Military fast jets and thunderstorms
 

Gents,
I assume that with CB's - the practise in military fast jet flying is similar to civilian flying - avoid by diverting around, do not penetrate the cell or fly under and do not attempt to climb and fly over.
I assume that in actual combat conditions necessity may mean that some of those practises are waived.
Presumably, even though military airframes can tolerate higher g's than an airliner, finding oneself in close proximity to a CB in a jet like, say, an F-16 would be highly unpleasant due to the light wing loading...

Given the lack of weather radar you still end up inside some active cells if they are embedded. You do tend to get thrown around somewhat as you say.

Interesting.
Orca - if I remember correctly, you were a Harrier driver?
I had assumed that fast jet radar while being optimised for identifying targets, foes and terrain, would have modes that could act as weather radar, especially newer AESA units.
You learn something every day.
So are fast jet pilots relying on little more than Mark 1 eyeball and METARs etc when heading out on a sortie?

I did my first real wx avoid after 10 years, and that was because I was in a newish electric jet and didn't think it wise to get airborne when the station was completely surrounded by lightning. Apart from that, all good fun, especially if you were hanging on someone's wing.

Yup!
Tornado F3 - one always tried to avoid CB, but I was hit by lightning twice in embedded CB, both at night doing PIs. Both times the CSAS tripped out but reset, and it did a fine job of minimising the bumps; no major snags apart from a couple of small entry/exit burn holes. Biggest problem was flying whilst blinded by the flash, it was very handy having the nav to do "talking AI" for about 30 seconds. It was not uncommon in Air Defence; one of the old hands gave me a few pointers for the second time, which worked a treat. I had the seat on lowest height with dark visor down and all the cockpit light on max when the big bumps started, then flipped up the visor just after the strike - snagless!

Whilst I was at Valley, a chap bit the tip of his tongue off in low level turbulence over Snowdonia; I'd chickened out around the same time after a 6g bump, so I think low level was worse for bumps. CSAS and sticking the wings a bit further back worked a treat on Tornado.

I was filling one of the back seats in a Canberra B15 out of Tengah in the mid 60's. We were doing the very stupid low-high dusk strike! If one of the huge ****ehawks didn't hit you and take out an engine during the low level high speed (for a Cnbr)sim attack, then the climb to high level would probably take you into a 65000ft CB. The route was in the same airspace used by the lost Air Asia flight and weather conditions not dissimilar. I'm not sure if radar had been invented then (:rolleyes:) but we certainly didn't have it. Guess what......we hit the hardest embedded sob CB centre and 'twas like being in a washing machine (or similar). When I suggested to my driver it might be a good idea to descend out of it, he said he was on max rate descent...R of C I suggested 5000ft a min climb! We had multiple lightning strikes some electrics dropped out, and then so did we...like a bloody stone. Well, we recovered in good VMC at safety height and whimped home low level.
We learned about night flying in that area and my pilot never did it again in a Canberra .

Interesting ROG - and you touch on the reason for my question.
An ex F-16 driver in an Airbus heading quickly towards a line of CBs...
Surely he couldn't have fallen back on military practises or procedures in a moment of stress - he had 6,000 hours on type, 20,000 or so I think in total?
I am probably drawing a very long bow and on the wrong track entirely but was interested to see how bad weather was handled in the fast jet world.

The is a quite old book written by Richard Bach (author of Jonathon Livingstone Seagull) where he writes about a flight from England to Germany in an F-84 when he inadvertantly strayed into the middle of a Cb.
He was in the US Air National Guard stationed in Germany (Spanglendamen...sp?) at the time, probably in the 1950's
I can't at the minute recollect the title but is certainly got his attention.
Hairy stuff.
f

"Stranger to the Ground", iirc

I think you're right. I have a copy,but it's in a box 3,000 nm away at the mo.
Now, was it that book where he mentions the ADF needle pointing at lightning flashes?
In any case, it does, and I used that once on a ferry flight across the Midwest - very handy!

In an Air-Ground mapping mode, I just raised the depression angle to 0. Instant weather radar.

Was that on the F-18, or something a little bigger with the swingy wings...?

tartare....not sure which a/c DoubleGen is referring to, though I can guess it was the Mighty Fin. The Ground mapping Radar in the GR1/4 was pretty good when used as a weather radar, although you never really know what you're not seeing!

CB's definitely best avoided in an electric jet!

How tolerant are FJs to icing? I'd guess that supersonic interceptor types would be too fast to suffer much icing, but I'd also imagine that subsonic jets with high-bypass engines such as Harrier would be very susceptible to engine icing?

Trim,

The Harrier was very resistent to engine icing, the big fan simply shed most of it out of the cold nozzles. I have chased a Tristar up and down the Adriatic in some pretty ropey weather and the icing got so bad I couldn't see out the front and on getting home discovered that the ice had broken the seeker head on a 9L!

The Jet Provost could be a problem. I've had so much intake icing that I could no longer maintain height. No problems on faster types.

Yes, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Let the inquiry into the Air Asia loss proceed without chasing shadows.

Yup! Sitting there flying speed and heading on a standard IMC departure from Leeming one day and suddenly noticed that ROC = √sod all.
Things then happened quickly and simultaneously: Bas looked out and saw lots of pretty ice/engine began to vibrate/JPT went off the clock.
RTB for deadstick landing but engine produced enough power for a bit of control just in case but only used it to taxi in.

After the demise of FEAF and then NEAF, fast jets rarely went east of Cyprus for over 20 years. Between 1970 and the mid 90s the only rare excursions to areas of severe thunderstorms was the occasional FI rotation. Consequently, there is a generation, or two, who have not grownup to respect thunderstorms.

Since the advent of radar it is difficult to believe that some fast jets have not had one fitted. Obviously ,all “Fighter” ac since the Lightning have had a radar and so have been able to weather avoid. I do recall, however, flying through atrocious weather over the Alps with the lead Tanker “pressing on regardless”.

It was only in the mid 80s in Europe that it became more acceptable to ATC to request heading change to avoid weather. In the USA Air Traffic had a far more flexible approach and re-routing to avoid weather was accepted.
With modern radars it takes a conscious thought to select Pulse mode; otherwise the cells are invisible. That thought process must start in training. Too often I observed experienced Instructors who failed to select the appropriate radar mode when flying near severe weather.

I also recall some dreadfully nights in the mid 90s trying to AAR over the Adriatic in thunderstorms. Some of the Tanker Captains seemed to think that staying on the Towline was the most important thing. Trying to tank off a 135 with a BDA near/in thunderstorms was not my idea of fun!

Ageed, I too had that out of Barkston one day. Agreed also re faster types.