanker zeroed its descent rate at a small but crucial negative AGL. (If you remember, they wiped out the tail but managed to force the damaged aircraft up to a point where they could eject.)

The following applies if there was nothing wrong with the aircraft...

The lesson is that when pointed downhill at a few hundred knots, without a lot of lift on them, fighters accelerate really, really fast. Whether you are too low or too fast at the top of that kind of descending manoeuvre, or don't pull hard or early enough, or whatever, it doesn't take much to eat that 100 feet that you planned to have left at the bottom. And you can find yourself very quickly in one of those embarrassing ye-canna-alter-the-laws-of-physics-Jim situations...

It's also an unnatural act; it's not the way fighters are flown at high speed near the ground. It's not something that operational pilots are trained to do.

And before we jump in and say "screwed the pooch", look at the EF pilot-vehicle interface and the impact of carefee handling. Does it lead to disconnection and over-confidence? Are there any "why'd it do that?" issues (like early Airbus experience, remember Mulhouse)? Did the computer understand what the pilot was trying to do? (Mulhouse again.)

Is it good judgment on the part of BAE or the RAF to have an operational pilot demo the aircraft in that scenario? Fort Worth has long had a cadre of demo pilots who are specialists within the company test pilot force. If anyone can recall any mishap, or even any of that group getting spanked for busting minima, let me know.

Interesting aside: I wonder how important the vertical component of the thrust was in maintaining the positive AGL? With the alpha he had on he was almost like a Harrier in STO mode...

Further to the physics issue, I was reminded of this:

http://www.pioneer.net/~fitzrr/zell.jpg

There have been many similar close calls and accidents over the decades with conventional, semi FBW and pure FBW aircraft. Would be very surprised if FCS was much of a factor here; (if it had been, surely the plug would have been pulled until the RAF/BAE undertsood more).

Low Obs. Company demo pilots are not immortal sadly.

When an aircraft is in operational service, as Typhoon now is, it is quite normal for the operator to display an aircraft using one of its own pilots with suffient experience on type.

BAE, as other manufacturers, has a cadre of display pilots of its own but this aircraft was from an operation RAF squadron. There was nothing unusual about the display being flown by a RAF pilot who is, it should be considered, among the service's most experienced Typhoon jocks.

As others have said, thankfully both pilot and aircraft lived to fly another day - same day, in fact, with a further two sorties in the same aircraft taking place on Friday.

There is nothing unusual about a display being flown by a service pilot. Sadly, there is also nothing new about displays (some by company pilots, some by service pilots) ending in avoidable disasters when a fully serviceable aircraft, flying within its normal envelope in broad daylight and with an experienced pilot, strikes the ground. (Blackhawk, Farnborough 1974, A-10, Paris 1977, two Tigersharks...)
The Typhoon driver narrowly missed getting added to this list, and I'm wondering what we should all have learned from earlier accidents to avoid this sort of thing.
And it is certainly not the case that company pilots are immortal (cf Tigershark). However, if it's indeed the case that some operators/companies have a long and clean record it might be interesting to look at how they do it.

Ok ready for a rant!!!

I am compelled to write on this one because of the huge amount of Sh**e i am reading. some of you have made me want to use many expletives but i wont (perhaps just rhyming words).

Flipster(i know you really well mate) you are absolutely right, if you are not a pilot, not a display pilot, not a high performance aircraft display pilot, then shut the cluck up!

Ali Barber - All this crap about outside seat peramiters - bulls**t
Senga - i hope after your comment that youve never made a mistake in your aviation career (and if your career isnt aviation then sod off!)

I dont know what happened, but lets give the bad mouthers the benifit of the doubt, lets imagine it was pilot error. There is not one pilot on this forum that is not capable of putting an aircraft into a dangerous situation! I bet there are only a handful of pilots on this forum that would have the skill and kuhhoonas to pull off a recovery like this guy did. He showed an imense amount of moral courage to stick with it (some of you will call it stupidity), and THEN get back in the jet and carry on. Dont know the guy, but if he porked it (there but for the grace of god ...!), he got his way out of it, then he had the balls to carry on (regardsless of the cause) at a time when most of us would have been on our 5th scotch.
This is whats known as the 'right stuff!'

for some of you if he would have crashed you would call him a banker
if he would have banged out you would call him a banker
he pulled off an amazing recovery, and you still call him a Banker

lady luck must always smile down upon you when your in th s**t (i know i have been there enough and without her i'd be toast), its not just a skillset that gets you out of trouble- read Chuck Yeager. I often enjoy the comments from wannabees and non pilot types on this forum, but on this occasion you dont know, you can't empathise(that means youve never done it!) so keep it to yourselves. I wouldnt dream of telling an engineer how to fit an 'offle waffle grommit valve' to an aircraft - because they're qualified and im not! point made! i hope so.
Rant Over

Who ever you are, whatever the reason, you did bloody well mate. Saved an expensive aircraft, and BAes reputation AND most importantly your life. Nice one!

LO,

Do I know you? Are you referring to my Bulldog routine (I thought it inspired, and da judge almost agreed - 'Insiperd?' 'Insipid?' I think he said, something like that), or my equally impressive Chipmunk sequence? Or are you referring to the proximity of the twigs and branches, and recalling Blaniks?

Either way, surely to God it wasn't bad enough for you to remember 20 years on? Was it?

I need a beer to cry into now.....

Tigs,

Loosen up, old boy. Only Flap 62 and Senga made anything approaching criticism of the pilot, while Ali Barber\'s red card comment is what usually happens - regardless of whether any blame is attached - on a \'better safe than sorry\' basis. Many others on this thread have offered or inferred support, admiration or praise for Matt, and deservedly so.

I don\'t see much evidence of anyone feeling anything but:

a) Profound relief that a popular bloke got away with it safely.

b) That he\'s a lucky bloke, and one who didn\'t do anything that any of us might not do one day, when we fly. He probably learned invaluable lessons himself from an incident that will also help all of us who fly (even in the humblest form) in the future by providing something to think about, whether or not we\'ve ever flown a fast jet, let alone displayed one.

c) That this is an interesting, spectatcular incident with flight safety implications in which no-one was hurt, and which we can think and talk about without the risk of upsetting grieving relatives or being accused of ghoulishness.

d) That the incident demonstrated that the safety limits do save lives.

Does anyone have any idea if the jet is ok after that? He must have been pulling like a bastard using both arms, both legs and all his teeth! I know that the Typhoon will let you 'bend' it to avoid 'breaking' it, (ie. pull 1.25 times the G-limit in an emergency)

Glad the guy's ok. After his heart rate lowers (perhaps next year?) and the **** blows over, what an awesome bar story....

".....yeah, and then I recovered at 25ft at 400kts and 13g.....yup, planned it....."

Anyone remember when the Gnat was allowed down to 50ft?

Jackonicko
I'm loose chum dont worry. Like i said i needed to rant at those you have mentioned.
Tigs

Tigs,
I think we can agree that crashes are a bad thing.
I'd also put it to you as a working hypothesis that the reason that we don't crash 300 RAF aircraft a year, as in the early 1950s, and that we don't have weekly airline crashes (which we would if we multiplied 1950s-1960s accidents rates by today's traffic) is that we learn from the accidents that did happen and the accidents that didn't.
And I'd also suggest that when I say "we" I mean everyone. Pilots. Engineers. Air show organizers. Government regulators. (Pilots HATED GPWS when it came out and look what it did for us.) And even - for verily I say unto you, a broken clock is right twice a day - journos. No one group can do it by themselves.
That's why ranting about "if you aren't a jet pilot, then STFU" is IMHO counterproductive. Yes, it does have a certain intimidating power on the surface. But in the end its the old argumentum ad hominem fallacy. If I say it, and Jacko says it, and Chuck Yeager says it, are the first two statements invalid but the third correct?
That's not to say that we should not respect each others' knowledge and experience. But don't shut down the debate.

LO

I agree chap, thats why i said i would never tell anyone else of any other profession how to do their job.

Sorry LO
there is very little evidence to support this (certainly on the flying side). The reason we do not crash as many aircraft is because our understanding of material science and our maintenance and servicing techniques have improved drastically. NDT and environmental health monitoring systems mean that these days the engineers can do a better job for us than ever in the history of aviation.

Didnt mean to stop the debate at all. Just get miffed off with people bad mouthing someone when they dont know what happened.(did prefix my message with i need a rant! - not an excuse granted)
Tigs

Jackonicko,

Sorry chum but didn't criticise the pilot in my post. Simply stating that all the "ooo wasn't he skillful" blah is a bit misplaced. When you're in an aeroplane pointing at the ground you pull like a bugger. Very rarely any rational thoughts of "ok I'll pull for a bit longer then think about banging out" - that's why so many people fly servicable a/c into the ground. He may have porked it, it may have been the kit throwing a wobbly - I neither know nor care, I wasn't there and even if I did know I wouldn't point the finger but let's keep things in perspective eh!

Some people on here really need to go out and get a life!!

So what eh? The pilot made a mistake whoopy doo. It's not the first time an airshow almost came to an end because of one. I was not 50 yards away from an E3D that opened and almost closed a recent Waddo airshow. Yep the pilot screwed up but yet his skill recovered the situation..

I was also unfortunate enough to be on a Herc in an orchard in Herefordshire due to a pilots mistake. 115 degrees angle of bank 250 feet nose dropped. Yes we were IN it not over it!! But again the Pilots skills got us out of it. Although I suspect that apple tree never recovered! Had a picture been taken that day it would have been almost identical to the typhoon one!

Flying is extremely dangerous, an occupational hazard you see, fact of life.

Give the guy a break he will be having nightmares and cold sweats for the rest of his life in payment.. Move on.

Top marks to the chap for getting away with it. What is the procedure in the RAF after such a close call? To the un-trained observer, it could argued that the aircraft and pilot were un-necessarily endangered. Presumably this will start some official machinery in motion. A BOI perhaps?

Looking at it another way . . . the pilot recovered the kite under near extreme circumstances.

Now that a Typhie/pilot combination has survived this event, could it be that in 3 or so years time this "manoeuver" will become part of the Typhie's evasive tactics if needed in the "heat" of battle?


:rolleyes:

Beeayeate,

My god you might be on to something. For years the boffins have been wondering what to tell the pilots to do when pointing at the ground and in one fell swoop you've solved it - pull back on the stick. You are a genius sir. Let us hope, that in years to come when countless aircraft have been saved by this revolutionary manoeuvre, you will get your reward.