note spoiler deflection, rt wing. with chuck sewell.
chuck, the grumman chief test pilot was killed in 1986 while ferrying an old SBD dive bomber for a friend.
..
...http://www.grummanpark.org/tomcattales.htm
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
tomcat asymetric wingsweep tests early '80's
- Thread starter flaps
- Start date
note spoiler deflection, rt wing. with chuck sewell.
chuck, the grumman chief test pilot was killed in 1986 while ferrying an old SBD dive bomber for a friend.
..
...http://www.grummanpark.org/tomcattales.htm
Was the pilot able to manually select spoiler deployment in a situation like that, or was it computer controlled?
A series of flight tests were conducted from December 19, 1985 to February 28, 1986. Grumman's Chief Test Pilot, Chuck Sewell, conducted several trials with the right wing locked in the forward position of 20 degrees, and positioned the left wing at 35, 50, 60 and 68 degrees of sweep in flight. 60 degrees was determined as the maximum for landing. In the event of an operational in-flight malfunction, Sewell found the aircraft to be acceptable for carrier landings in this configuration.
Born in 1930 Chuck Sewell attended the College of William and Mary, George Washington University, University of Maryland and New York Institute of Technology.
He spent twenty years in the United States Marine Corps first as a fighter pilot and then as a test pilot. Chuck flew 110 combat missions in Korea and was shot down once by enemy ground fire. He also spent four months with the First Marine Division as a forward air controller. After Korea he became an exchange pilot with No. 74 Squadron, Royal Air Force and spent two years as a Flight Commander.
Chuck’s love of flying went beyond high-performance military jets. He had more than 10,000 hours in over 140 types of aircraft. Flying vintage World War Two aircraft was a favorite of Chuck’s. However tragedy struck when on August 4, 1986 Chuck was killed in a crash of a friend’s Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bomber while attempting to take off from Connecticut en route to Florida. Incompatible fuel was determined as the cause of the accident.
Born in 1930 Chuck Sewell attended the College of William and Mary, George Washington University, University of Maryland and New York Institute of Technology.
He spent twenty years in the United States Marine Corps first as a fighter pilot and then as a test pilot. Chuck flew 110 combat missions in Korea and was shot down once by enemy ground fire. He also spent four months with the First Marine Division as a forward air controller. After Korea he became an exchange pilot with No. 74 Squadron, Royal Air Force and spent two years as a Flight Commander.
Chuck’s love of flying went beyond high-performance military jets. He had more than 10,000 hours in over 140 types of aircraft. Flying vintage World War Two aircraft was a favorite of Chuck’s. However tragedy struck when on August 4, 1986 Chuck was killed in a crash of a friend’s Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bomber while attempting to take off from Connecticut en route to Florida. Incompatible fuel was determined as the cause of the accident.
I've had a couple of minor asymmetric wing sweeps. But they "locked out" long before the asymmetry became very much. No problem, but it caused a divert to the beach. (Yeah!!!! 
)
What I did have once – and something Grumman said could never happen – was full asymmetric flaps and slats on departure. I would have ejected, except we were suddenly inverted at a few hundred feet. Not a pretty story........:bigeyes_1 !!!!
)What I did have once – and something Grumman said could never happen – was full asymmetric flaps and slats on departure. I would have ejected, except we were suddenly inverted at a few hundred feet. Not a pretty story........:bigeyes_1 !!!!
There was a wing sweep caution, and a wing sweep warning light. The caution was caused by a failure of the auto wing sweep programing function. You could "never" move the wings forward of the mach commanded position as driven through wing sweep programer and the "spider detent" (You could do it manually if I remember correctly, by raising the wing sweep handle, disengaging the spider detent and moving the wings where you wanted). There was a mechanical stop to ensure you didn't drive the flaps into the side of the jet while trying to sweep the wings aft. There was asymetry protection, a couple of degrees of mismatch would freeze the wings where they were. I never heard of anyone having the dreaded "X" wing (saw just about everything else that could go wrong with the jet though), but watched one of our nuggets land on NTU 23L with 68 degree wings. Dumped gas, landed on first inch of runway within a couple of knots of tire speed (190) rolled, rolled, rolled and rolled some more, right into the long field gear 10000 feetish later still going pretty fast...
My experience:
It was a BLAST to fly when everything worked, 80% of the other flights it was just fun, 5% of time an outright nightmarish real life NATOPS check ride for your and your RIOs ass.
My experience:
It was a BLAST to fly when everything worked, 80% of the other flights it was just fun, 5% of time an outright nightmarish real life NATOPS check ride for your and your RIOs ass.
re:
"My experience:
It was a BLAST to fly when everything worked, 80% of the other flights it was just fun, 5% of time an outright nightmarish real life NATOPS check ride for your and your RIOs ass."
concur..the tomcat and the phantom ( well, f8's maybe) were machines for manly men....
.
harley davidsons, not appliance-like toyotas.
:icon_rast
also, what instructor RIO after landing, hasn't heard,
"sir, i can't deselect spoiler brakes."
(10 pts for the fix)
"My experience:
It was a BLAST to fly when everything worked, 80% of the other flights it was just fun, 5% of time an outright nightmarish real life NATOPS check ride for your and your RIOs ass."
concur..the tomcat and the phantom ( well, f8's maybe) were machines for manly men....
.
harley davidsons, not appliance-like toyotas.
:icon_rast
also, what instructor RIO after landing, hasn't heard,
"sir, i can't deselect spoiler brakes."
(10 pts for the fix)
Flaps are up prior to deselelecting Spoiler Brake switch. Drop flaps, drop spoilers, flaps up wings bomb, then to O/S.
Once a year a RAG student would go Baha trying to clear the runway with no brakes... no brakes with skid selected below 13?knots? I just never used the skid, didn't need it in the A-4, I never needed it on the Tomcat. One of the chicky astronauts (who got 3 tries at the boat mind you) nearly took one over the side for the same reason me thinks.
Once a year a RAG student would go Baha trying to clear the runway with no brakes... no brakes with skid selected below 13?knots? I just never used the skid, didn't need it in the A-4, I never needed it on the Tomcat. One of the chicky astronauts (who got 3 tries at the boat mind you) nearly took one over the side for the same reason me thinks.
okay vapes, you're good to go.
little known fact.. a ferry guy took off in oversweep from pax river around '81. after weight off wheels, the jet didn't understand. he forced it out of oversweep . he was gonna report it but was told by his ferry sqdn skipper to keep his mouth shut. ("didn't happen in my command.").
not sure what he was doing in oversweep in the first place.
from a pretty good source.
anybody remember vince lesh?
(he wasn't the pilot involved)
little known fact.. a ferry guy took off in oversweep from pax river around '81. after weight off wheels, the jet didn't understand. he forced it out of oversweep . he was gonna report it but was told by his ferry sqdn skipper to keep his mouth shut. ("didn't happen in my command.").
not sure what he was doing in oversweep in the first place.
from a pretty good source.
anybody remember vince lesh?
(he wasn't the pilot involved)