Navy Pilots Lose Wings Permenently For Low Flying

[Broomstick]

$5 million is less than a quarter of the cost of that hardware, and there are MANY pilots who are equally qualified to fill those seats. Cheaper to train a replacement that will obey the rules than to replace crashed hardware and pay a widow's pension for a few decades.

[Simon_Jester]

What are the long-term costs of keeping the pilots around, though?

For example, if it costs $2.5 million to replace a pilot who has just shown that there's a 10% chance he'll wreck a $50 million aircraft during his career, I come out ahead. Likewise if there's a 1% chance that, deployed to a combat zone, this pilot will cause a friendly fire incident that costs us $400 million worth of PR damage and/or casualties.

The cost of replacing a pilot cannot be viewed in isolation, because cowboy pilots can cause accidents.

EDIT: Sorry, Broomstick. Didn't see your post. As is obvious, I'm basically saying the same thing.

[Vympel]

Remember that hot-dog B-52 pilot who got himself and his entire crew killed because he thought he could throw the BUFF around like it was a fighter? And he was permitted to persist in this attitude for a long time because of the USAF culture?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairc ... B-52_crash

The accident investigation concluded that the chain of events leading to the crash was primarily attributable to Holland's personality and behavior, USAF leaders' reactions (or lack thereof) to it, and the sequence of events during the mishap flight of the aircraft. Today, the crash is used in military and civilian aviation environments as a case study in teaching crew resource management. Also, the crash is often used by the US armed forces during aviation safety training as an example of the importance of compliance with safety regulations and correcting the behavior of anyone who violates safety procedures.

Frankly, this sort of harsh punishment is an excellent deterrent to anyone fostering these sorts of attitudes in the service - read the whole thing, its amazing the kind of shit the USAF higher-ups let this unhinged irresponsible loon get away with.

[eion]

The fact that the training of a fighter pilot takes years and $2.6 million USD, Mike, should be a factor--yahoos and fools they certainly are, but to the point where it is worth spending $5.2 million to replace them? I have no sympathy for the pilots themselves in this particular instance but as a practical matter it seems a deeply questionable thing as to if what they actually did--and the risk of their doing again--warranted the US government depriving itself of more than five million dollars.

And how much would it have cost if something did go wrong?

Let's assume both planes crash into some obstacle, both pilots die, both planes are destroyed, 100 people die, and there is 15 million dollars’ worth of damage. That'll be about $150 million dollars the government has just deprived itself of.

$2,600,000 each to train new pilots
$60,300,000 each to replace the aircraft
$15,000,000 to repair the damage to the building (That's a lowball I think), and
$10,000,000 to compensate the families of the people killed (at $100,000 a person, another lowball)

for a grand total of $150,800,000. That sound better than $5.2 million?

[Darth Wong]

I cannot believe this thread. Two guys decide to do a little unauthorized showboating over the football stadium of the school they both happened to graduate from, the Navy revokes their flight status because they disobeyed orders and treated their fucking government aircraft as personal recreational vehicles, and people are actually defending them? Casting out bullshit about how it's not necessarily unsafe?

Let's go over this:

1) Direct contravention of standing orders.
2) Treating fighter aircraft like a fucking personal toy, with which to showboat at their alma mater.

What the fuck about this merits any kind of lenience? Those men are authorized to use those aircraft in the service of Uncle Sam, not for their own goddamned amusement. Why should anyone trust such expensive and dangerous weapon systems to people with this kind of attitude? I'm sure there are plenty of pilots who bust their balls trying to get into the seat of a fighter plane instead of hauling cargo or fuel, and to see a couple of yahoos get fighter planes and then treat them like personal property would be outrageously galling, to say the least.

The fact that the training of a fighter pilot takes years and $2.6 million USD, Mike, should be a factor--yahoos and fools they certainly are, but to the point where it is worth spending $5.2 million to replace them? I have no sympathy for the pilots themselves in this particular instance but as a practical matter it seems a deeply questionable thing as to if what they actually did--and the risk of their doing again--warranted the US government depriving itself of more than five million dollars.

And what dollar value do you place on the precedent of telling every other pilot in the armed forces that it's OK to treat a fighter plane like a toy, for your personal amusement? Whatever decision they make affects not just these two pilots, but every pilot.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And what dollar value do you place on the precedent of telling every other pilot in the armed forces that it's OK to treat a fighter plane like a toy, for your personal amusement? Whatever decision they make affects not just these two pilots, but every pilot.

Had these guys been given a direct order on a prior occasion not to do this / not to fly this low? It said they received warnings but were those binding? I'd concede that it's good to ground them permanently or hell even support a courts martial if they had actually disobeyed a direct order, but it didn't seem like they had when I read the article and the OP was just a youtube video with no context. Because if they've been ordered to stop as opposed to "be more careful next time" it throws an entire different spin on it for disobedience of lawful orders... Which should definitely get the book thrown at them, no question.

[Darth Wong]

And what dollar value do you place on the precedent of telling every other pilot in the armed forces that it's OK to treat a fighter plane like a toy, for your personal amusement? Whatever decision they make affects not just these two pilots, but every pilot.

Had these guys been given a direct order on a prior occasion not to do this / not to fly this low? It said they received warnings but were those binding? I'd concede that it's good to ground them permanently or hell even support a courts martial if they had actually disobeyed a direct order, but it didn't seem like they had when I read the article and the OP was just a youtube video with no context. Because if they've been ordered to stop as opposed to "be more careful next time" it throws an entire different spin on it for disobedience of lawful orders... Which should definitely get the book thrown at them, no question.

Standing orders are direct orders. If pilots need to be reminded of standing orders every time they go up in the air, then they can't be trusted. Should we also re-read the ROE to soldiers before every mission?

Besides, there's also the part about "treating the taxpayers' fighter plane like a goddamned personal recreation vehicle". This is not just a punishment; it is a message. In the judgement of Rear Adm. R.J. O’Hanlon, these pilots knowingly disobeyed the rules, in order to do their cute little showboating stunt.

[eion]

Has anyone ever seen a flyover like that did, with gear down and flaps out, outside of a demonstration of touch and goes? The events I go to with national anthem flyovers, like these guys did, they're clean, gear up, cruising past at a good clip.

[FSTargetDrone]

Remember that hot-dog B-52 pilot who got himself and his entire crew killed because he thought he could throw the BUFF around like it was a fighter? And he was permitted to persist in this attitude for a long time because of the USAF culture?

You probably didn't notice but I put up a video of that incident a few pages back.

Definitely a perfect example why this shit needs to be dealt with harshly.

[lPeregrine]

And what dollar value do you place on the precedent of telling every other pilot in the armed forces that it's OK to treat a fighter plane like a toy, for your personal amusement? Whatever decision they make affects not just these two pilots, but every pilot.

Had these guys been given a direct order on a prior occasion not to do this / not to fly this low? It said they received warnings but were those binding? I'd concede that it's good to ground them permanently or hell even support a courts martial if they had actually disobeyed a direct order, but it didn't seem like they had when I read the article and the OP was just a youtube video with no context. Because if they've been ordered to stop as opposed to "be more careful next time" it throws an entire different spin on it for disobedience of lawful orders... Which should definitely get the book thrown at them, no question.

FAA regulations, which military pilots are required to obey unless explicitly told otherwise:

Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:

(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.

(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.

I think that qualifies as a "direct order".

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If Mike's argument is specifically that they should be sacked for violating orders then I concede; my only contention was that the act itself was foolish but not so harazardous as to, in a vacuum, demand their removal. But considering the whole context of the specific event I won't dispute the Navy had grounds for punishing them for insubordination.

[Lord MJ]

Lets remember that the reason that these pilots were sacked was not because they did the flyover "treating the planes as personal toys", but because they flew at 300 ft above the ground below the 1000 ft minimum. At least that's what I gather from the article and other material I've read about the incident.

[Shroom Man 777]

The simple fact though is that low altitude manoeuvring at speed is a useful military tactic--when you are properly trained for it, which requires peacetime training for doing so, which will result in fatalities.

The simple fact though is that low altitude maneuvering at speed is a useful military tactic -- when you are properly trained for it, which requires peacetime training for doing so, which will result in fatalities.

Now, precisely because it requires peacetime training for doing so, which will result in fatalities, this is why we must do these peacetime trainings, which will result in fatalities, over CROWDED AREAS FULL OF CIVILIANS, precisely because it will result in fatalities. Which is why we must do training that will result in fatalities over football stadiums, churches, day care centers, and kindergarten schools. Because it will result in fatalities!

If we use your standard--why is alcohol still legal in the United States? Can the thousands of people who die each year from alcohol related causes possibly be compared to a couple hundred fatalities in a decade from training for the defence of your nation and her interests? Which one has a legitimate function?

Yeah, I mean we let people drink alcohol in football stadiums full of people. So we should also let people fly high-speed multiton jetfuel-laden dangerous aircraft at low and unsafe altitudes over football stadiums full of people. Okay Marina I see the great logics in this.

Now, was the airshow STUPID and UNNECESSARY? Yes. Should they have been grounded temporarily, busted in rank, and docked some pay for it? YES, that is not at dispute--not at least with me. But you are not right. This behaviour does not warrant permanent grounding because the act itself is a perfectly legitimate military tactic of extremely low altitude flight. The problem was that they did it at an inappropriate time and place, and for that the punishment should be proportionally less than if it was illegitimate.

That's the USAF's call. If that's how they discipline hotdogs who do that, then that's how they discipline hotdogs who do that. Turns out that French airforce rules don't matter shit when you're flying in UNCLE SAM'S Air Force!

Tourists shouldn't spout "But it's legal for the French Air Force!" when they're in another air force that's not the French Air Force!

(whoops it is the US Navy)

AMERICAN regulations. Just because AMERICA requires something doesn't mean it's right. Is our policy of refusing to let pilots sleep intelligent? Nobody else in the world does it because short naps are safer than forcing pilots to stay awake to the point of exhaustion. Why are American regulations automatically right and French regulations automatically wrong?

Fuck French regulations. AMERICAN pilots! And just because FRANCE requires something or doesn't require something doesn't mean its right. Why are American regulations automatically wrong and French regulations automatically right? France can go fuck itself.

And I got my damned license and I learned that too. I'm just not stuck-up enough about it to dream that flying a single engine fixed undercarriage private aircraft is remotely the same as a military jet or that my knowledge in doing so and the regulations I was taught and obeyed should somehow remotely be applied to military aviation, mmkay? You can attribute your attitude to your training all you want, but the fact is you should NOT be doing so, because military aviation should NOT be forced to comply with civil aviation rules.

Well, too bad the military's treating those pilot this way, in a way that's roughly concurrent with the principles Broomstick is using in civilian aviation.

Lets remember that the reason that these pilots were sacked was not because they did the flyover "treating the planes as personal toys", but because they flew at 300 ft above the ground below the 1000 ft minimum. At least that's what I gather from the article and other material I've read about the incident.

They flew at 300 feet above the ground below the 1000 feet minimum because they were treating the planes as personal toys.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hey, hey! Here's another great one! Courtesy of Crazedwraith!

The simple fact though is that shooting enemy aircraft with air-to-air missiles is a useful military tactic--when you are properly trained for it, which requires peacetime training for doing so, which will result in fatalities.

Thus airshows and football stadiums need to have fighter jets engaging in live-fire exercises with target drones directly overhead, which will result in fatalities. If they do not do this, then the USAF/USN has stupid regulations that denies valuable training for their pilots and aviators. This is what the French do, by the way.

[Crazedwraith]

.... That's some quite extensive paraphrasing of what I said to you. Said to you privately BTW

Also, someone should point out to her that shooting things with missiles is a valid military tactic that they should practise. So should they be able to just shoot up an random abandoned building that they feel like for this purpose?

[Shroom Man 777]

I stab you in the organ.

Well, you did give me an idea. Inspiration. You are my muse! No, not the terrible sibling of J who aerius wants to threesome with, bla bla bla, stock markets, cameras, vinyl records, and swimmer chicks.

But, yeah. Just because air forces DO do risky training maneuvers that inolve risky maneuvers like down-low flybys doesn't automatically mean that pilots should do that kind of shit in public. With that logic, live-fire exercises are valuable training experiences. So if a couple of hotdog pilots suddenly pull a live-fire exercise over the New Orleans superdome, the authorities should not punish them too harshly. Because... umm... live-fire exercises are valuable training experiences that they train for in appropriate places that do not include airspace over Superdomes.

[eyl]

Had these guys been given a direct order on a prior occasion not to do this / not to fly this low? It said they received warnings but were those binding? I'd concede that it's good to ground them permanently or hell even support a courts martial if they had actually disobeyed a direct order, but it didn't seem like they had when I read the article and the OP was just a youtube video with no context. Because if they've been ordered to stop as opposed to "be more careful next time" it throws an entire different spin on it for disobedience of lawful orders... Which should definitely get the book thrown at them, no question.

Standing orders are direct orders. If pilots need to be reminded of standing orders every time they go up in the air, then they can't be trusted. Should we also re-read the ROE to soldiers before every mission?

Besides, there's also the part about "treating the taxpayers' fighter plane like a goddamned personal recreation vehicle". This is not just a punishment; it is a message. In the judgement of Rear Adm. R.J. O’Hanlon, these pilots knowingly disobeyed the rules, in order to do their cute little showboating stunt.

Besides that, presumably they had some sort of flight plan beforehand, presumably dictated or at least authrozed by their superioirs. Deviating from it would be another case of disobeying orders

[Havok]

I cannot believe this thread. Two guys decide to do a little unauthorized showboating over the football stadium of the school they both happened to graduate from, the Navy revokes their flight status because they disobeyed orders and treated their fucking government aircraft as personal recreational vehicles, and people are actually defending them? Casting out bullshit about how it's not necessarily unsafe?

Let's go over this:

1) Direct contravention of standing orders.
2) Treating fighter aircraft like a fucking personal toy, with which to showboat at their alma mater.

What the fuck about this merits any kind of lenience? Those men are authorized to use those aircraft in the service of Uncle Sam, not for their own goddamned amusement. Why should anyone trust such expensive and dangerous weapon systems to people with this kind of attitude? I'm sure there are plenty of pilots who bust their balls trying to get into the seat of a fighter plane instead of hauling cargo or fuel, and to see a couple of yahoos get fighter planes and then treat them like personal property would be outrageously galling, to say the least.

Yeah, first of all, the 'little unauthorized showboating' was in fact, authorized. You seem to think that these guys veered off from a training exercise to buzz the field. They flew lower than they were supposed to. That is it. A fact that they even reported when they landed. According to the article, some in the Navy even argued that it was an accident (I don't believe it for the record). That aside, they were flying where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing. In other words, they were using those aircraft in the service of Uncle Sam. They just did it a little lower than they were supposed to.

As for 'Treating fighter aircraft like a fucking personal toy, with which to showboat at their alma mater', that's a little over dramatic don't you think? Unless going in a straight line is your idea of what you do in a 'recreational vehicle'. P.S. Their mission was to showboat at their alma mater.

Yes they flew below altitude they were supposed to and that deserves some sort of punishment, but completely wasting two trained combat pilots because of it, is extreme and a waste, despite the message you think it is sending.

[Edi]

Lets remember that the reason that these pilots were sacked was not because they did the flyover "treating the planes as personal toys", but because they flew at 300 ft above the ground below the 1000 ft minimum. At least that's what I gather from the article and other material I've read about the incident.

Yes, well, there's that bit about standing orders and how violating them shows an attitude toward the equipment as if the planes were their personal toys. Especially in the context of why they overflew that particular spot. It's bad news all around and it's refreshing to see these assholes got shafted the way they deserved. Especially in light of things like the Cavalese disaster Imperial Overlord mentioned on page 1.

[Sarevok]

There is no chance of a great naval conflicy in near future. The US Navy can afford to lose two pilots right now. These days danger from a potential accident is greater than losing a warship because the navy had two less planes in the air.

[Darth Wong]

Yeah, first of all, the 'little unauthorized showboating' was in fact, authorized. You seem to think that these guys veered off from a training exercise to buzz the field. They flew lower than they were supposed to. That is it.

Uh yes, we get that they flew lower than they were supposed to. That's the difference between "Oh look, there's a plane flying way up there" and "Hey, some guy just buzzed the field". The altitude is the whole point; they deliberately flew lower than they were supposed to (we don't even know what altitude they were expected to fly at; we just know that there was a lower limit as a standing order).

A fact that they even reported when they landed.

Of course, since they knew all along what they were doing, and did it intentionally. That means they were knowingly violating the regulations, to showboat.

According to the article, some in the Navy even argued that it was an accident (I don't believe it for the record).

Neither did the admiral in charge, which is the most important thing. He also felt it was a serious violation of orders: a judgement which I take more seriously than yours.

That aside, they were flying where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing. In other words, they were using those aircraft in the service of Uncle Sam. They just did it a little lower than they were supposed to.

As for 'Treating fighter aircraft like a fucking personal toy, with which to showboat at their alma mater', that's a little over dramatic don't you think? Unless going in a straight line is your idea of what you do in a 'recreational vehicle'. P.S. Their mission was to showboat at their alma mater.

According to you. The admiral thought differently. Hmmm, who should I assume knows more about this situation?

Yes they flew below altitude they were supposed to and that deserves some sort of punishment, but completely wasting two trained combat pilots because of it, is extreme and a waste, despite the message you think it is sending.

Oh yes, I'm sure you have a better handle on this than a fucking admiral in the US Navy. The other source they quoted felt the same way. But oh no, we shouldn't assume that they have a handle on what makes prudent sense in the Navy, when we have some guy on the Internet who feels differently.

[Broomstick]

Has anyone ever seen a flyover like that did, with gear down and flaps out, outside of a demonstration of touch and goes? The events I go to with national anthem flyovers, like these guys did, they're clean, gear up, cruising past at a good clip.

I have seen "dirty" fly bys ("dirty" is flaps/gear/etc down or out, as it is the opposite of the normal, streamlined, "clean" aerodynamics) but not fly overs. One classic trick is to "hover" a fixed wing aircraft by flying into a wind at the same speed the wind is moving, thereby keeping the the airplane over a specific spot on the ground (obviously, more difficult and unlikely with a fast jet than a slower prop plane). However, those demonstrations are done away from an audience, not overhead.

Fly overs are done in a clean configuration.

[Broomstick]

Yeah, first of all, the 'little unauthorized showboating' was in fact, authorized. You seem to think that these guys veered off from a training exercise to buzz the field. They flew lower than they were supposed to. That is it. A fact that they even reported when they landed.

They were authorized to fly over at a specific altitude - they shouldn't have to be told "keep at least minimum regulatory distance above the crowd" because that's like telling someone who drives a car "keep your foot on the brake at a red light". It's fucking basic. If you can't grasp that concept you shouldn't be at the controls.

That aside, they were flying where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing. In other words, they were using those aircraft in the service of Uncle Sam. They just did it a little lower than they were supposed to.

If they were flying lower than they were supposed to NO, they were NOT "doing what they were supposed to be doing."

A fucking student pilot is permitted a margin of error of only 50 feet. To say a deviance of hundreds of feet was an "accident" is bullshit. I'm sorry it's beyond your comprehension that low level flight is more risky than high level flight, and being off your altitude by hundreds of feet is no accident and a flagrant violation of regulations.

Here's another analogy: blasting through a slow zone in your car near a school, where the speed limit is 20 mph and you're doing 80 mph. It doesn't matter if there were school children present or not, if anyone was injured or not, it was a fucking stupid thing to do, it wasn't an accident, and it's against the law.

Yes they flew below altitude they were supposed to and that deserves some sort of punishment, but completely wasting two trained combat pilots because of it, is extreme and a waste, despite the message you think it is sending.

It's cheaper to train two new pilots than to replace two wrecked jets and settle with the estates of a bunch of dead civilians. There is no shortage of people who are not only capable of flying jets but are also willing to obey the rules.

[Raxmei]

They willfully violated a legal regulation in front of thousands of eyewitnesses and their video cameras. The authorities had to fuck their shit up, and they chose to do it administratively instead of judicially. Just giving them a nonjudicial punishment and calling it a day would have sent the wrong message. One thing is for sure, this does let pilots know that the Navy takes this seriously.

[Hawkwings]

Low, super slow, with flaps and gear out? Just going by the physics of flight, that's a recipe for disaster. Pretty much the only thing they could have done to make it more dangerous was to turn directly over the stadium. And, as they pass the stadium and start turning, you can see the plane on the left dip down even lower before climbing again.

Flying that slow, and at full thrust (or near it, which they would have been at) is dangerous and hard on the plane and the pilot because it is a very unstable flight condition. Thrust remains constant for all velocities, but at the condition they're flying at (really slow), then drag increases as you slow down, meaning if a gust hits you from behind, you'd better kick in your afterburners really really quick (microseconds) or you're dead and so are a bunch of people on the ground.

Speaking simply from a physics standpoint, it would have been far safer for them to fly fast over the stadium and in a clean configuration. This is why when you see low flying, it's mostly done at high speed, and probably near the velocity for minimum drag on the airplane. In that case, you've either reduced throttle to hold yourself at that altitude, or you're holding down elevator to sustain that altitude and not climb (probably a bit of both). In either case, you've got excess thrust thrust very quickly available in case you need it.

For displaying a colossal failure of judgement and disobeying orders, they are lucky they did not get worse. Yes, all regulations involving airplanes are strict. That is because the laws of physics are strict as well.