Real Top Guns F-111 Belly Landing

this is the country of the f-111 I'm sue the Navigator sits in the right hand side we can followed in the left and then we go fun the f-111 is a masterpiece of jet bomber design first flown in the 1960s still holds records for high-speed low-level bombing we're sweeping its wings back in flight f-111 its 3000 kilometres an hour it can carry 14 tons of bombs more than half its own weight to targets more than 2,000 kilometers away one board radar scans the terrain allowing high-speed attack from 50 metres above the ground beneath enemy radar f-111 can dump an ignite fuel with the afterburners a spectacular display in light up a city for many aircrew flying the f-111 is a career highlight but these extreme war machines can be fickle and sometimes things go wrong in the air March 2006 and f-111 loses a wheel on takeoff onboard a pilot Peter coma an air combat officer Luke Warner we double checked with air traffic they informed us unfortunately that was the entire wheel including the whole rim the brake mechanism everything and so left hand side all we had was a stub with no landing gear surviving this flight will need much more than good luck when the f-111 crew did preflight checks they had no idea they were about to confront a life-threatening emergency we started the jet up as Poonam checked in with the other members of formation and then proceeded to taxi out to prepare for takeoff we powered up full afterburner and rolled down the runway and got airborne all as per normal and then we get a very distinct call from air-traffic control our wheel has fallen off which was quite surreal in the circumstances it was actually very fortunate that people did see that will fall off if not we would have returned to the airfield and tried to land without any idea that we had no wheel on the left-hand side we've distributing the airbase f-111 pilots at squadron headquarters scrambled to devise a plan to save the crew and the aircraft we've set ourselves up in this area around here we've got 12 people directly working to help this crew get down our first job is to look at the flight manual figure out what it tells us to do with this particular emergency as we've gone through the flight manual is very quickly become evident that at no stage in the past has an f-111 had a main will detach itself from the airframe we're in no-man's land to make things worse the young pilot has landed in f-111 only a handful of times it does invoke some fear most definitely I think anybody in that position would have would have gone through the emotions that both Luke and Luke and myself did I don't gotta lie to you I was scared I was uh I was pretty nervous and I mean you think some pretty dark thoughts and you know you think oh god I wish I'd finally done that we'll amendment that I've meant to do a couple of years ago while we're doing this in the background we knew of the existence of a three-quarter inch pneumatic tape of a United States Air Force aircraft landing without its main wheels the guys over at Tech training flight burnt that onto a CD for us so we now had some pictures some idea of how to land an aeroplane at least without the main wheels ejecting from the plane is ruled out it's always the last resort the decision to go for a belly landing without wheels we then proceeded to have a couple of goes without buckled down such as low-flying right on top of the runway they're trying to get as low as we can to get a feel for it we needed to get down around the sort of 10 or 11 preferably maybe seven or six feet finally we decided that we were down to a position now where we needed have a go with a double count the f-111 has a retractable hook under its tail which grabs a brake line on the runway if a high speed take-off is aborted maybe the hook will slow down the incoming jet we didn't get loan up on that first one and set up again for another go we actually filled the cable dragging the dirt we could actually feel it make contact we'd skidded to a halt we knew we had to get away from the jet because obviously there's a risk of fire there's plenty of metal in contact with the runway we had about 3000 liters of fuel which is pretty explosive sitting on board in fact just sort of behind us here and some big fuel tank so we didn't want to be around with the potential of that catching on fire absolutely stoked and unwrapped to have pretty much walked away from the situation with not a scratch so yeah very very very happy the end of the day one of the most inexperienced f-111 pilots made a copybook ending of an abnormal situation that nobody had ever seen before that in itself is absolute proof that our training the people we've got in place are spot-on the peacetime emergency becomes one more team training drill for Australian f-111 crews it's

Channel: WalamusPrime

Views: 3,675,433

Rating: 4.782836 out of 5

Keywords: F111, F-111, text, belly, landing, emergency, plane, airplane, aeroplane, crash, RAAF, Australia, Amberley, QLD, real, TOP, GUN, guns, fighter, jet, air, force, accident

Id: KIyYK9oz9Go

Length: 7min 5sec (425 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 22 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/SlappyTits]

[VID] Relatively green Australian F111 crew lose a wheel on takeoff and have to figure out the best way to perform a belly landing, a maneuver never before recorded in that air-frame.

[u/irish56_ak]

I worked an F-111 in the US that was unable to get the nose wheel down. Ended up flairing the aircraft as much as possible, catching the cable and rolled almost to a complete (arrested) stop before the nose touched the runway. Fix the gear, paint the nose and marvel at the airmanship.

[u/APleasantLumberjack]

I was chatting to a civilian contractor at Amberly RAAF base shortly after this happened. He (or a friend of his, I can't remember) was actually in the control tower when the F111 took off. He was filling out some paperwork when suddenly someone yells 'What the hell is that?!' They all look out the window to see a lone wheel rocketing along the ground all by itself. Apparently the thing rolled and curved a decent way around the base before slamming into someone's car and leaving a hefty dent.

It's also possible he was full of crap and was just showing off to the idiot high school work experience kid, so take that with a grain of salt I suppose.

[u/thegalli]

'Straya

[u/Pool_Guy]

I'd like to know what kind of speeds they were dealing with? What is touchdown speed, full stall, etc. Also, I'm kind of surprised they didn't burn off or dump the fuel?

[u/rd_drgn67]

I love those planes! Grew up in New Mexico, one of our neighbors was an F-111 pilot at Cannon AFB. I don't remeber if it was for my birthday or some other special occassion, but when I was 5 or 6, he took me and let me play around in the simulator with him for about an hour. Added bonus, whenever they had to fly out to the east coast, on the way back the squadron would fill up the bombays with all sorts of fresh seafood to bring back for block parties.

[u/vARROWHEAD]

I picked up this book and forgot to put it back down.

[u/HerrGruyere]

It's nice to see Dr. Eggman has made it to a comfy position in the RAAF.

[u/Neoupa2002]

I don't know how much more textbook this gear up landing could be. Low speed and belly in plus the bonus arresting cable, what more can you ask for?.

I wonder if they foamed up the runway with the fire fighting foam would there be any difference, since the arresting cable negates the decreased friction of the foam on the ground.