A very interesting thread for me as a 'heavy' FJ pilot (Ret'd).

Do the 'elite' think that there could be, or is, technolgy to fly in formation on A/P? This is not a joke but it would certainly have helped me :hmm: Never could hack it. Jolly dangerous and classifies as an airmiss as far as I am concerned.

Stilton,

The Tornado wings move. Although they can be set anywhere between fully forward (25 deg sweep) and fully aft (67 deg sweep) only three positions are released: 25 (take off and landing) 45 (everything else) and 67 (airshows and running away).

Because the wings might get stuck in any position approaches are practiced in 45 and 67. As you might imagine, 67 gives a very high approach speed and alpha.

As Timelord states, A 67 wing approach was flown at high speed and AoA. The approach speed was sometimes only 3 kts below the Max Gear Lowering speed. On approach the aircraft nose was so high that some found it difficult to see the runway unless they motored the seat right up. The approaches were even move interesting when flown from the back seat!

No big deal in the F3, as one used the HUD video on the rear cockpit tv/tab.....:cool:

Some boffin originally proposed this for Tornado. I believe every pilot consulted either died of fright or died laughing. The idea was dropped very rapidly.

67 Wing approaches - grass either side of nose = runway must be under the nose!

27mm All very well unless the nasty front seater turned down the HUD Brilliance!

Too true, or even worse in the F2 or early F3s where there weren't no HUD vid.

GR1 had nothing in the back other than head down instruments and a big bank of gauges directly in front of yr eyes blocking the forward view to help you. Teaching visual circuits from the backseat was a feat.

GR4 brought HUD & FLIR in the TV Tabs so much easier.

Fox3WheresMyBanana,

"......67 Wing approaches - grass either side of nose = runway must be under the nose!......"

True ! But you can't see the elephant/camel/water buffalo etc on the runway in front !

(Trials and Tribulations of an old long-nosed single engine man).

D.

PS: Like the idea of formation on autopilot - but if you don't mind, would prefer to watch from a safe distance ! :ooh:

If I had been unlucky enough to encounter elephants, camels or water buffalo in rural Lincolnshire.....:uhoh:

Actually, we didn't touch wheels on the heavyweight, single-engine 67 wing approaches. The speed was too silly (229kts rings a bell) and would have been very expensive in tires. I don't think it's ever happened for real.

Fox3, 67wg and single engine, now that is gamey! BTW, an F3 was landed from an actual 67 stuck wg app at Coningsby; IIRC, around late 80s by a certain NI driver, but that's another story.....

F3- The only benefit to doing a 67wing/single engine heavyweight would be to get all of the BTRs in one go. I fortunately never flew with a QFI/IRE who thought that was a good idea, although I believe there were a few out there!
They are most probably now with some airline trying to incur pain on some young innocent (and maybe incompetent) FO.

There have been at least 2 GR swept wing landings that I can think of, possibly there have been more.

GR basic speed was 201kts + allowance for fuel/stores.

ISTR somewhere around 2 tonnes of fuel put you above gear lowering speed in standard fits.

JAJ,

never mind circuits, you should have tried teaching dive/strafe from the back of the GR1.:uhoh:

OAP

OAP

I can imagine, but at least all you had to do was not hit the thing you couldn't see (the ground), on a demo roller, you actually had to touchdown, preferably on the concrete which you couldn't see and at a speed on a landing that would give you a chance of stopping.

All good fun! :ok:

edit: of course I didn't mean landing from a swept approach, just landing in general from the back seat.

JAJ - OAP

whilst at Bruggen and Leeming, when I heard the call on the Hadley box - "C/S 3 miles 67 swept to roll" I always made sure that the RWC caravan door was open and clear of any obstacles.

A342

That's 2 knots below the basic weight speed for our two-seat F-105Fs with the wings as far forward as they would go. :)

The old F-105 actually had the best basic auto-pilot for heading, altitude or attitude hold I ever saw in a fighter aircraft. No coupled approach capability and no auto-throttle of course. No fix-to-fix nav as such because there were few RNAV fixes defined at the time anyway, but one became semi-skilled at TACAN radial/DME point-to-points within reasonable tolerances.

As far as coupled ILS capability in fighters....

....Was in the back seat of a Guard F-101F on an FCF at Niagara Falls one day, and when the USAF advisor doing the check gets to the recovery he says "Let's check the coupled ILS capability." LOC intercept was reasonable with some minor 'S' turns but when we got to GS intercept, the VooDoo briskly pitches down about 10-15 degrees :eek:. Captain Obvious disconnects, and says, "That's not right." Fortunately we didn't have enough gas to try it again.

My 101 checkout was to start in about 2 weeks, but got an offer to go fly a fighter with only a yaw damper, no auto-pilot, and at that point this seemed very appealing.

Hmm few rusty neurons motivating now, seem to remember the Luftwaffe final "test job" at TTTE was a four ship formation landing with max reverse thrust/ braking starting at the back with a fixed point pass/fail :eek: ....but they had it cushy with full use of high lift....we line swine got the nod to come and watch as it was bloody impressive and Germanic, 'natch.

a F3 did a 67 landing at LEU mid 2000's[think] entire TASF was outside watching the drama evolve, it only stopped when it caught the bottom end cable having exhausted all other possibilities.....

Old F3 crews in a bar in Las Vegas hitting on local girls whilst pretending to be born during or after 1967. Never worked.

Stilton, I'm not an expert but I believe 67 degrees is the maximum sweep of the wings on a F3/GR1/4-a configuration that is used for high speed flight.


Normally, a landing would be performed with the wings fully swept forward (increased lift etc at 23? degrees) without any issues. However, should the variable geometry control in the aircraft go U/S then you may be 'stuck' at 67 degrees of sweep, and you have to get the aircraft on the ground.....


So I guess this was practiced in the sim and (possibly)in the air, like other in flight emergencies.