Message posted by Magoo on August 03, 2000 at 22:42:04 EST:

Hi Joerg

Glad to hear the pilot is OK.

By the sounds of it, you say the tail section is intact, there are no skid marks, and the aircraft is basically whole, it may have 'flatpanned' in, i.e. hit the ground in a flat spin. This would suggest a possible single engine failure, possibly combined with an assymetric control problem.

Loss of assymetric control occurs when the thrust from one side of an aircraft is greater than from the ther side, thus causing an increasing yaw, and eventual flat spin if not brought under control.

F-15s are usually more easy to recover from such problems because their engines are close to together and assymetric control isn't as big an issue. On the other hand, the F-14 or SR-71 is much more difficult to control as their engines are much further apart and are also further from the aircraft centreline.

Magoo

In Reply to: F-15 crash near Rachel during Green Flag posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on August 03, 2000 at 18:51:10 EST:

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