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An Israeli F-15 landed without a wing (2020)
- amelius 4y agoSo the pilot seriously risked their life to save the government a few million $.
- grumbel 4y agoDue to the fuel leaking they couldn't see how much of the wing was missing, they only found out after landing the plane.
- rawoke083600 4y agoNot every one is out to get you ! Namaste :p
- _jack_cox 4y agoEjecting is very risky for the pilot. Many pilots are seriously injured in the process (1 in 3 chance of spinal injury https://www.smh.com.au/education/how-dangerous-is-it-to-eject-from-a-fighter-jet-20120730-239mp.html https://www.smh.com.au/education/how-dangerous-is-it-to-ejec...). Ejection is the option of last resort; I'm guessing the pilot felt that he wasn't quite that desperate yet.
- recuter 4y agoNope. Israel in the 80s was not a wealthy country and didn't have jets to spare. He guessed the correct motivation.
- sabjut 4y agoOperators of vehicles like boats or airplanes are much more likely to try and save the vehicle with all means necessary. This is probably due to a number of reasons but there is a somewhat increased attachment. Car people love their cars yes, but boat people and pilots treat their vehicle like a child. No idea why.
- rmason 4y agoThe pilot and crew were ordered to eject. Instead he tells his commander he thinks he can land the plane. He then gave the crew the option to eject but they elected to stay with him. But he made this decision without really knowing the extent of the damage until he landed. He said upon seeing the damage that maybe we should have ejected! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khkghaz5RqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khkghaz5RqA
- tomcam 4y agoEverything about the incident is surreal. Neither student nor instructor could tell the wing was missing until they landed because a fuel leak obscured their view. The instructor told the student, who outranked him, to eject. The student refused. They had to fly almost twice as fast as usual to remain stable when landing. The plane manufacturer didn’t believe the incident until in-flight photos were produced. And the plane was so sturdy they just stuck another wing on it and put it back in service. Update: /u/rmason did a better summary while I was writing mine but I refuse to delete due to sunk cost fallacy—thumb pain incurred while typing
- alexvoda 4y agoThey treated the plane like a rocket. Maybe the F-15 can land vertically too.
- stavros 4y agoIsn't that what these planes basically are? They aren't very aerodynamic so they can maneuver quickly, so they need tons of thrust to stay aloft. I heard one described as "a brick with a jet engine strapped to it".
- _0ffh 4y agoI think in the RC flying community there's a saying like "Anything can fly, with enough thrust". Safely landing, otoh, now that's a feat!
- stavros 4y agoRockets are a testament to the truth of that :P
- jlkuester7 4y agoApparently no one told that to Elon.... It may have been German mad-scientists who pioneered sending rockets to space, but I think you actually have to be more crazy to think you can bring them back down again and land them in one piece! (Not that it has stopped Musk from doing just that...)
- olliej 4y agoWhat's so hard about this? It's sounds like they only had half as much plane to land, so it was probably even easier than usual. Onwards to management! :D
- aksss 4y agoLighter weight, almost flew itself!
- irrational 4y agoWithout the wing and the fuel, it was probably like flying a blimp.
- sccxy 4y agoAs you can see planes can fly with one wing. Maybe we can cut down some costs and only use one wing in the future?
- rawoke083600 4y agoMBA Grad :)
- fm2606 4y agoPlanes are designed to fly with both wings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ULyt20bkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ULyt20bkY
- voz_ 4y agoSome of the best pilots in the world. Pretty amazing stuff.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoAn F-35 read this headline in the hangar and blew up.
- hungryforcodes 4y agoNo news on what happened to the pilot in the A-4N...
- imadethis 4y agoAccording to the wiki page [0], the plane was destroyed but the pilot ejected and survived. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision
- popol12 4y agoNeat, now they can sell cheaper single wing planes. Value for money !
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoBetter title: Ziv Nedivi landed an F-15 without a wing Plane didn't land itself.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MerelyMortal 4y agoIn English, the title is perfectly fine. It just says the plane landed, not how it was landed. The title is correct, and while the pilot does deserve recognition for the impressive feat, the article is primarily about the plane, not the pilot, so changing the focus of the title from the plane to the pilot is not appropriate in this instance. The subtitle is terrible though: it mentions "he" (the pilot), but doesn't say who "he" is. So for the subtitle to make sense, the pilot's name should be in the title. Perhaps it was originally written with the pilot's name, but was changed by an editor for the reason listed above.
- rawoke083600 4y agoThe F15 is in the most optimized solution in tradeoffs in fighter jets. If you take into account the time to market, cost of development, fighting record it's the the unicorn-sweetspot :) a Very under rated(I couldn't bring myself to say under the radar, Im not that type of person) plane !
- rawoke083600 4y agoId put that front and center on the brochure ! Pic of.plane landing with one wing ! Sure its not the norm ! But dammit which other fighter jet has an event like this :)
- lkrubner 4y agoHow in the world is this possible: "In a testament to just how incredibly tough these aircraft really are, the damaged F-15 was transported to a maintenance facility in Tel Nof, where it was given a new wing and returned to service." Am I reading this correctly? Events were something like: So you rip a wing off a plane in a mid-air collision but you can safely assume that it did not suffer fundamental structural damage, so you can just stick a wing back on it and it is good to go?
- baybal2 4y ago
- dogma1138 4y agoYes, aircraft are designed to be transportable and repairable so the wings and other control surfaces are easily removable. The wings on an F-16 for example are secured by two bolts all you need is to disconnect the avionics remove the bolts and the wing comes off. You can replace a wing on an F-16 within under half an hour without skipping any steps it is like changing tires on a car.
- jlkuester7 4y agoI hope that the techs give an extra tug on the wrench "just to be sure" when they are tightening those two bolts back on like I do when putting the lug nuts back on my car wheel...
- js2 4y agoThey are undoubtedly using a torque wrench, and so should you. Opinions differ one whether to use anti-seize compound: https://www.rtsauto.com/should-you-put-anti-seize-on-your-lug-nuts-or-wheel-bolts/ https://www.rtsauto.com/should-you-put-anti-seize-on-your-lu...
- dogma1138 4y agoThey have a hydraulic jig that does everything the bolts need to be torqued to 600 foot-pounds you aren’t getting that done with hand tools.
- intrasight 4y agoWhen I was a senior at CMU in '88, a group of us went on a plant trip to the McDonnell Douglas factory in St. Louis where they built the F-15. I've previously posted on HN about how cool are plant trips and that engineers should take every advantage. Well, this factory visit was as cool as they get. Some highlights that I remember that related to the article about the Israeli incident. 1. This plane was machined out of blocks of titanium. 80% of the material is machined away. I asked the guide if it's collected and reused. He said "no". Their optimization for performance didn't really have to consider cost. 2. Seeing the "testing" was a mind-blow that I can still see in my mind 35 years later. They had an aircraft in a test harness and grabbed the tips of both wings in massive hydraulic presses, and bent that wing up and down by a couple meters. My brain was like “that’s impossible – they should snap off”. 3. “Avoid FOD” signs everywhere - "Foreign Object Damage". I learned many new acronyms that day.
- kqr2 4y agoWill any of the flight simulation games allow you to try out this scenario?
- dudeofawesome 4y agoDCS allows for something similar. https://youtu.be/BV8kMeyFp7g https://youtu.be/BV8kMeyFp7g