So is this typically started in mil power with a transition to ab at some point? Was this an engine failure or just a failure of an ab lightoff?

Either way, there is no room for recovery if you fly into this kind of situation and experience an significant glitch like an engine problem. Remember the Mig-29 crash at the Paris Airshow in 1989? SSDD. I guess that’s what make airshows exciting.

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The picture Theo Spark, among others, has shows the airplane from the side elevation. The rockets on the seat have already brought Capt. Bews to a near-upright position, the drag chute is already deployed — and the blown-out canopy is still in shot!

Regards,
Ric

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The demo maneuver he was doing was a clean low speed pass. Perfectly safe as long as an engine doesn’t crap out just when it is needed…

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Look closely at the engine nozzles in the rear of the aircraft. You’ll see that the starbord side nozzle is un-dilated, in what appears to be the “full grunt”, full military power setting, configuration while the port side is the full open dilated configuration-which makes sense. On afterburning jet engines, the nozzles are almost completely dilated at idle settings, narrow for higher throttle settings at subsonic speeds, but dialate again when the burner is lit to accomodate the higer flow rate.

Now as you said we won’t know for sure until the investigation is complete. But based on the visual clues of the nozle configuration, I suspect that either the engine failed and Captain bews responded to the need for power by lighting the burner on the remaining good one, or perhaps burner blowout, due to the nozzle failing to dilate, was the cause of the engine failure itself.

That’s why I took for granted the wittness’ description of the engine being out.

You are correct though, in your observation that a very high level of induced drag is inherent during a high alpha pass maneauver. And, as I mentioned, after the engine failure there was no way that the pilot could keep up with the power demands, and didn’t have the altitude to drop the nose, reduce the drag, and recover.

And your observation of the the dangers of slow speed flight in a high performance fighter is partially correct; flight in near stall conditions is dicey for any aircraft that doesn’t enjoy a high thrust/weight ratio. Slow speed flight is more a problem with delta wing configurations than the F-18′s planform, although to some extent all aircraft lose significant control surface authority at slow speed due to the wing’s optimization for high speed flight. And, to be fair, high levels of induced drag also accompany increased flap settings, because induced drag is fundamentally drag due to lift; which is why it increases with increasing alpha, since the lift coefficient is linear with respect to alpha until the wing stalls, or when C/L is increased by extending flaps.

Still, you’re right that it appears that no flaps were extended. And. I couldn’t tell from the photos whether the leading edge extension were deployed either; LEX’s trip the flow turbulent across the wing’s upper surface and, although they increase drag a bit as well, delay separation substantially. They are one reason that the F-18 can sustain such high AOA and contributes to its maneuverability.

So, while you bring up good points, I think I’ll stick with my suspicion that the engine failed while the pilot was executing a high alpha pass and, because of the drastically redued thrust/weight ratio and low altitude was unable to regain control-which led instead to a demonstration of the Martin-Baker “zero/zero” ejection seat!

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However, what I saw was a fighter flying deeper into an unrecoverable situation. Slow flight in a high performance fighter is on the edge of control. Induced drag increased dramatically and it can quickly get behind the power curve whereby there isn’t enough power available to fly out of the condition.

One other thing. I don’t know specifically about the CF-18, but looking at the head-on picture, I see no flaps or flaperons extended at all. That makes it all the more difficult to fly out of such a low speed, high AOA situation.

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Although I have experienced in-flight engine failure.

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the interviewed a man who witnessed it – looking a bit like Janet Reno and sounding a bit like Himmler.

I’ll do it before Tohr does – I blame the Joooooooooows. And Busch.

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