Don't you hate it when you've gone to great efforts to paint your model and this happens!

Blue Angels F-18 Crash Landing (4 min 1 sec)

Might want to add RC to the title there...

FA-18 El Toro Airshow Crash (3 min 14 sec)

Not a Blue, but a full size going in at El Toro a few years back. Pilot broke a few bones but survived, although his Navy career came to an abrupt halt.

Wonder what happened on that one? Not enough thrust to fly out of that? Had a pretty steep AoA before he fell to the ground.

There was a Thunderbird that did a loop too low and had a similar crash. He ejected though.

Unfortunately I was there for that one and the F-86 Saber Dancer crash..

The F/A-18 driver was in shock when rescue crews arrived.. was actually outside the airplane walking on broken (fractured) legs, broken arms, most of the bones in his face were broken from his head hitting the instrument panel.. But he lived!

Originally Posted by Keith Cannon

Wonder what happened on that one? Not enough thrust to fly out of that? Had a pretty steep AoA before he fell to the ground.

There was a Thunderbird that did a loop too low and had a similar crash. He ejected though.

Pretty sure the NTSB report said he misjudged his altitude in the maneuver and didn't have enough to complete the square loop.

yep, same as the F 86. I had to take a day off following the F 86 crash. I was pretty shaken up.

Originally Posted by FGNewbie

yep, same as the F 86. I had to take a day off following the F 86 crash. I was pretty shaken up.

Yeah.. I was really in shock.. It was terrible. I can still see every moment in that incident in my head clear as if it happened yesterday..

Back in the day when I was active duty,,, that F86, and I still believe to this day, something broke at the bottom of his loop. I was there too in my MAG 46 DET B HMM-764 hangar.


Another F-18 narrowly missed the Base church as it too hit the ground,,, ugly stuff.


BV

bill he was supposed to do a mock dogfight with a mig 15, but the mig pilot was sick. the f 86 pilot flew an unpracticed routine. he just ran out of altitude on the bottom of his loop. I could tell it was going to end badly when he came off the top as there simply wasn't enough room. I talked to an F 18 pilot later who was part of the static display and he said he thought the same thing.

I was there too, crewing and giving tours on the Evergreen B-17. He almost did it during a flight on Friday. Did good on Sat after a "chat" from/with the top brass at the morning pilots meeting. Sadly, it didn't go well on Sunday. I was watching from the cockpit and mentioned to a gentleman taking the tour to keep his eyes on this flight as the pilot had seemed to struggle on Friday.
How I wish I had been wrong. Like you guys, its a vision I wish I could erase. Taxing out by peices of the F-86 and flying back to Tucson was beyond somber.