Single-Engine Or Engine Fire? - safety conditions of a military aircraft

Approach, Nov, 2000 by Clark Childers

As a nugget, I learned more from this one flight than anything else on the detachment. The first and most important lesson was that when bad things start happening, even as a nugget, you know the airplane, and you can develop your own game plan before you dump it in someone else's lap. I'm not saying I should have had fast hands and started shutting down engines, but you can figure out what emergency you have, do your immediate NATOPS procedures, and then develop a game plan in your airplane.

Discuss that plan with your wingman and then call the rep. It will make his job easier, and he can add his experience and suggestions before you make your decision. He can give you important information that you have forgotten. You can let the rep decide whether the ship wants to bring you back single-engine and decide whether the conditions give you enough power for a single-engine waveoff. My rep didn't know the sequence of events and the quick progression of my emergency, and he might not have made the same decision had he been in the aircraft watching it happen.

In the future, I will make sure that I make my own game plan, talk to my wingman, and use crew coordination within my section-first. Then I'll call for a rep to see if there is anything that we have forgotten or misinterpreted. While there is valuable advice to be gained from experienced pilots in your squadron, you signed for the airplane, and you are the one who is going to be responsible if you don't bring it back.

Lt. Childers flies with VFA-115.