kesegy 5 Posted June 14, 2008 (edited) ---> Fox News FALLON, Nev. — The U.S. Navy has confirmed one pilot was killed after two jets flying a training mission collided over northern Nevada's high desert. The jets collided shortly after noon on Friday about 50 miles east of the Fallon Naval Air Station. Two pilots safely ejected from an F-5 Tiger and were rescued. But base spokesman Colonel Jeffrey Wells confirmed Friday evening that the pilot of an F/A-18C Hornet was killed. The two other pilots are being treated for minor injuries at a hospital in Fallon. No names have been released. The cause of the crash was under investigation, he said. The pilots in the two-seater F-5 Tiger ejected and were picked up by a helicopter crew from the Fallon Naval Air Station. The helicopter arrived on the crash scene at 12:25 p.m. Edited June 14, 2008 by kesegy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyStrike 15 Posted June 14, 2008 (edited) ---> Fox News FALLON, Nev. — The U.S. Navy has confirmed one pilot was killed after two jets flying a training mission collided over northern Nevada's high desert. The jets collided shortly after noon on Friday about 50 miles east of the Fallon Naval Air Station. Two pilots safely ejected from an F-5 Tiger and were rescued. But base spokesman Colonel Jeffrey Wells confirmed Friday evening that the pilot of an F/A-18C Hornet was killed. The two other pilots are being treated for minor injuries at a hospital in Fallon. No names have been released. The cause of the crash was under investigation, he said. The pilots in the two-seater F-5 Tiger ejected and were picked up by a helicopter crew from the Fallon Naval Air Station. The helicopter arrived on the crash scene at 12:25 p.m. GOOD HEAVENS !!!!!!!!!!! IT's happening again..... what's gone wrong with the U.S. military??? Such disaster/mishaps shouldn't happen so frequently especially in the World's most advanced military power.... Edited June 14, 2008 by Tomcat_ace Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MAKO69 186 Posted June 14, 2008 (edited) War is hell, whether it be real or training. Train like you fight, fight like you train. WARNING: FIGHTER COMBAT IS INHERENTLY DANGEROUSE. Serious bodily harm, injury or death may occur when engaging in Air Combat Manuevers. There is nothing wrong with the military this stuff happens, I am sure as the day I was born and the day I leave this MUD BALL it will happen again. Thoughts and prayers for the service personnel and families involved. Edited June 14, 2008 by MAKO69 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Dave 2,322 Posted June 14, 2008 GOOD HEAVENS !!!!!!!!!!! IT's happening again..... what's gone wrong with the U.S. military??? Such disaster/mishaps shouldn't happen so frequently especially in the World's most advanced military power.... Welcome to one of the most hazardous professions on the planet. It happens. Nothing is wrong with the US Military. This kind of stuff happens. It sucks that it happens. But train like you fight, fight like you train. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MAKO69 186 Posted June 15, 2008 (edited) Would like to hear from more vets about this, Dave and I put our 2 cents in. Edited June 15, 2008 by MAKO69 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Jug 99 Posted June 15, 2008 GOOD HEAVENS !!!!!!!!!!! IT's happening again..... what's gone wrong with the U.S. military??? Such disaster/mishaps shouldn't happen so frequently especially in the World's most advanced military power.... Fast movers in close proximity is very dangerous work. These guys are pros and it still happens. However, this is how you prep for the fight before you get in one for real. Lack of preparation is what happened in the early days over Vietnam and the reason we have Top Gun and Red Flag. My thoughts and prayers are with the family of the Hornet driver. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Florian 394 Posted June 15, 2008 GOOD HEAVENS !!!!!!!!!!! IT's happening again..... what's gone wrong with the U.S. military??? Such disaster/mishaps shouldn't happen so frequently especially in the World's most advanced military power.... Might be true, that it happens more often in US military, than in other nations armed forces. But when you compare the amount of flight hours, it´s at a very low level i believe. In fact, you´ll have way more accidents in less trained air forces, with older equipment, then in most modern ones. When you have 5000 flights a month and 2 accidents, it´s safer then the air force with only five flights a month and "only" one crash. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Typhoid 231 Posted June 16, 2008 Would like to hear from more vets about this, Dave and I put our 2 cents in. absolutely concur. Its a tough business to be in and I lost a number of friends and shipmates in peacetime ops. DACT is a fast moving experience flying in close quarters in opposite directions. Losses are very, very sad, and we always work hard to prevent them. But accidents do happen with a split second miscalculation being all that separates a routine training hop from disaster. the more you bleed in peacetime, the less you bleed in wartime. In wartime, its generally been our opponents who have bled the most. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted June 16, 2008 I don't know, we've had some allies and countrymen's hearts bleed pretty profusely... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Typhoid 231 Posted June 16, 2008 I don't know, we've had some allies and countrymen's hearts bleed pretty profusely... I was including allies in the mix, and it is all relative. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted June 16, 2008 It truly is all relative. An example is this: Laughlin AFB in Texas is one of the USAFs basic Pilot Training bases of the 4 that we have. There are so many traffic movements (defined as takeoffs and landings) that we usually EXCEED the busiest airports in the world. That's for ONE base for ONE branch of the military service...for BASIC pilot training. Multiply that by the number of bases, by the number of programs (transition, weapon system checkout and operations) and you start to truly get an idea how much we fly. With those kinds of rates...statistics simply start catching up. As I was telling someone else on another message board who made the very foolish statement that safety should always be first: Oh, I fly in an aircraft who's MINIMUM TOUCHDOWN speed is 140 knots. And I have to teach guys to land from the back seat in it...including no-flap landings. At some point, I even stop coaching just to make sure the guy can a)land and b)teach a new guy to land. In this same aircraft, I teach guys to do barrel rolls at 300-400 knots...while in the 'slot' position in 2 ship. And fly 3 foot wingtip spacing...while in a 4 ship...in 60-90 degrees of bank. In this same aircraft, I teach guys how to fly instrument approaches with 1 mile vis, 200 feet, hand flown...at least at 160 knots on final...solo. In another aircraft I've flown, I've flown at 200 feet, 540 knots, in an aircraft weighing 300,000 pounds...at night, in the weather, surrounded by 3000+ foot peaks. What part of any of that sounds safe to you? Do you think ANY amount of money thrown at it will ever make it safe? We try like hell to manage risk... but sometimes, it's not your day. It's sad when it happens...I've buried more friends than I care to think about. But we try to learn lessons from it and go from there. FastCargo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Typhoid 231 Posted June 16, 2008 [quote name='FastCargo' date='Jun 16 2008, 03:36 PM' post='167794' We try like hell to manage risk... but sometimes, it's not your day. It's sad when it happens...I've buried more friends than I care to think about. But we try to learn lessons from it and go from there. FastCargo amen.. I've stood on the flight deck for memorial services all too often. In Naval Aviation we dont' always even get the remains back. In every case of the 10 friends and shipmates that I stood in memorials, we were unable to recover them. and still, we all go back out. -------------------------------- are you at Laughlin? my prospective son-in-law is in UPT at Vance. Just wondering if you might be flying with him one of these days. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted June 16, 2008 No...spent 6 years of my life at Laughlin, currently at Randolph. If he ends up being a T-38 FAIP, I'll probably see him there. FastCargo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
charlielima 328 Posted June 17, 2008 (edited) It's not just the fast movers. 3 years after I turned in my zoom bag for a "Safer" job I saw 2 Apaches fly into each other. All 4 walked away embarressed as any flight type can get. I was highly relieved but I was only an afternoon worth of paperwork away from getting back into a crewcut and the helo until I saw that. Chose to stay on the end of a chainsaw. Driving thru Fallon Nv last friday gave me a bad funk. Every yard with kids and a women in it I saw, I wondered If this was the family that was going to have the major life change and move back home to virginia. Ironicly, the missing pilot was flying out of Oceana. I like what you said Typhoid. I'm going to take that home to my current group. Ya'll in this group still aviating, good luck. I hope the holes in the swiss cheese model never point towards you. I mean it. :ph34r: CL Edited June 17, 2008 by charlielima Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyStrike 15 Posted June 18, 2008 My apologies in case i've offended anyone by my last post ; i fully understand the risks involved in jet combat, but the point i was trying to make was this: We all agree that homeland defence/security is one of any nation's top prioriteies, governments ought to realise that a lot of good people put their lives on the line for this cause and must ensure that they've got the best equipment, tactics, & safety measures for all military personnel to train for war & as well as fight a war, efficiently & SAFELY RETURN HOME to continue to efficiently defend the nation... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+drdoyo 2 Posted June 18, 2008 (edited) No offense FC and Typhoid, but I'd like to remind everyone else it's not just the military where things can get deep in a heartbeat. I've lost a friend just after we got our liscences. It was a case where they were at the changeover point of two control zones in fadeing light. Neither controler informed their aircraft of the other aircraft. Witnesses on the ground told the FAA my friend saw the other aircraft....too late to avoid him. No one knows if the 2 men in the other aircraft saw my friend's. 5 people died including my friend's wife, and his daughter from his previous marriage. I fly EMB-120s in a high traffic area (SE Florida) and you never know what you'll be dealing with on the way to work. Bad things can happen quickly when you mix VFR traffic with IFR departures and arrivals from 5 closely spaced airports (including Miami Intl). Thank GOD for TCAS!! Though it's not 100%, you most of the time have an idea of where to look, and at the very least when to avoid even if you don't see the other aircraft.....that opposite direction cessna that you are closing with at a combined speed of 350 knots. I've seen many cases where ATC warned us, but we never saw them, or we saw them but ATC never had them on radar, or we saw them close aboard just before we passed as ATC was calling them out to us for the first time. I've had cases where (just last week at 18,000 ft [29.92]) ATC said 11 o'clock 1000 ft above you opposite direction. He turned out to be 1230 and 200 ft above us passing our right side. I saw him (Convair580 or 640) a mile and a half out as I got the feeling that something wasn't right and started looking on my side of the center brace. We looked at each other and said at the same time "his altimeters weren't set at 29.92 because that wasn't 19,000 feet!" That was easily a 400-500 knot closure, we were doing 320 across the ground and he passed us 1/4 mile off the right. Edited June 18, 2008 by drdoyo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted June 18, 2008 Drdoyo, Hey man, I fly in that same business too ya know...I certainly understand the risks involved there. Tomcat_ace, the message all of us are trying to get across is that aviation itself is inherently risky. You can be totally on your A game, have all the money, time, equipment needed...and still not come home that day. FastCargo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PaperArtillery 0 Posted June 18, 2008 (edited) My thoughts are with the pilot and family. It takes a great deal of courage, respect, and pride to be in the cockpit, and I'm sure every airman understands loss like this. - Komarov Edited June 18, 2008 by SovietCommissar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MKopack 0 Posted June 18, 2008 We train faster and harder than just about anyone out there, and while it is, of course, tragic when losses such as this occur, it happens. Military aviation is a very dangerous buisness, and anyone involved in tactical aviation has lost friends in incidents like this. Some people say that we train like we fight, but I don't believe that it is true, we train to make the fight look easy. It is our tactical air force's goal to dominate any encounter. I am not interested in a fair fight. Any less than that and we will take losses, and I want every one of those guys and girls in those birds coming home. Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MAKO69 186 Posted June 18, 2008 (edited) When I was in we trained like we fight I dont know bout you. Comments welcome by vets We train faster and harder than just about anyone out there, and while it is, of course, tragic when losses such as this occur, it happens. Military aviation is a very dangerous buisness, and anyone involved in tactical aviation has lost friends in incidents like this. Some people say that we train like we fight, but I don't believe that it is true, we train to make the fight look easy. It is our tactical air force's goal to dominate any encounter. I am not interested in a fair fight. Any less than that and we will take losses, and I want every one of those guys and girls in those birds coming home. Mike Edited June 18, 2008 by MAKO69 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Dave 2,322 Posted June 18, 2008 We train faster and harder than just about anyone out there, and while it is, of course, tragic when losses such as this occur, it happens. Military aviation is a very dangerous buisness, and anyone involved in tactical aviation has lost friends in incidents like this. Some people say that we train like we fight, but I don't believe that it is true, we train to make the fight look easy. It is our tactical air force's goal to dominate any encounter. I am not interested in a fair fight. Any less than that and we will take losses, and I want every one of those guys and girls in those birds coming home. Mike I have to disagree with you Mike because we always trained liked we fought. And our training was never easy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PaperArtillery 0 Posted June 18, 2008 I think you guys misinterpreted Mike, I think he's saying just that you train hard to make the fight look easy... When spectators watch, for example, any aerobatics done in such jets (the Thunderbirds, the Blue Angels, the Russian Knights or the Ukrainian Falcons, to name a few) there are people who don't quite understand how much effort goes into the maneuvers, just because the pilots are so proficient - it looks simple, and it looks effortless. If you put one of those spectators in the cockpit, and show them what it's really like, they'd understand. You train hard so that "hard" becomes "just a day's work". That's all that training really is. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted June 18, 2008 I think you guys are misunderstanding what Mike is saying. What he's saying is that we try to make the training more difficult than the actual conflict would be. In other worlds either hobble ourselves (not using all the modes available in the F-15s radar for instance) or make the OPFOR more difficult and smarter than they would be in reality. FastCargo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Dave 2,322 Posted June 18, 2008 Ah I'm trackin now. Yes he is quite correct then. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
