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"Quirks" of Past Aircraft

BusyBee604

St. Francis/Hugh Hefner Combo!
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
BzB: Can I assume you only flew from angled-deck carriers? Clearly, in the early jet era, everyone took a "cut" to land…since there was no bolter option…and the pack ahead of you.
R1, you assume correctly, I was addressing my era only. Well aware of the "pack" hazard/traps on pre-27C CVs.:)

*Welcome back from your jaunt down the Rue de la Paix!;)
BzB
 

707guy

"You can't make this shit up..."
This thread is why this forum kick ass... Thanks for all the great info - yes even from the helo guys... ;)
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
LSOs gave terrible landing grades initially to F-14s, because from outside it looked like the pilot had snakes in the cockpit with all the control surrfaces moving around violently. It took them a while to get used to that.
Funny, as someone once said here, "the more things change . . ." I roomed with both our squadron LSOs during cruise, and I remember it being bitched about occasionally that Hornet LSOs had the same impression of us, for similar reasons. Fly-by-wire Hornets came aboard nice and smooth, because fly-by-wire. Here's the Prowler flopping around not because the pilot sucks but because, well, it doesn't have fly-by-wire and it's a flying drumstick.

But then there was the pass our Skipper threw, where the canopy did not move from the center of the PLAT-cam cross, and as the jet approached the ramp, the PLAT-cam cross stayed notably centered on the pilot's helmet like a frigging sniper scope. Yes, I'm aware that the cross doesn't equal glideslope, LSO speak, blah blah blah. Don't care. It was just. Fucking. Sick. The man probably made a deal with the Devil during flight school. :p
 

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
But then there was the pass our Skipper threw, where the canopy did not move from the center of the PLAT-cam cross, and as the jet approached the ramp, the PLAT-cam cross stayed notably centered on the pilot's helmet like a frigging sniper scope. Yes, I'm aware that the cross doesn't equal glideslope, LSO speak, blah blah blah. Don't care. It was just. Fucking. Sick. The man probably made a deal with the Devil during flight school. :p

So full drift right at the ramp? Sounds like a no grade to me :)
 

Able Dog

New Member
The Queer Spad (EA-1F) had a 300 gallon fuel tank. There was no fuel gauge, so trying to figure out how much fuel was left was always a guess, at best. There is no greater thrill than calling "feet dry' and having your engine quit at the same time.
 

Lawman

Well-Known Member
None
AH-64A - Had an electrical anomaly in the family. Essentially the aircraft would inadvertently discharge voltage from the initial power spike coming up on electrical. There were a couple instances where Rockets and/or Hellfires were inadvertently launched off parked aircraft from either coming up on APU/Batt Power or in one case I know of a nearby lightning strike where it ditched a whole 19 shot pod into the Berm it was parked in front of. You can imagine how "Oh Sh!t" a moment you would have realizing you had no explanation other than "Black Magic Voodoo" for why a missile launched off your aircraft over the airfield and luckily didnt kill anybody on the other end.

AH-64D - Quirk with the hold modes that was only discovered due to our profile of constant boring orbits. Basically the system can get loaded up because it was only really designed to work as a hover in a battle position tool, not a poor mans auto pilot. Lot of guys will trim it out in the orbit to try and see how many circles they can do without making a correction. Eventually the system can get over saturated and you get uncommanded full left pedal which trips the torque limiter on the system, kicks off the holds, beedle beedle master warn, etc. Scares the hell out of you the first time you see it.

64A/D/E models - Hate the high altitudes in the RC-E region. Above 6K or so especially in the cold they have a tendency to have a small explosion when you start the APU. Caused a couple of guys in my unit that werent familiar with it to think they had a fire and pop the bottles. The 701C/Ds also hate the high altitude engine starts. We dont have enough IPAS air to do dual engine starts at any altitude, I think this is contributing to them having a rough time starting single at high altitude. Hungstarts and soft stalls are way more common than they should be. Also the thin air makes it really really easy to overspeed the rotor (especially on the D models with 701Ds) when pushing the power levers up too fast.
 

Kaman

Beech 1900 pilot's; "Fly it like you stole it"
Had a pilot jettison the aux. tanks in the H-2...on the crosswind runway at NAS Barbers Point...oops!
 

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
Along similar lines, on the SH-60F, the signal to release a torpedo from the bomb rack is same as the select jettison signal. So, if you select the wrong station (of 3) and push launch, whatever is on that bomb rack will depart the aircraft. A squadron-mate dropped an aux fuel tank during a rextorp exercise. The guys in the torp recovery boat were kind enough to recover the tank for us, but the 70-ft fall rendered it unserviceable.
 
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