An Israeli F-15 landed without a wing (2020)

https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/1983-negev-mid-air-collision/

by ilamont • 4 years ago

120 52 4 years ago

rmason• 4 years ago

The 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

tomcam• 4 years ago

Everything 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• 4 years ago

They treated the plane like a rocket.

Maybe the F-15 can land vertically too.

stavros3• 4 years ago

Isn'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".

avereveard• 4 years ago

It does have >1 thrust to weight, but aereodinamic control surface aren't efficient enough to keep control at low speed

lloeki• 4 years ago

I had to reread the landing approach speed twice.

260 knots ~ 300 mph.

Thats 480 km/h.

Not a pilot, although I've flown propeller planes and landed a couple of times. I've driven cars just shy of 280 km/h (on a mostly clear autobahn). Those spec'ed 130 knots seem approachable (with training). But doing approach + touchdown at 480 km/h with controllable aircraft is already stretching my imagination, doing it while keeping attitude of an unbalanced brick under control is absolutely bonkers.

Maursault• 4 years ago

Everything about the incident is surreal.

I'm a little disappointed that we know hardly anything about this incident except the surreal parts. What specific events lead to the collision? What happened to the Skyhawk and its pilot?[1] Was there an investigation, and if so, what were its findings? I guess I've been spoiled by publicized NTSB investigations.

[1] The pilot of the Skyhawk was automatically ejected and his aircraft disintegrated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision

olliej• 4 years ago

What'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• 4 years ago

Lighter weight, almost flew itself!

irrational• 4 years ago

Without the wing and the fuel, it was probably like flying a blimp.

sccxy• 4 years ago

As you can see planes can fly with one wing.

Maybe we can cut down some costs and only use one wing in the future?

rawoke0836004• 4 years ago

MBA Grad :)

fm2606• 4 years ago

Planes are designed to fly with both wings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ULyt20bkY

voz_• 4 years ago

Some of the best pilots in the world. Pretty amazing stuff.

JohnJamesRambo• 4 years ago

An F-35 read this headline in the hangar and blew up.

hungryforcodes• 4 years ago

No news on what happened to the pilot in the A-4N...

imadethis• 4 years ago

According 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

popol12• 4 years ago

Neat, now they can sell cheaper single wing planes. Value for money !

JoeAltmaier• 4 years ago

Better title: Ziv Nedivi landed an F-15 without a wing

Plane didn't land itself.

MerelyMortal• 4 years ago

In 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.

amelius• 4 years ago

So the pilot seriously risked their life to save the government a few million $.

grumbel• 4 years ago

Due to the fuel leaking they couldn't see how much of the wing was missing, they only found out after landing the plane.

rawoke0836004• 4 years ago

Not every one is out to get you ! Namaste :p

_jack_cox• 4 years ago

Ejecting 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-ejec...). Ejection is the option of last resort; I'm guessing the pilot felt that he wasn't quite that desperate yet.

recuter• 4 years ago

Nope. Israel in the 80s was not a wealthy country and didn't have jets to spare. He guessed the correct motivation.

sabjut• 4 years ago

Operators 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.

rawoke0836004• 4 years ago

The 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 !

rawoke0836004• 4 years ago

Id 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• 4 years ago

How 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?

dogma11383• 4 years ago

Yes, 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.

jlkuester73• 4 years ago

I 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...

GekkePrutser2• 4 years ago

"Easily" by the way does not mean clip one in in 5 minutes :)

These things need like 15 hours of maintenance for every flight hour (and this is regular flying with no parts coming off)

I have no experience with military planes but I think in this case "easily" means more like "possible in a few months of work". I suppose when an airframe costs hundreds of millions it takes a lot to make it a write-off.

krisoft• 4 years ago

you can safely assume that it did not suffer fundamental structural damage

I don’t know where you are getting that they assumed anything. Most likely they carefully checked every part of the airplane.

intrasight• 4 years ago

When 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• 4 years ago

Will any of the flight simulation games allow you to try out this scenario?

dudeofawesome• 4 years ago

DCS allows for something similar. https://youtu.be/BV8kMeyFp7g

An Israeli F-15 landed without a wing (2020)

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