F-14 down in Iraq?

[conjur]

On CNN's home page is this:

? U.S. F-14 reported down in Iraq late Tuesday

 

[rbV5]

Pilots were rescued.

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: rbV5
Pilots were rescued.

Yep, heard it on da radio

Bet the rescue included the destruction of the jet too

 

[Alistar7]

Originally posted by: dahunan

Originally posted by: rbV5
Pilots were rescued.

Yep, heard it on da radio

Bet the rescue included the destruction of the jet too

Why bother? Nobody there can fly it or fix it, besides, they won't be in power for much longer anyway...

 

[erikiksaz]

Good thing they're safe. But is there any news on how it went down?

 

[Tates]

The jet lost an engine while attempting a mid air re-fueling. Pilots ejected to safety.

 

[mastertech01]

Originally posted by: Tates
The jet lost an engine while attempting a mid air re-fueling. Pilots ejected to safety.

I guess they were driving with the low fuel light on tooooooo long.. :Q

Glad to see they are in safe hands.

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: dahunan

Originally posted by: rbV5
Pilots were rescued.

Yep, heard it on da radio

Bet the rescue included the destruction of the jet too

It is SOP to destroy any hardware that is abandoned in the field. While the jet may not be usable, components in the jet could be removed and studied/used against us. Radar? Communications?

Ryan

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: Alistar7

Originally posted by: dahunan

Originally posted by: rbV5
Pilots were rescued.

Yep, heard it on da radio

Bet the rescue included the destruction of the jet too

Why bother? Nobody there can fly it or fix it, besides, they won't be in power for much longer anyway...

The Russians would be interested in whats in that bird. That is why the U.S. blew up that Apache that was captured. Its true they would have a hard time getting it out of the country given the position they are in, but you cannot be too careful.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Tates
The jet lost an engine while attempting a mid air re-fueling. Pilots ejected to safety.

Why would the jet crash because it lost one engine? As with most Navy aircraft, the F-14 has 2 engines to ensure that the plane can get home if it loses one.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: rudder


The Russians would be interested in whats in that bird. That is why the U.S. blew up that Apache that was captured. Its true they would have a hard time getting it out of the country given the position they are in, but you cannot be too careful.

The Russians surely already have F-14's. We gave Iran F-14's before the Islamic revolution, and then they became our enemy. So they were left with a fleet of F-14's to maintain and they were cut off from getting any spare parts. Soon their fleet was no longer in flyable condition. It would be a pretty good guess that they sold some to the Soviet Union since Iran couldn't do anything else with them.

Most nations are able to acquire their competitor's military equipment. The USA has Mig-29's and the latest Russian hardware that they use to study so they can develop weapons to defeat these systems.

 

[Tom]

The F-14s we use these days are a lot different than the F-14s Iran has, I bet.

 

[Corn]

Why would the jet crash because it lost one engine? As with most Navy aircraft, the F-14 has 2 engines to ensure that the plane can get home if it loses one.

The obvious reason is that with only 1 engine in operation the aircraft would not be able to refuel safely. Not enough fuel probably to make it "home" anyway and nowhere suitable to land before it ran dry.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Corn

Why would the jet crash because it lost one engine? As with most Navy aircraft, the F-14 has 2 engines to ensure that the plane can get home if it loses one.

The obvious reason is that with only 1 engine in operation the aircraft would not be able to refuel safely. Not enough fuel probably to make it "home" anyway and nowhere suitable to land before it ran dry.

Why would it not be able to refuel with one engine? And how is that obvious?

I'd imagine that it's a lot safer to refuel on one engine that it would be to not refuel at all...

 

[SocrPlyr]

The Russians surely already have F-14's. We gave Iran F-14's before the Islamic revolution, and then they became our enemy.

I am sure whatever was given to Iran did not include the avionics that our aircraft had at the time. And of course our avionics have significantly improved over the years.
Many countries around the world have F-15s, our air superiority fighter, however in all likelyhood we would win battles with ours because we have different avionics.

Why would it not be able to refuel with one engine? And how is that obvious?
I'd imagine that it's a lot safer to refuel on one engine that it would be to not refuel at all...

An aircraft designed to fly with two engines is much less stable when flying with only one. They were designed to fly with two so flying with one would probably not be the easiest thing in the world. The reason that most Navy planes have two engines is so that they have more thrust to get off the extremely short runway (they need this even with the catapult). Another thing to note about the F-14 is that it is a very big and heavy plane. When you refuel you have to slow down significantly. getting back up to speed may not be possible with only one engine. also with only one engine the plane is less balanced and therefore harder to fly.
In the end it comes down to one simple thing. It was designed for flight with two working engines. If the designers didn't think it needed them they would not have put them in. In other words they are not there for redundancy.

Josh

 

[Sxotty]

From what I understand the main point is you have to go really slow, in doing so stabilty becomes a problem and midair refueling would become impossible. That would definitely suck though because ejecting hurts people often anyway.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: SocrPlyr
The reason that most Navy planes have two engines is so that they have more thrust to get off the extremely short runway (they need this even with the catapult). Another thing to note about the F-14 is that it is a very big and heavy plane. When you refuel you have to slow down significantly. getting back up to speed may not be possible with only one engine. also with only one engine the plane is less balanced and therefore harder to fly. In the end it comes down to one simple thing. It was designed for flight with two working engines. If the designers didn't think it needed them they would not have put them in. In other words they are not there for redundancy.

Josh

This is simply not true. Naval aviation helicopters and jets do in fact have two engines for redundancy. That is the primary reason that there are two engines. Aircraft like F-16's fly just fine with one engine, but Naval requirements call for two engines. The F-14 surely has more than enough thrust to accelerate and climb on one engine. Not as good as with two engines, but it will still have a better thrust to weight ratio than a cargo plane or airliner. Both of those fly just fine with their low thrust to weight ratio.

When the Navy wanted to use Huey Cobra gunships (which had one engine), they redesigned them to have 2 engines for redundancy and called it the Sea Cobra. It is common Navy policy to have two engines on their equipment for safety reasons. Instead of going with one big engine they go with two smaller engines. It's safer that way in the event that one fails.

It is a well known fact that the Navy prefers two engines for redundancy reasons.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: SocrPlyr

The Russians surely already have F-14's. We gave Iran F-14's before the Islamic revolution, and then they became our enemy.

I am sure whatever was given to Iran did not include the avionics that our aircraft had at the time. And of course our avionics have significantly improved over the years.
Many countries around the world have F-15s, our air superiority fighter, however in all likelyhood we would win battles with ours because we have different avionics.

Why would it not be able to refuel with one engine? And how is that obvious?
I'd imagine that it's a lot safer to refuel on one engine that it would be to not refuel at all...

An aircraft designed to fly with two engines is much less stable when flying with only one. They were designed to fly with two so flying with one would probably not be the easiest thing in the world. The reason that most Navy planes have two engines is so that they have more thrust to get off the extremely short runway (they need this even with the catapult). Another thing to note about the F-14 is that it is a very big and heavy plane. When you refuel you have to slow down significantly. getting back up to speed may not be possible with only one engine. also with only one engine the plane is less balanced and therefore harder to fly.
In the end it comes down to one simple thing. It was designed for flight with two working engines. If the designers didn't think it needed them they would not have put them in. In other words they are not there for redundancy.

Josh

Flying with 1 engine is not too much of a problem. Just disregard everything you saw in Top Gun. particualrywith the engine configuration of the f-14. The centerline of thrust is so close to the middle of the fuselage that in the event of an engine failure, other than less power for manuevering it would not affect the flight characteristcs to a point where the plane could not refuel. The two engines are there for redundancy.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: rudder
Flying with 1 engine is not too much of a problem. Just disregard everything you saw in Top Gun. particualrywith the engine configuration of the f-14. The centerline of thrust is so close to the middle of the fuselage that in the event of an engine failure, other than less power for manuevering it would not affect the flight characteristcs to a point where the plane could not refuel. The two engines are there for redundancy.

Yes, I've always heard the same thing. I'm frequently watch the Discovery Wings channel and on their shows they profile various military aircraft. They always mention that the Navy wants 2 engines on their aircraft for safety reasons.

Besides, jets have a much, much higher power to weight ratios than helicopters do, and even two engine helicopters are able to fly on one engine. It's part of the design. The Apache last week lost an engine to an RPG and returned back to base on its remaining engine.

 

[Marshallj]

By the way, I've heard plenty of times it being mentioned that aircraft refuel on one engine.

Just doing a quick search reveals a hit. This story is primarily about a couple, but in it they do mention what happens frequently, which is refueling when one of your engines is out:

Linky

It's not an uncommon thing to do, in fact it may be part of the procedure when you're attempting to land with a damaged plane. I know that for carrier landings, if an aircraft is low on fuel and wants to land, they often do a refeuling near the carrier before attempting to land since it often requires more than one try to grab the hook.


***EDIT***

I just read up more info on this incident, and it looks like what we're talking about may be a moot point anyway.

We have been talking about the ability to refuel with a damaged engine, but the report says that the engine was damaged WHILE refueling. Apparently some kind of mechanical failure happened during refueling and the engine went out. I wonder if the F-14 collided with the refueling boom and sucked a piece of it into its engine?

 

[kef7]

Sort of off topic, but I was watching a special on NOVA recently about the competition between Boeing and Lockheed over the Joint Strike Fighter. If I recall correctly the JSF will only have one engine, even for the Navy model.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: kef7
Sort of off topic, but I was watching a special on NOVA recently about the competition between Boeing and Lockheed over the Joint Strike Fighter. If I recall correctly the JSF will only have one engine, even for the Navy model.

Yeah, that's correct.

They had to satisfy the needs of all the military branches. They wanted it to be low cost and use as many common parts as possible to minimize costs for spares. I remember hearing people complaining about it saying that it's trying to be a jack of all trades and that will make it a master of none and stuff like that.

By the way, they went with the Lockheed design. There are vids of it on their website.

 

[Trezza]

It depends on how the one engine was damaged. if it just broke they could have risked it but if it was on fire i wouldn't take my chances. That could be very bad if the mid air refueling leaked.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Trezza
It depends on how the one engine was damaged. if it just broke they could have risked it but if it was on fire i wouldn't take my chances. That could be very bad if the mid air refueling leaked.

Well it was bad enough that they had to eject, so something was seriously wrong there. I want to know how it broke in the first place. It sounds like it broke while the jet was trying to refuel.