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I think there may not have been a better airplane for landing on a carrier than a Bird Dog. Those things have amazing landing performance. With the tanks empty,

I think there may not have been a better airplane for landing on a carrier than a Bird Dog. Those things have amazing landing performance. With the tanks empty, it might not even have been overloaded. What I don't get is why they couldn't make radio contact. There are standard emergency frequencies (121.5, 243) that the pilot should have known about and the ship tried to contact them on.

aaron695 8y ago
Panic is one obvious answer. Which leads to lack of training. https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/with-every-splashdown-nasa-embraces-the-legacy-of-gus-grissom/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2016... Also why wasn't he made to ditch instead. I'd like to know if that was the right decision? Destroying $5 million helicopters in a war zone kills people and an amateur landing on a ship must be very risky for them and crew. [edit] A better example of long term panic is the "stuck accelerator" issue that in some cases lasted 20+ mins. People have claimed the brakes also failed, but when checked later there were no issues.
mannykannot 8y ago
A wild guess: given the airplane's role as a spotter, it only had radio for communicating with troops in the field, and that was on different bands?
- tokai 8y ago
  Or they threw the radio out to save weight.
  - cestith 8y ago
    Or, like the helicopters on deck in the story, any useful equipment that could quickly be stripped during retreat and evacuation was already gone.
  - baddox 8y ago
    That seems unlikely given that he knew his only chance was landing on a carrier or ditching close to a ship. Also, I don’t know if that airplane had an easily removable radios.
jack12 8y ago
[1] says there was no headset, though who knows where they're getting that information from. The photos in the article do kind of look like the pilot is bare-headed. 1: http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069507_evacuation-of-refugees_Americans-and-South-Vietnamese_USS-Midway_Cessna-aircraft http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069507_evacuation-of-...
- travisjungroth 8y ago
  That would totally make sense, thanks. I doubt they had speakers and hand-mics, although civilian Cessnas of the era sometimes did.
theoh 8y ago
There's also the class of extreme STOL aircraft that includes the Wilga (Polish) and Storch (German). They would be perfect for this, but obviously they weren't present in that situation.

aaron695 8y ago

Panic is one obvious answer. Which leads to lack of training. https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/with-every-splashdown-nasa-embraces-the-legacy-of-gus-grissom/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2016... Also why wasn't he made to ditch instead. I'd like to know if that was the right decision? Destroying $5 million helicopters in a war zone kills people and an amateur landing on a ship must be very risky for them and crew. [edit] A better example of long term panic is the "stuck accelerator" issue that in some cases lasted 20+ mins. People have claimed the brakes also failed, but when checked later there were no issues.

mannykannot 8y ago

A wild guess: given the airplane's role as a spotter, it only had radio for communicating with troops in the field, and that was on different bands?

tokai 8y ago
Or they threw the radio out to save weight.
- cestith 8y ago
  Or, like the helicopters on deck in the story, any useful equipment that could quickly be stripped during retreat and evacuation was already gone.
- baddox 8y ago
  That seems unlikely given that he knew his only chance was landing on a carrier or ditching close to a ship. Also, I don’t know if that airplane had an easily removable radios.

jack12 8y ago

[1] says there was no headset, though who knows where they're getting that information from. The photos in the article do kind of look like the pilot is bare-headed. 1: http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069507_evacuation-of-refugees_Americans-and-South-Vietnamese_USS-Midway_Cessna-aircraft http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069507_evacuation-of-...

travisjungroth 8y ago
That would totally make sense, thanks. I doubt they had speakers and hand-mics, although civilian Cessnas of the era sometimes did.

theoh 8y ago

There's also the class of extreme STOL aircraft that includes the Wilga (Polish) and Storch (German). They would be perfect for this, but obviously they weren't present in that situation.