Between lone rock and a hard place - safe landing after failure of wingsweep motor

Approach, May, 2003 by Doug Denneny

When I was an instructor at Top Gun. I got an up-close and personal view of the hazards of aft-wingsweep landings.

I had manned-up with the commanding officer for what I thought was one of the most boring missions in the old power-projection course: Simulating a friendly Tomcat on a return-to-force (RTF) profile. Our mission was to test the class fighters on their enemy-aircraft-deconfliction plan. We ended up being the guys who were tested.

It was a beautiful day at NAS Fallon, and, with a lot of experience in the front seat, I settled into the back for the demanding task of making sure our hunk of metal appeared at the right time on the RTF corridor.

The class fighters sorted out the picture and quickly killed the simulated bandits who were running us down. After the knock-it-off, the skipper noticed the wings were stuck at 50 degrees, with only the standard F-14 wing-sweep-advisory light. I broke out the book--having no doubt we could fix this little foul-up.

We were confident because, even if we couldn't get the wings forward of 55 degrees, this wasn't the ship, and we were only 90 miles from Fallon, with a long runway. We had good hydraulics and brakes--we would be OK.

We went through the listed procedures in the PCL. We spent a few minutes of troubleshooting, and then the left wingsweep motor catastrophically failed, dumping every ounce of our combined-side hydraulic fluid over the Gabbs South MOA. Fortunately, the flight-side hydraulics held. It was time to use the E-word and prepare for a high-speed (185-knot) landing. Our plan was to touch down, aero brake, and apply the auxiliary brakes to stop before the end of the runway. We had the long-field gear way down at the end to stop us if we needed. With combined pressure at zero, we had no nosewheel steering or normal brakes--only emergency-hook extension, no hook-retraction ability, and a manual blow-down of the gear.

While poring over our numerous checklists, aviating, navigating and communicating, we quickly found out the latest in a series of bad news: our previously in-the-green auxiliary brakes were now in the red--not good. If we touched down at the end of 31L at Fallon at 185 knots, there was no way we could engage the short speed of 165 knots. a maximum engage speed of 165 knots. With the wings back, we had no flaps-slats, no brakes, no spoilers, no speedbrakes and limited aero braking to slow us. We knew we would be cooking all the way to the long-field gear.

The rudder effectiveness would be lost, along with the nosewheel steering, so we had the potential of blowing a tire at touchdown. Just keeping the jet on the runway long enough to reach the long-field gear would be a crapshoot, at best. If wet skipped the long-field gear, we would be testing the high-speed off-road characteristics of the 50,000-pound, 140-plus-knot Tomcat. Fondly recalling K=1/2 MV squared, I realized we had enough K to make it past the Midnight Roper, and, if we made the jog, we probably could roll all the way to the Bird Farm.

We discussed tail hook-point-ablation rates. Our only hope to stop was to grab the long-field gear. We were afraid if we dropped the hook while airborne, it would drag on the runway for over two miles, leaving only a black-and-white-striped stub. Its sole function would be to aid the crash and rescue crew by scratching a line in the dirt all the way to Reno.

We decided to lower the hook by emergency extension after we were on the runway, thus weakening the hooks as little as possible, per NATOPS, and excessive loss of precious steel. To expedite this two-step process, we decided to pre-lower the hook handle, saving the final twisting and cable-releasing action for rollout. After lowering the handle on long final, our wingman reported the hook still was up, and we were relieved something finally was working right.

At two miles, our wingman passed more bad news. The hook had come down on its own because a small amount of combined fluid was left in the system, which allowed the hydraulically controlled valve to open. We were not happy. All of us who have seen the aftermath of blown main tires know that steel doesn't like to drag along cement for two miles. The situation looked grim. I took off my kneeboard and retightened my straps.

We decided to ride the Tomcat out if we skipped the gear, unless it approached an object that would endanger us. The F-14 has an amazing record of remaining upright off the runway. I never will forget, as a RAG student in 1985, seeing the dump-truck-sized block of earth an off-road Tomcat's wingtip caused next to Fentress Field in Virginia. The wing dug in after the aircraft departed the runway, spun, imbedded itself, and stayed upright--truly, a tough, all-metal airplane.

We touched down at 185 knots, giving the on-station LSO a dramatic view of sparks coming off our hookpoint. As we headed down the runway, the skipper said he felt one aux-brake application. Residual combined fluid also slowed our aircraft a couple of knots. The aircraft's fuselage and wings still were providing lift, so the skipper applied small amounts of backstick during the rollout. When he felt the jet get light, he programmed it forward, repeating the cycle as we rolled down the runway. The runway-remaining markers passed quickly until, all too soon, the long-field gear appeared.