Is it possible to land an F-15 with only one wing?

[RisingSun96815]

Israeli Air Force pilot claims his starboard-side wing was ripped off in a mid-air collision, but was able to land the plane successfully anyway. Do you think this is possible or only a hoax?

youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1KBQ96_DI

 

[SpudmanWP]

It's true and well documented.

 

[StevoJH]

Fairly sure this is a photo of the aircraft in question.

 

[NICO]

True story, read a great account somewhere. MDD kept the story under wraps for awhile as it had created interesting applications in damage control and use of other flying surfaces to bring back a damaged fighter.Very similar to years later when a commercial pilot brought back a plane with only engine control after losing hydraulics.

I think USN? has a program inspired by this in creating software that can reconfigure itself and keep flying after battle damage.:idea2

Also, F15 came in WAY hot and remember that big underside with intakes creates not an insignificant amount of lift so yeah it's possible and did happen.

 

[JoeMcFriday]

The pilot's name is Zivi Nidivi and you can see a History Channel vid here:-

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_EXtBEaBbs"]F-15 landing with one wing. Real story. - YouTube[/nomedia]

Cheers,
Mac

 

[RisingSun96815]

What would prevent the plane from rolling uncontrollably clockwise, from port side to starboard side? The left wing would be producing so much more lift than the other side.

 

[StevoJH]

What would prevent the plane from rolling uncontrollably counter-clockwise, from port side to starboard side? The left wing would be producing so much more lift than the other side.

He would have used his control surfaces to counteract the difference in trim (nice way to put it) between the different sides I assume.

I doubt he would have wanted to turn to port/left though...

 

[JoeMcFriday]

What would prevent the plane from rolling uncontrollably counter-clockwise, from port side to starboard side? The left wing would be producing so much more lift than the other side.

The pilot explains what he did in the History Channel link.

Pretty much what Stevo says but with lots of speed and power use.

Cheers,
Mac

 

[My2Cents]

What would prevent the plane from rolling uncontrollably clockwise, from port side to starboard side? The left wing would be producing so much more lift than the other side.

The F-15 must have a ton (no pun intended) of control authority in the tail fins and the (remaining) aileron. It was designed as a highly maneuverable dog fighter, so you would expect a lot, but nobody thought it was enough to do that.

Wonder if anyone is doing wind tunnel testing on other designs to see if they are capable? Or if it could become a design requirement in the future, if they ever design a new manned fighter.

 

[Haavarla]

Remember the F-15C has two engine.
Its perfectly possible to turn an aircraft with just the engines different thrust setting.
You need huge turn radius and and significant higher airspeed.

Remember that Airliner whom lost all hydrolic and manage to land with only engine thrust as control surface, in Egypt or was it Jordan, all survived and the aircraft was not that much damage. It run out of runway and parked right into a minefield..lol.
Awsome handeling by the two pilots!

Today its no big deal as all the new airliners have build in safty program in the FCS, which in case of hydrolic failure, the computer uses the engine to control the Aircraft automaticly.

I think it was on the Bruce Dickensen Airliner documentry.. Great stuff!

 

[Bonza]

I think the incident with the airliner occurred in Iraq, if I'm thinking of the right one - is this it Haavarla?

DHL Aircraft Hit by Missile Over Baghdad Had Lost All Hydraulics

 

[Haavarla]

I'm not sure.
It could be it. It was on a documentry a few years ago..
Anyway, imagine the teamwork of those pilots.
It was so work intesive keeping the aircraft in control that they had little time doing anything else.
I remember that when they lowered the MLG, the aircraft actuall got more easy to control..

 

[Jhom]

This reminds me that at the time that the F-117 was being tested for the first time in the air, the escort pilot radioed the F-117 pilot an asked him if everything was ok... the Nighthawk dude responded yes, everything is fine... and the escort replied well you have lost the right aileron...

The plane didnt even move...

And as far as I know about the airliner incident, yes it was a DHL cargo and no it wasnt over Egypt or Jordan but taking off from Bahgdad Airport, the missile launching was captured in video by a TV team invited by the perpetrators themselves...

 

[SpudmanWP]

Your might be thinking about:

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232"]United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:UA232precrash.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0a/UA232precrash.jpg/260px-UA232precrash.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/0/0a/UA232precrash.jpg/260px-UA232precrash.jpg[/ame].​

It was in July of 1989 on a DC-10 in Iowa. 111 people died but 184 survived.

The 4 pilots survived even after being ignored (the cockpit was smashed flat) for 35 minutes after the crash.

Youtube documentary
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2mqOLzlfU&feature=related"]Flight UA-232 (Crash Landing at Sioux City) - 1/3 - YouTube[/nomedia]


Flight path
View attachment 4795

Seating chart of passengers and who survived.
View attachment 4796

 

[ngatimozart]

Your might be thinking about:

United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.​

It was in July of 1989 on a DC-10 in Iowa. 111 people died but 184 survived.

The 4 pilots survived even after being ignored (the cockpit was smashed flat) for 35 minutes after the crash.

Youtube documentary
Flight UA-232 (Crash Landing at Sioux City) - 1/3 - YouTube


Flight path
View attachment 4795

Seating chart of passengers and who survived.
View attachment 4796

Think there is a TV movie out about it too. IIRC they lost the rudder hydraulics and had other damage to the tailplane as well as aft engine. They did one really good job to get it down.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Israeli Air Force pilot claims his starboard-side wing was ripped off in a mid-air collision, but was able to land the plane successfully anyway. Do you think this is possible or only a hoax?

youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1KBQ96_DI

Its true.

I'd add that as a legacy of this and some other catastrophic similar events, DARPA did some significant work in testing a scaled down F/A18 Superhornet that was fitted with a rapid dismount main wing - ie the entire wing was designed to come off in mid flight and modified flight control systems were then designed tio maintain the aircraft to a safe and flyable (recoverable) state.

All trials have been successful and there is footage of this aircraft recovering after one of its main wings has dismounted.