I’m just glad nearly all my time riding around in Toms was in a GE powered model (and lots of other cool toys).
While a lot was done wrong, I won’t forget that she was a person who just wanted to fly. She lost her life, as have many men, by getting in over her head. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
If we kicked out every pilot who struggled at times in the F-14, there wouldn’t be many pilots. It’s rarely, if ever, black and white. For probably 8 years of my time in the jet, I flew with every guy who struggled at the boat, couldn’t tank, couldn’t dog fight, etc. it happens. It’s a training challenge.
Emergency procedures being ingrained was mentioned. It occurs to me I know the boldface (do it right now, no time to look up) procedures for compressor stall on the cat stroke, and for spin procedures as well today as I did over 20 years ago. Easier to recall than my own phone number! Flying in mostly GE powered jets, I only heard the compressor stall tone once (in a GE). My last active duty flight. Northern Gulf, loaded with bombs headed for Iraq. All kinds of tones and lights on the cat stroke, though it felt normal. After getting safely to altitude with mo more stall indications, we tried to replicate, or get it to stall. My stick boy tried hard to no avail. So we went to Iraq and dropped the bombs. My last trap. I still remember shutting down that last time on a carrier.
Last edited by prm; 05/25/21.
