View Single Post
Old 11-12-2006, 01:44 PM
  #1  
vagabond
Administrator
 
vagabond's Avatar
 
Joined APC: May 2006
Position: C-172
Posts: 8,024
Default Centerline Thrust

This is a subthread derived from "Fighter Pilot vs Heavy Pilot" over in Military Transition. It all started when Toilet Duck posted the following. I have then copied and pasted the subsequent posts including my own question as to centerline thrust and a private response from someone who knows. I encourage other informative perspectives.

ToiletDuck:
I've heard both so long as you end up in the right kind of fighter. You don't want one with anykind of centerline thrust restrictions that's for sure. Had a guy come into the FBO with 4800hrs of T-38 time but SW didn't like it because it was centerline thrust.

AlbieF15:
Unless you are strafing someone in a P-38, I don't know of any fighters that DON'T have centerline thrust restrictions.

Getting your ATP pretty much eliminates the "centerline thrust only" restriction from your commerical multi. I was (lucky/unlucky) enough to get the OV-10 ealry in my career...found a nice FSDO who gave me added the multi to my commercial rating because of it...

1 Seat 1 Engine:
Considering that over 90 percent of fighter guys that apply to the majors get picked up by a major (maybe not their first choice, but a major nonetheless), I really don't think the centerline restriction is a problem.

Also, as Albie stated, once you get your ATP, there is no centerline restriction on your ticket.

ToiletDuck:
Are you guys sure on this? The ATP removes all restrictions? It was a few months back but swear I thought he already had his ATP with the restriction.... I'm probably mistaken as I haven't heard back from him. However I was told, which means I have no first hand knowledge, that the F-15s, 22s, F-117s ect. were not considered centerline thrust because the engines were seperated. True or false? This was from some UPT guys so no telling how accurate it is.

Gypsy32:
F-14 non centerline thrust. Center to center of engines 9 feet apart, why so many spun after snuffing an engine.

Zulu:
As long as you do your ATP checkride in a non-centerline thrust AC (which I'd guess is 99.9% of the time) then the restriction is removed.

As far as the F-15 issue, I can tell you for sure that the FAA considers it CL thrust -- back when I was getting my ratings together and called the FSDO in SAT to ask the question and was told "no problem, the Eagle's engines are far enough apart to make it non-CL thrust," so I drive 90 minutes down to the office only to have the inspector there NOW call Oke city to check their master list, and the F-15 is listed as CL thrust. Too bad he didn't do that when I'd first asked. That's half a day I'll never get back.

Private Response:
Centerline thrust airplanes dont create asymetric yaw when an engine is lost. Only military fighter type aircraft with 2 engines qualify. T-38, T-37, F-15, F-22, F-18, F-14 (extinct now).

The FAA allows you to log multi-engine time flying these aircraft but only classifies these as aircraft with centerline thrust jets. It all goes to the performance of an aircraft when it loses an engine.
vagabond is offline