VAMC

I see you posting a lot about ATAC too.

None of the ATAC accidents occurred during tactical flying: They were all close to the airport during takeoff or landing, with nothing tactical going on.

My interest is in airplanes....and, the high number of accidents at this company that happen during basic flying phases, and why 3 good pilots were killed in the last 3 years by working there, after surviving 20+ years doing far more tactical and demanding flying in the military and in combat.

You are wrong about the Lortie crew. The ATAC Hunter maintainers who take care of daily flight operations are mostly ex-military (not all) but the Lortie maintainers who support ATAC's Hunters (rebuilding them, major maintenance, part overhauls, recurring inspections, engine rebuilding and overhauls, training, etc.) are not ex-military, and few of them have any professional aviation training or experience at all - according to Lortie representatives at ATAC.

USMCFLYR

I use to work there. Did you? I still have friends that work there. Do you?

The mission is tactical from the time you brief to the time you debrief. You maintina that professionalism throughout. What you mean is that they happened during the administrative portion of the flight vice any maneuvering portion - either air-to-air or air-to-ground.

Because - as they told me in the interview - flying vintage tactical aircraft in tactical situations without some of the aids in modern strike fighter aircraft is dangerous. Have you ever seen the cockpits of the Hunter for example? Now try tactical flying, at night or in some poor weather, in formation, 100+ miles out over the ocean without the aid of any night vision googles - while maneuvering in and around other aircraft. And as you have noted - without incident. That is due to the professionals that they hire and the standards that they hold the aircrew too in the performance of every aspect of their missions.

When did ATAC have their first Class A VAMC? Do you know?
How many hours, missions, years did they have a Class A mishap free record? A hint.....it was longer than any USN/USMC squadron that I served in - - - and those mihaps were almost always the dreaded pilot error
Here are two that hit close to home:
Miramar-based F-18 jets collide in Oregon; 2 reported dead [Archive] - Marine Corps - USMC Community
Lemoore Pilot Killed in Crash a N.Y. Marine - Business News - redOrbit

All killed in 'Admin' portions of a tactical training flight - mid-airs with the lead aircraft. The first before they got to the range and the second after the KIO on the join-up to head home.

Can you explain what made those training missions in the fleet fighters more demanding and difficult than they are in the ATAC planes?
I flew almost all of the same type of missions without the aids of modern fighter conveinences (NVGs, Radar, RWR, FLIRs) and the planes demand more attention in some aspects than the modern fighters do too. You could get yourslef out of a few problems in 4th gen fighters with a simple stiff left arm - but you have to think further ahead in MIL only aircraft.

You point to the mishaps being admin. Minutes made the difference. Less than 5 minutes later and we would have been in the area taking the first 9-line. It is an unfortunate truth that many fleet mishaps happen in the admin phase of flight too. We talk about the let-down 'after the mission' and get complacent. For instance - after the KIO is usually once of the most dangerous times.

That is what I said. If that is not what you meant in your original post, then your intent was unclear.

I appreciate you posting these NTSB reports. We can all learn from reading them. Unless you have some insider knowledge or experience with the operation though - your insinuations against the pilots and maintainers of the company itself is disrespectful. If you do - spell it out and quit beating around the bush.

VAMC

I don't think I insinuated anything, and I don't think this is about respect or disrespect. I thought I said it pretty clearly:

Towing, refueling, pitot tube covers, flight control locks, tire pressure, cleaning canopies - that's what I meant by taking care of daily flight operations, done mostly by ATAC's ex-military guys for their Hunters (according to their guys).

Rebuilding, overhauling, repairing and installing parts, engines, landing gear, wings, tails, hydraulics, electrics, ejection seats on the Hunters - that type of thing is handled by Lortie with non-ex-military guys (according to their guys).

As for running out of gas at ground level (without ejecting) and/or running out of options below minimums (without ejecting), and/or continuing to fly against training/procedures/checklists with fuel trapped on one side and then stalling/spinning into the ground (without ejecting), and/or stalling on final approach (without ejecting) and/or failing to abort a take-off with a cold engine/struck brakes (without ejecting) - well, these accidents, all with highly experienced fighter pilots at the controls (20+ years and 3000+ hours in fighters) seems these are all far different from badly flown formation rejoin mid-air (by a 25-yr-old with 6 months on his squadron) or a mid-air from losing sight of a wingman or a badly flown rejoin.

Long before their first destroyed with the A-4 in 2010, I believe their first "Class A" mishap was their Draken that never flew again because of the damage after a landing accident. The point I was making is there is a pattern worth noticing.

Lastly, if you Google "mishap" it gets defined as "an unlucky accident" and Merriam-Webster says "a small mistake or amount of bad luck." When very bad decisions or techniques cause fatal and/or Class A accidents, including failing to eject in order to survive, I don't think that's a small mistake or that it has much to do with luck - whereas a near miss pass vs. a mid-air collision (having made the same bad decisions) does have a lot to do with luck in the big sky. Then again, as I'm sure you know, they say it's better to be lucky than good.

HuggyU2

VAMC,
I'm just curious. You've made 7 posts and all pertain to ATAC.
What's the background story? There's some connection with you and ATAC.

F4E Mx

If you are trying to fly three different types of older aircraft you have to maintain three separate spares stocks. You have to manage three different sets of manufacturer approved maintenance and parts manuals and three different FAA-accepted inspection programs. You have to have three different training programs. You have to maintain relations with three aircraft manufactures, in this case one in Europe, one in Israel, and one in the US. You have to establish a relationship with three engine companies, two in the US and one in the UK. As the small aircraft fleet ages and fewer and fewer examples are in service, vendors who normally will overhaul and certify engines and components stop doing so as they cannot afford to stock the parts they need to overhaul the components or allocate space, manpower, and machinery needed to do so. You can maintain a large fleet of older aircraft, the USAF's KC-135 fleet comes to mind, which is impeccably maintained. You cannot do it on the cheap and there is no point in pretending you can.

USMCFLYR

They are called accidents in naval aviation.
They are called mishaps.
I didn't make the name up, but try and find a accident binder in the ready room.

No - all of the mishaps that you mention are not different.
They are like many mishaps that happen through a chain of events leading to the mishap in every community in every service.

trip

F4E MX pretty much nailed it.
I know a MX type at NFL, an old A4 guy from Gitmo who's still in the business. He told me the condition of the contract jets left a lot to be desired when they came to NFL. Not a good indication of the state of the company.
It's a great business plan and I hope it can work out in the future, maybe the L39 will be the best platform going forward.
R.I.P

USMCFLYR

Which A-4s
The 'N' models or the 'L' models?

Never had a problem with the 'N' models that I heard about.
The 'L' models were being run to hot. ATAC maintenance was the ones to determine that through their investogation - not the information given to the company during the leasing process/certification process.
When they figured this out (partly after the loss of the A-4L in Fallon), they grounded the planes and never flew them again.

VAMC

Well, the FAA itself figured some things out about the Hunters too, when they published their "Hawker Hunter Airworthiness Certification" report and refused to have anything to do with Airborne Tactical Advantage Company Hunters, "Experimental" or not. And this is just for the Hunters.

To keep ATAC in the air, the Navy took over "certification" and apparently ignored all of the FAA's conclusions, since nothing changed about the aircraft. While "Experimental" aircraft have lots of leeway, the Navy's "Public Use" blanket of "certification" hasn't fixed any of these issues. These are not private joy ride or air show fly-by jets, these are commercially operated aircraft in a large operation, a whole different ball game for the FAA.

This list of highlights from that report, it's a list that's been going around for months. These are the FAA's words (the author's words are in parentheses) from the document at the link provided above:

1. Not safe for flight over populated areas, including take-offs and landings. (ATAC does this.)
2. Not safe for night flying. (ATAC does this.)
3. Not safe for instrument flying. (ATAC does this, some jets have newer but uncertified instrumentation.)
4. Not safe for known icing conditions. (ATAC does this.)
5. Not safe for target towing. (ATAC does this.)
6. Not safe for operations on any runway with standing water. (ATAC does this.)
7. Not safe for asymmetric wing mounted equipment. (ATAC does this.)
8. Not safe for Class B airspace. (ATAC does this.)
9. Recommendation to refrain from overhead break patterns. (ATAC does this, and ATAC’s Charles Rogers crashed on 29 October 2014 while doing this.)
10. Recommendation for a minimum runway length of 8000 feet. (ATAC bases: Kaneohe Bay, HI is 7771 feet. On the very edge: Newport News, VA is 8003 feet, Jacksonville, FL is 8000 feet. Because those are the cheapest options that make the most money.)
11. Recommendation that ejections seats be replaced. (Not done. So far, three ATAC/Lortie Hunter accidents with three dead pilots who didn’t properly eject, maybe due to very old seats with expired components.)



For all jets this old and unreliable, the same FAA report also said the safety concerns and risk factors include:

1. ‘Lack of consideration of inherent and known design failures.’ (Hunters with obsolete designs)
2. ‘Several single point failures.’ (Hunters with almost no back up systems and only 1 very old engine rebuilt by and self-certified by Lortie)
3. ‘Operations outside the scope of the airworthiness certificate being sought.’ (As ATAC has with ‘Research and Development’ or ‘Exhibition’ certificates)
4. ‘Insufficient flight test requirements.’ (Lortie jets are very modified with no flight test program for validation data)
5. ‘Unsafe and untested modification.’ (Lortie jets are very modified with no flight test program for validation data)
6. ‘Operations over populated areas.’ (ATAC does this)
7. ‘Operations from unsuitable airports.’ (ATAC does this all over, in VA, FL, HI, Japan, Philippines, Germany, etc.)
8. ‘Ejection seat safety and operations not adequately addressed.’ (As with Lortie jets, and 3 deaths)
9. ‘Weak maintenance practices to address low reliability of aircraft systems and engines.’ (As with ATAC and Lortie with no real oversight)
10. ‘Ignoring required inspection schedules and procedures.’ (ATAC and Lortie invent their own ‘on condition’ visual inspections by their own flexible, decreasing standards, instead of the required military or manufacturer programs)
11. ‘Limited pilot qualifications, proficiency and currency’ (Charles Rogers was probably flying without proper Hunter flight training)
12. ‘Inadequate accident investigation data.’

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Stearman65

I've reported VAMC for libel.