Navy Pilot’s Body Recovered
The body of the instructor pilot of the T-34C that crashed in Louisiana has been recovered. Lt Wermers was reportedly found near the sunk wreckage in the lake.
Tag Archives: pilot training
T-34 Instructor Presumed Dead, Student Rescued
The US Navy has indicated that the instructor pilot from the crashed T-34C training aircraft, Lt. Clinton Wermers, is now presumed dead. The student was rescued the night of the crash and has not yet been identified. Initial reports had indicated that both pilots were holding on to the wreckage before it sank.
A comment left on the CNN article on this story indicated that Wermers was a married father of two, and was expecting a third child.
The T-34C is a Navy primary training aircraft used to teach new student pilots. The two-seat, single engine aircraft does not have ejection seats, but requires aircrew to manually bail out in emergencies. The T-34C is slated to be replaced by the T-6A Texan II.
Navy Plane Crashes in Louisiana
A Navy T-34 has crashed while on a training mission in Louisiana. The initial headline was “One Dead, One Missing” from the two-man crew, though the article itself contradicted the headline and said one pilot had been rescued, and another was missing. Initial reports were that the plane crash landed in the lake, with both pilots clinging to the plane before it sank.
Fighter Pilot Training: The Centrifuge
A significant milestone specific to the fighter pilot is attending the centrifuge, a dastardly little machine made famous by its amusement park portrayals in various movies. The centrifuge is not nearly as fun to actually experience.
Much as the movies show, pilots are seat-belted into a cubicle that simulates a cockpit on the end of a long arm that spins at amazing speeds, compressing the pilots under increased gravity (G) forces.
A person sitting or standing experiences 1 G, or a force equal to gravity. At 9 Gs (the maximum modern fighters are designed to experience), a 200 pound person feels as though they weight 1,800 pounds. Though significant, the increased “weight” is bearable.
The more challenging aspect of G forces is that the outward forces cause a pilot’s blood to pool in his legs and feet. The potential result is a lack of sufficient blood to the brain which causes a blackout under G, called a “G-induced Loss of Consciousness,” or G-LOC (pronounced Gee-Lock). Aerospace physiologists do an excellent job of teaching the proper techniques and the Air Force provides anti-g equipment to wear in the form of a chap-like “g-suit.”
All fighter pilots-in-training go through the centrifuge twice. The first Read more
Wedding Ring Returned to Hill AFB Widow
Air Force Captain George Bryan Houghton was killed in June of 2009 during a night training mission in his F-16. An article from the Associated Press, as distributed by FoxNews, recounts the story of his widow’s liaison officer (the officer who becomes the family’s help in any way necessary) going an extra mile to help her obtain closure.
The article reports that Houghton’s widow, Josie, only asked for the investigators to return one thing to her: his wedding band. Unfortunately, it was not recovered in the initial crash investigation. The liaison, Maj. Robert Ungerman, took it upon himself to correct that failing, and a moving story results.
Pilot Error Caused F-16 Collision
The Accident Investigation Board has determined that pilot error on the part of Capt. Nicholas Giglio resulted in him colliding with his flight lead, Capt. Lee Bryant, near the end of a night sortie over the waters just east of Charleston, SC, in October. Giglio died in the collision; Bryant landed his crippled aircraft. It appears that Giglio, an inexperienced F-16 pilot, may have been “distracted” by a radar problem and failed to properly execute a rejoin on this flight lead, leading to the collision. Giglio is one of several fighter pilots to die in night training accidents in 2009, including one in Utah and one in Afghanistan.
As noted earlier, Giglio was held up as a man of God and family by his Pastor.
Fighter Pilots: “Joy-Riding Flyboys”
In editorial discussions in Arizona about the future of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, locals parried over the possibility of the F-35 being stationed in the area. The “discussion” demonstrated the continuing public stereotype of fighter pilots. Said one letter writer to the Arizona Daily Star:
Basing the F-35 Air Force jet in Tucson is a very bad idea. Tucson is an asset to all of Arizona because it attracts quality, high-tech, tax-positive industry…Tucson is the jewel of Arizona. A deafening noise from joy-riding flyboys will do more economic harm than whatever modest benefit these flyboys will bring to the local bars. (emphasis added)
Interestingly, subsequent writers responded in defense of military fighter pilots, decrying the “generalization” of fighter pilots: Read more
Fighter Pilots Play the Villain
An interesting article at the Air Force Times goes into more detail about a previously discussed “dream job” in the US Air Force: playing the bad guy. Air Force pilots fly American fighters but train to replicate the threat of potential adversaries. They then use those skills to “defend their homeland” during major exercises.
(Fighter units frequently use their own assets to simulate an air threat, a technique known as flying “red air.” However, aggressor units specifically train to precisely replicate foreign tactics for large force scenarios.)
The article indicates, perhaps a little too matter-of-factly, that the US Air Force once had multiple squadrons of Russian-built fighters:
In the days that the U.S. considered the Soviet Union its biggest threat, four squadrons of airmen flew Russian-made MiG-21s or Su-27 fighters to lend authenticity to their job. Read more