Fighter jet that SHOT ITSELF DOWN: The Grumman F-11 Tiger story

on september 21st 1956 test pilot thomas ottrich took off on the new supersonic fighter f11 tiger the aircraft was in the final stages of trials and the pilots tasked that day was to test the fighter's guns in the air the pilot made two short bursts from the aircraft 20 millimeter cannons but suddenly his windshield cracked the plane began to rattle and a few moments later the engine lost its thrust the pilot eventually had to make an emergency landing during which the fighter plane was severely damaged and caught fire the loss of aircraft during test flights though unpleasant is nevertheless a common occurrence but this particular case holds a very special place in history of aviation the post-incident investigation revealed that the fighter was shot down with its own bullet as ridiculous as it may sound the first cases of fighter planes that shot themselves down were very well known from pretty much the very early days of military aviation since the first fighter planes were propeller driven aircraft engineers had to either use a pusher configuration or place the machine gun up high on the wing to prevent the propeller from being hit by its own machine gun bullets one of the most important events in the history of military aviation was the appearance of the fokker iron decker in 1915. the iron decker was the first service fighter aircraft armed with a synchronized machine gun that allowed planes to fire through a spinning propeller without striking the blades which in turn made it much easier for the pilot to aim during the fight the iron decker fighter provided germany was such a powerful advantage in the air that this period of german total air superiority even received its own name the fokker scourge but despite all the advantages the gun synchronizer also had one significant drawback an improperly configured synchronizer or its technical malfunction led the pilots to literally shooting off their own plane propellers which at the best times and it was in emergency landing in one way or another this problem remained consistent throughout the whole period of using propeller driven fighters whether it was during world war 1 or world war ii but at least the shot of propeller blades had a clear and easy to understand explanation however in the case of oddrich it was a jet plane that had neither propeller nor synchronizer and the fact that his plane was hit by its own projectiles seemed to defy common sense and laws of physics but in fact it was the very loss of physics that were the cause of the incident to some extent the excuse was that the early 50s was a period when aviation was making its very first steps into the new yet poorly explored range of supersonic speeds but the lack of studies and knowledge didn't stop famous aircraft companies like north american or douglas from beginning to develop first fighters that would be able to break the sound barrier the grumman company that the previously mentioned f-11 tiger belonged to was no exception either founded in 1929 the grammar corporation has produced sport boats canoes fire trucks lunar modules vans for the us and canadian postal services and much more during its long history but the company has received its main recognition for its airplanes becoming one of the main aircraft suppliers for the us navy i'm a very lucky fella i've flown a lot of gum in airplanes the long list of grammar and aircraft includes the formidable looking world war ii torpedo bomber avenger and the grumman goose though not as formidable but best suited if you urgently need to save your daughter and annihilate a private army of a failed dictator every time but the jewel in the crown was grommet navy fighters sometimes referred to as grumman cats because of their names the wild cats which were among the first to confront the famous zeroes the hell cats which eventually knocked out the japanese from the sky as well as the tiger cats bearcats and all other cats but unlike most of the grumman cats who earned their place in the hall of fame thanks to air victories over their enemies one member of this valerie family actually became famous for shooting itself down of course when aircraft engineers started the development of the first grommet supersonic fighter none of them wanted or expected such fame for their plane in the early 50s despite being busy with a big contract for the mass production of f9f coopers for the us navy the grumman decided to design a new aircraft which was going to be based on the existing cougar but this time supersonic the draft project which was privately funded by grumman was completed in a relatively short time and steered the interest of the u.s navy being impressed with the new grommen's fighter's potential for supersonic performance the navy quickly ordered the construction of the first two prototypes of the plane although the project began as a profound modernization of the cougar little was left of the f9 in the end so the plane received its own designation f11 and the grumman's family name tiger the f11 was one of the first fighters to be designed by implementing the recently discovered area rule which significantly reduced the aircraft's drag at supersonic speeds it was this rule that the plane owed its worst wasted shape of the fuselage or flying coke bottle as it was sometimes called the new plane made its first flight on july 30 1954 and a little later after the prototype was equipped with engine afterburner the fighter broke the sound barrier tiger became the second u.s navy supersonic aircraft after the douglas f4d skyraid f11 flight tests continued until 1956 after which the aircraft was accepted on duty its military career was quite short and unremarkable though and it was the process of trials or rather one incident that happened to the tiger in 1956 that forever wrote this aircraft's name down in the history of military aviation on september 21 1956 the new supersonic f-11 fighter tail number 138620 took off from the groman air base near calverton new york the aircraft was piloted by thomas artridge a grumman test pilot on that day as a part of the aircraft's test program thomas had to conduct test firing of the aircraft's 20 millimeter cannons the task did not seem complex and nobody expected any serious difficulties since it was friday thomas and everyone else at the air base were already looking forward to the weekend after a long exhausting work week it was yet the second time ettridge had to fly the f-11 to test the guns that day interestingly as thomas later recalled while he was refueling and reloading the plane after the first flight they found small scratches on both sides of the plane's tail which they couldn't explain at the time they didn't think they were critical so artrage took off for the second firing test but small scratches proved to be very critical during the second flight thomas address following the flight plan entered the gunnery range over the atlantic ocean at an altitude of about six kilometers after which he put his plane into shallow dive and fired the first four second cannon burst then thomas pushed the throttle to after burner steeping his descent and after reaching supersonic speed fired the second burst but suddenly his windshield cracked thomas felt a thought on the aeroplane as if he had run into something and the engine immediately became rough tom throttled back right away to reduce the speed which helped to smooth the engine vibration the pilot called the airbase and reported that he had hit something in the air at that point he believed that he most likely had a bird strike in addition to the damage of the windshield glass ottrich also reported that he observed a gash in the right engine's intake lift and that the engine had lost about thirty percent of its power after assassin the situation thomas decided to return to base and tried to land the wounded plane attributes recalled later that the next 10 minutes of the flight were relatively uneventful but quite nerve-wracking for him since he still could not understand what caused the rough vibration of the engine anyways when the plane finally reached the coast the engine was still running well so thomas started the final approach with the landing gear and flaps down but as antarctic himself later recalled when the airfield was just about three kilometers away and a mere 300 meters higher the engine all of a sudden made a sound like a hoover vacuum cleaner picking up gravel from a rug and lost its thrust completely thomas had to make an emergency landing cutting through a clearing more than 100 meters long in the small forest just about half a mile from the end of the runway on impact with the ground and trees the fighter lost its right wing and stabilizer after which it caught on fire despite the broken back atric managed to get out of the plane and crawl away to safety as the residual cannon shells began to explode in the flames soon the pilot was picked up by a rescued helicopter and transferred to the hospital initially it was believed that the cause of the crash was a collision of the aircraft with birds but the results of the investigation had surprised everyone to put it mildly it turned out that artrich shot himself down with his own projectiles although the cause of the ef-11s crash was determined fairly quickly it was simply impossible to believe what had really happened the results of the investigation clearly indicated that the fighter had been hit by four 20 millimeter shells fired from its own cannons which seemed to make no sense at all but as it appeared the crash had a quite a simple explanation it is still worth saying however that even after establishing the cause of the incident the probability of what happened was simply staggering the thing is that the bullet being fired from a gun does not move along in a straight line when flying in the air the projectile is exposed to two main forces the force of gravity and the drag force the force of gravity makes the projectile go down while the drag force slows it down therefore the trajectory of the projectile is not a straight line but rather a line that is very close to parabola if thomas address after firing the first burst would have continued to fly at the same angle he would have simply flown over his projectiles but after firing the first burst outreach deepened the dive as well as increase the speed of his aircraft while the velocity of his bullets was conversely rapidly decreasing as a result since the fighter was moving at supersonic speed his shells caught up with him and their motion trajectory is crossed one of the projectiles damaged the bulletproof glass the second one hit the nose cone and the third one went directly into the engine duct damaging the first stage of the compressor and causing strong engine vibration meanwhile the force bullet at first hit the leading edge of the engine aeroduct and temporarily embedded itself but on the final approach when the pilot extended the flaps for landing the plane bubbled and that was enough to dislodge the bullet which then also went straight into the whirling engine rotor breaking the rotor blades and shutting the engine down completely it was this projectile that was then found in the engine during the investigation fortunately for ottrich since it was a test flight he was firing inert projectiles that day if you have the usual explosive projectiles loaded the plane most likely would have been destroyed in mid-air and the pilot's chances of survival would have been extremely small what was also interesting is that during the investigation the scratches on the tail of the plane were inspected microscopically and it was determined that they were from their rifling on the bullets themselves that means that on the first flight attribute was very close to shooting himself down but apparently his cannon burst went just above the cockpit of his plane that time thomas outreach was able to recover from his injuries and return to flynn 6 months later he had a long and successful career in the aerospace industry is still ahead of him as for the plane itself despite the loss of one of the prototypes the grommet managed to successfully use the crash of the f-11 that caught up with its shells in this way creating the image of the tiger as an incredibly fast fighter plane f11 was eventually accepted and purchased by the us navy but its military career was quite short and only 200 aircraft were built after only four years the plane was completely superseded by the more advanced f8 crusader for some time the tiger was used as a navy training plane and was also used by the famous u.s navy aerobatic team blue angels up until the late 60s when it was replaced by the f4 phantom in the history of military aviation the f-11 tiger was its short and mediocre korea would have most likely simply dissolved among many others unremarkable aircrafts which today are barely remembered but thanks to just one bizarre episode the tiger will now always hold a special place in aviation history the episode in which the tiger has bitten its own tale and that's the story if you like aviation and stories like this watch my video about the amazing story of douglas runway corrigan the only pilot to fly across the ocean by mere mistake that's all for now thanks for watching and see you in the next video goodbye

Channel: Paper Skies

Views: 187,168

Rating: 4.9222937 out of 5

Keywords: aviation, history, aviation history, paper skies, history of aviation, fighter jet, fighter jets, air force, funny aviation videos, us airforce

Id: mW8HfA6jO_w

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/jjdawgs84]

How embarrassing