A few years ago I was flying out of Nashville/BNA. I was told by the tower to position and hold and await fast movers. Two Tomcats taxied out and did a formation takeoff. I was watching and thinking back to my fast jet days when one of them rolled into a knife edge dive frome angels two or so. It dropped behind the tree line about two thousand feet past the far end numbers. Then a large fireball and lots of smoke. I was then ordered to another runway for my roll out. Never found out what happened to the crew. Anyone know??
BTW… I cut all the frame parts out and fitted them in the test jet. Looks to be perfect. Now I’m exporting a model out of Fusion 360 and into the AutoCad slicer. Exporting in PDF does not want to play with the GF. The cut came out around 60% true size? So I exported from Slicer in EPS format then sucked it into my Vector CAD App and exported in PDF. Worked perfectly. Will post pics and update in a day or so showing the fuselage placement.
It’s possible the guy had a heart attack and leaned on the stick, but I would guess engine and/or hydraulic failure. Without altitude in that angle, even if the crew had a chance to punch out…
jb… Yes, around twenty years or so mid nineties maybe. We rented a hanger at BNA to test our simulators. I used to rent the odd plane and go fly for an hours or so. It was one of those flights when the 14 crashed while I watched first hand. I was also interviewed by the FAA and a couple of other agencies. I did not know that they had died. Thanks for the research.
A quick update. In the pics you can see that I have finished the internal fuselage frame assembly and did a test assembly for fit. Worked great. I did cut these parts with old crappy 1/8" plywood so need to cut with the good stuff.
I also designed the exit thrust tube for one side. Nice thing about 3D design is when I get the one side perfect I use one command and mirror the tube over to the other side then cut. I then exported the 3D Fusion360 file into Autodesk Slicer.
In Slicer I gave it a thickness of 1/4" cardboard and Bam! the files are then saved off and then dragged into the GF UI for cutting. It took seven sheets to cut the test assembly for the thrust tube.
The flow is in the pics. From F360 in 3D to Slicer then to GF for cutting. Next time for the finished cardboard assembly. I will choose an alignment square rod other than 3/8" alignment tubes. Needs to be more ridged for handing.
Just looked at a couple of the articles describing the crash. Several things stand out! Quite possible that with a ‘quick climb’ entering weather --> the acceleration and G-force does very strange things to the inner ear and vertigo occurs rather insidiously … the ‘seat of the pants’ guidance that so many of are used to just doesn’t allow the proper response on the controls and I guess and out of control situation or unusual attitude situation would be very difficult to compensate for when exiting the clouds. Or, he just ham-fisted the aircraft at a high gross weight which would put the aircraft into an out of control situation as well.
We look at aircraft accidents and assess all factors … weather, aircraft systems failure, air traffic control, medical, and aircrew error. Quite clearly this one had AIRCREW ERROR written all over it. Very tragic that his backseater and 3 civilians on the ground had to loose their lives for his glory.
"Such detailed work! Man, you have some serious hours into your models. "
Thanks for that!
Yes, around three thousand hours per model. The hours are in making the museum quality plugs to be able to make the molds from. The A6 being complex took six weeks just to make the fuselage molds. Another three weeks for the wing molds. Then you have molds for canopies, weapons and bits and pieces for scale details.
To make the aircraft from the molds is around forty hours then another fifty hours or so for assembly. Then you paint and fit out the electronics etc which is another twenty hours or so.
Then go fly and hop you don’t crash until you get it setup good.
F14 Crash
Whenever We flew vertical at takeoff (very rare). I would generally look over my shoulder to get reference. In low ceilings it was all instruments. From now reading up on it, it may very well be a system failure due to aggressive flight conditions or low ceiling disorientation. Flying out of Nashville in the summer did not allow for good visibility due to high humidity conditions. Many times flying around 1000’ AGL and you could not see much ground detail it was that bad. Kind of like an early morning mist.
From my viewpoint on the runway at the time. It seemed that they climbed out reasonably steep but not that excessive for a fast jet. I just remember it rolling out then going to the ground. Again it was a long time ago and I’m probably wrong.
I have a flying event next week so I cobbled a quick instrument panel together and installed it in a EuroFighter. it took 1.5 hours from inserting the material to installing in the model.
Except for the background graphics it was all done on the GF.
