Italian Tornado at TTTE - Wheels Up "Incident"
 

Can anyone confirm or deny the following story?

A group of Italian Starfighter pilots are converting to the Tonka.

First flight of the day is Senior Pilot from detachment.

End of Runway, full take-off power, releases brakes and off.

Halfway down runway, wheels up, belly/runway interface(:}). Afterburner engaged, aileron frantically flapping(!!!) as pilot tries in vain to still carry out the take-off.

End result - large ditch along centre of runway.

Pilot's "excuse" was that in the Starfighter the wheels would not retract whilst on the ground but the Tonka did not have this feature. In Italy the Starfighter pilots had been trained to select Wheels up before rotating so as to reduce workload on the climbout.

This story was told to me by a BAe Engineer who apparently witnessed the whole thing from the tower.

Would love to know if this is real or not

During my time at Cottesmore (1981-85) it happened 3 times. The first was at Coningsby, aircraft B08 flown by an Itallian Pilot with a German Nav. Aircraft G27 was next with an all German crew and Aircraft I40 (which was a jinxed aircraft) was possibly the one your friend saw. I believe it's partly to do with the gear doors providing lift and if the gear is raised too early it can result in ploughing said furrow in runway. We did suggest a mod, fitting 4 castor wheels to the belly but this was met with stony faces!

Off their Trollies?

I40 was the one during my time at TTTE.

i40
 

Snap I was also at Cottesmore at the same time, I think they had a party in the NAAFI when the thing was finally fixed, but it spent ages being robbed for spares.

There was once a story that one of the Italians was swinging off one of the parts, only to be confronted by an RAF techie who stated you cannot do that.

The Italian reply was well it's a already F**ked

As I remember I 40 was the first Itallian Tornado on TTTE. There is a story that a pair of hands were painted on the inside of the airbrakes not long after it arrived so it could surrender properly!
I 40 also tipped up on it's tail after rolling back off the RHAG and after they stopped making an approach end RHAG engagement mandatory for a nose wheel steering warning which 99 times out of 100 was a faulty switch guess what I 40 did? Went off the runway as the nose wheel steering was faulty. I believe after it's return to Italy it crashed!

Cheers folks.

Thanks for the confirmation.

The crew of I40 had preselected gear up and bounced.The gear worked as advertised and resulted in the aircraft ground interface problem.I also remember when the aircraft was raised,seeing SATCO trying to catch the hyd oil with his hat.

I bet that was funny to see, I once watched a Flight Sergeant ( after a full Bowser had ripped open the tank on a HAS door locking bar ) attempt to stem the flow by holding a sandbag into it, he must have thought he was the little Dutch boy, though he had as much luck as the guys trying to stem the flow into the Titanic had.

How I chortled... out of sight of course :p

Hmmmh
 

Rotate at the appropriate speed and you have to be something special (needs) not to get the Fin airborne on 2 engines, whether back in the 80s with Mk 101s or now in the 2010s with 103s. A clean fit GR1 wanted to fly (not to be mistaken with something like 1Ft14 fit at AAS or any where else in high density altitudes), and was as forgiving as a Hawk. As an ab-initio, all you had was an extra lever (for the sweep) to worry about, so getting it right wasn't rocket science. The cases discussed here are ones of extreme mishandling, and/or of the pilot being a 'Rip****', trying too hard to be clever. No other excuse. :suspect:

I seem to remember Egon was the nav on one of the Cottesmore wheels-up take-offs. He said he alternated languages to capture the full range of swear-words as they whistled down the runway.

When parked on the runway he thought it was amusing that they went to the effort to bring steps to the aircraft. When I asked him what he did afterwards he said he went to pick up a new car, which didn't impress the med centre who stayed open awaiting his return for a post-accident check-up.

We thick groundcrew on Rects Sqdn did suggest shoulder pylons after the first time round but were told it wouldn't happen again by our "betters"

LARF we did.

Shoulders would have made a bigger set of groves in the runway! For the least amount of damage all-round the big tanks are best; well, apart from using the carefully designed wheels.

:ok:

Heard a rumour that the only injuries in the incident with the Italian Pilot and the German Nav' were sustained, after exiting the aircraft, by the Italian as a result of the German beating him over the head with his helmet - may not be true but since when should that get in the way of a good story!:E

Priceless! :)

-RP

Italian Tornado at TTTE - Wheels Up "Incident"
 

TTTE was my first tour as a liney, I remember some of the Italian students being quite intimidated by some of the instructors. During one see off the instructor - I think his name was Gordon Reikie ??? Said on the intercom " I wouldn't bother going back in the crew room chief as well be back in five minute if this c*** doesn't get his act together " I saw tears from the students eyes. Different time I suppose. Busy flight line

There was a twin-stick GR4 that did a roller landing at Waddington about 5-10 years ago on its CBLS with practice bombs on. Both the pilots (note this was a QFI check) noticed that they were a bit lower than normal and heared a scraping noise - apparently the view of the sparks from the tower were quite impressive!

For some unknown reason they decided to go back and land at Marham having left a few items off the CBLS at Waddington :eek:. I would have thought landing at Waddington would have been a better bet rather than risk bits falling off across half of Lincolnshire and Norfolk, but I guess they had their reasons.

Still, no significant damage to the jet and they lived to tell the tale.:ok:

LJ

LJ,

I remember watching that coming in on finals as I was driving off camp and thinking how strange it was that the gear was still up! It would have been sometime in 2003 - early 2004 as we were detached there with the F3OEU while Coningsby's runway was being resurfaced. :ok:

I believe they trialled the Tornado main gear at Cranfield, they were strapped to the side of a big water tanker that was ballasted to the weight of a Tornado and off it screamed down the runway, at a set point gas blew the struts down lifting the tankers wheels off the runway.. What the driver thought wasn't recorded.

BHR. Tornado has no ailerons mate:ouch:.

OAP