F4E Mx

Why? If ever there was a backboard-shattering slam-dunk lawsuit against a company it is the one these families have. I wish them god-speed.

USMCFLYR

Which families are you talking about?

flyinhawyan

I think he's talking about the families of the three pilots who died due to possible failure of their ejection seats?

HuggyU2

The seats failed? Or were the ejections out of the seat's envelope?

Packrat

Its not libelous if its the truth.

USMCFLYR

The seat didn't fail.
The Hunter seat is NOT 0/0 though.
For instance if going off the end if the runway in an abort scenario, I needed 90 kts.

Sack

This discussion was recently brought to my attention. Since everyone here appears to be entitled to their opinion, I have signed up to post mine even though I have not been involved with these matters for more than a year.

My real identity will be obvious to anyone associated with this topic. Until April 2014, I had been a consultant to LA for 11 ½ years, ATAC for 9 years and Apache for 8 years, with my most relevant services involving Hunter flying and pilot training throughout that time. Over the past 32 years, I have flown more than 12000 hours, of which at least 4000 would be considered “real flying” by many fighter pilots (i.e. not airline flying), including over 1500 flight hours in Hornets and over 1000 in LA’s Hunters. I provided Hunter flying training and qualified 53 pilots to fly solo in LA Hunters. By my quick count, those included all 41 Hunter pilots employed by ATAC prior to April 2014, including 5 of ATAC’s Kfir or A-4 pilots, but not counting the one that quit during his dual training. I have also conducted refresher flight training, technical oral exams and many proficiency check flights for LA and Apache from 2006 to early 2014, plus dozens more for ATAC from 2012 to early 2014, all in a two-seat Hunter. Additionally, after LA’s maintainers overhauled and modified Hunters to join the fleet, I conducted about 10 first “test” flights as well as a half-dozen similar first “test” flights for LA’s further modified “Next Generation” Hunters. I personally think this means that I know a bit about this stuff.

I too have seen a few versions of the aforementioned email “going around for months” which gathered well-circulated rumours, cherry-picked premises and questionable criticism about most aspects of the ATAC-LA Hunter program. I only wasted a moment shortlisting those who might benefit from this dubious compilation and then easily ignored it all.

In summary, it is my opinion that the negative perceptions previously posted here do not reflect what I had observed and experienced while working for my former clients for many years, including:

• Each of ATAC’s Hunter pilots had demonstrated a high standard of knowledge, skill, professionalism and proficiency to me. I confidently staked my reputation and their lives on being right each time I qualified a pilot, when I considered him ready to be safely and solely responsible for the aircraft and his life. I still have copies of nearly 200 Hunter flight training and check flight reports that I submitted with these positive opinions. Since then, there have been some mistakes and mishaps, lessons were learned and plenty of bar stories were amassed over the years, as it happens with flying, but I thought all those pilots were good, safe and trustworthy, which was why I said so and I still believe the right call was made each time. Unfortunately, one of these accomplished and competent pilots would be killed in the accident of May 2012 after gaining 15 months of Hunter experience. In my opinion, this tragedy had nothing to do with his actual flying but, ultimately, it was the course of action he inexplicably chose while contradicting all the knowledge, training, emphasis, mutual support and checklist guidance that I knew had been properly provided. This same opinion largely applies to the somewhat similar but non-fatal accident in France in 5 years earlier, which was when the lessons learned were further emphasized during all future training. I had no personal knowledge or involvement with any of the other accidents listed earlier.

• Each time the LA, ATAC or Apache maintainers determined that a jet was ready for me to fly, I trusted them, went flying (after carrying out all the normal checks) and always made it back safely. This significant trust with the maintainers was always present, but it was particularly crucial whenever I flew a “test” flight, sometimes just days after the jet had been in a million pieces, or after an engine change. I even had enough confidence to cross the Atlantic in a Hunter, twice. Mistakes and mishaps have occurred, lessons were learned and plenty of bar stories were amassed over the years but I went flying each time because, in my opinion, all of these aircraft, their maintenance programs and their maintainers were good, safe and trustworthy.

• I knew nothing about certification issues other than how to verify the validity of a certificate. As far as I knew, all of the aircraft and all of the flights were always properly approved by the appropriate authorities and were always operated legally, which was why I went flying all those times.

I do not plan to frequent this site, so if any former colleague wants to confirm anything I wrote here, just email me: my family name @ yahoo dot com

Sack

HuggyU2

"Well, that'll just about cover the flybys".

Good post. Thanks for the perspective.

USMCFLYR

If you do frequent the site again Sack - I'm much better at ILSs now


Thanks for the write-up, thanks for the training and thanks for the mentoring.

resolater

Anyone still following this? It has been some time.

Got this sent from ********
Hawker Hunter F.58, N325AX, Hunter Aviation International: Incident occurred January 26, 2016 in Newport News, Virginia

Date: 26-JAN-16
Time: 15:15:00Z
Regis#: N325AX
Aircraft Make: HAWKER
Aircraft Model: HUNTER
Event Type: Incident
Highest Injury: None
Damage: Unknown
Activity: Other
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
FAA Flight Standards District Office: FAA Richmond FSDO-21
City: NEWPORT NEWS
State: Virginia

AIRCRAFT ON LANDING, GEAR COLLAPSED, NEWPORT NEWS, VA

It's been said that Hunter Aviation International is pretty much the US company for Canadian Lortie Aviation (same owner) who lease out and do maintenance for the Hunters that Airborne Tactical Advantage Company fly, so this must be an ATAC incident at home base.

How many landing gear failures do ATAC Hunters have in their history? I was told 3 in the last few years, but the records seem scattered/hidden/missing. Any other weak structural parts? Between that and the many brake/wheel/tire failures and photos seen of their jets in the infield over the years, isn’t something just wrong with the old system design?

One ATAC maintainer said their Hunter gear struts being “x-ray” tested finding a lot of corrosion at such an old age, definitely creating weak points, with only equally old replacements are around. Does this explain the incident above? Is there no time limit on crucial parts like this?

I see ATAC uses up to 4 extra-large ferry fuel tanks on all their jets usually, something never intended for operational use, just long range deployment, even when the Hunters were new. Isn’t that a lot of extra stress and fatigue on wings and struts/wheels? Could this part of the problem with gear struts breaking? Seat is not zero-zero, so what are the options when a landing goes bad with gear breaking?

I also heard about the two ATAC pilots who were fired after belly landings at Point Mugu. Was it only their fault? Why no landing gear down? No system warning? No back up system?

Is ATAC going to replace these anytime soon? 50 years or so does seem like pushing it a lot.

Thanks for any answers. Good luck.