F-16 Tree Strike Confession 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Yes grass hopper.

Winner!

Brian Landers yeah my wood chipper bogs down chewing inch branches I’d love to have a donk like that in the back yard 🌳🌲. This guys incredible to bring it home. I’d hate to be the one cleaning his suit. 💩

Callsigns of no use if you get your wings taken away

Topper or Lopper also.

What happened to the last f16 you bought?

@@yamabushi170 I hit a tree

@@woox200sx perhaps flying isn't for you. Try branching out.

@@yamabushi170 Yes, that could be the 'root' of the problem

@@woox200sx agreed. Let's leave it at that.

*Slightly used, one careful owner*

@@smeghead666 "Never taken off road, 35 million, No tyre kickers, I know what it's worth."

No problem, there are no trees and no ridges in Indonesia. And no one shooting at you, either, shouting "Hey, you're wasting my taxes! Bang bang bang bang!"

Trust me the Indonesians DON'T have that much cash. We give them $1 billion a year to stop people smugglers bringing in illegals to Australia. But NONE OF IT gets to their border patrol. All just goes into the higher ups pockets. I asked a family member in the military. He told me it's REALLY just APPEASEMENT money to stop them getting ideas of invading Australia. They could easily outdo us in sheer numbers, but we have the better gear and more money.

How about the pilot? Still in use? How about the _tree?!_

I think just a few thick branches and not the tree.

I thought if the dude lost his job he must have ejected and ditched the entire aircraft. Yea he fucked up, people ding cars in parking lots - we’ve all done it. But nobody died, and if anything he’s less likely to repeat these mistakes than anybody else.

@@thefloridamanofytcomments5264 right I can see if it's a repeat offense but shit it makes you a better operator.

it is far better to make your mistake in training rather than in combat. This is the very specific purpose of training.

10,000

I was stationed there at that time (16th AMU) and remember that! LOL! Left there and went to the "Kun" in "82."

@Bob Loblaw I remember the incident but not the name. Do you remember the foreign pilot that crashed landed at the end of the runway because he forgot to close the IFR door after refueling.

I was in the Navy and I thought we had the stupidest pilots. Now I'm starting to wonder ... I worked on electronics - mostly fire control - and we had a running joke with the pilots. We would always say that pilots thought OFF stands for On Full Force and when it doesn't work in the OFF position they ask for R&R of said module. The squadron O-Level will take it out - they don't argue with the pilots - and replace with another piece of gear. Then when it gets to the AIMD shop (where I worked) nothing would be wrong with it. That happened several times to me on various pieces of gear. The running joke about OFF was usually applied in these situations. There was one airman who actually wrote up on the ticket that it was no fix and the reason was because OFF doesn't stand for On Full Force. Yeah, he got a talking to by the chief, but it was probably worth it in the long run ;)

Yes I was there in 4th AMU in 79 through 82 before going to Korea, and remember that incident well because we had to pull 4 x 4 piece out of the Leading Edge flap where it tried to rip the missile rail off, and other chunks then we had to straighten out the electronics because we had all kind of crazy symbology showing up on the HUD... sure made for some interesting art on the bulletin board

@@kirkf4crewdawg604 yeah man I was there in the 4th AMU from late 79 through 82 before going to the Headhunters in Korea ,I remember that well after pulling all the pieces out of that aircraft and trying to straighten out the electronics, they were showing crazy symbology. and lots of goofy artwork on the bulletin boards!

Da Hawk ^ this guy gets it. The pilots "I thought I could screw the pooch on ridge crossings" story is blatantly BULL SHIT to anyone who's served.

Apparently real life is much closer to Just Cause 2 rules; hit much of anything and you're pretty much screwed. Also nice profile pic lol

Aww yea!

its like in gta where if you touch a tree branch you instantly explode

You definitely can just like in the movies. ONCE 😂👍

try DCS

Lol me too

Same lmfao

Same.

"Trigger crashed ! ......... Drooling idiot !"

Me too

This comment lmao

Sancho El Fantastico Human sacrifices ONLY.

xdddddddd

Justice Warrior titanium vs wood

There's a YT video on an F15 like plane, that lost a complete wing and made it back safe. One wing and the wide fuselage and high speed kept it going!

Voor Naam no he sucked about 5 feet of the top of an evergreen fur into the intake, as well as sheering the trees level on his left wing. Titanium is hardened to perhaps allow a damaged aircraft to fly long enough to allow ejection if the pilot is able. Despite their size and assumed fragility the f-16 is a stout machine. He was saved because he clipped the top of the tree. The intake ate and spit out the majority of the tree. His speed is truly what saved him.

No. He was too slow. Faster means kinetic energy to get over those trees. Too slow is dangerous. You saw it yourself. Crash.

Voor Naam he hit a tree, and went right through it. His mission was NOE high aspect ambush. He even says his IAS at the time of impact was over 400knots. He also said he never pulled back on the stick. I get the feeling you’re being purposefully argumentative, but your words just reveal you know very little and didn’t even listen to the pilots own testimony. He didn’t have a lack of energy, he wasn’t looking, that’s his own words.

He was actually returned to Flying Status after this mishap... but, he had to make this video "confession" if you will before they would allow it...

Well, there have been call signs given for worse behaviour, and those kept their wings. Sometimes i don't get that kind of decisionmaking.

We really can't know, we weren't there or know everythig related. But in aviation, what you did and how you got there is seldom important to the question of why didn't do certain things before inflight event. As an aviator failure chains in the human and machine and environment are to be managed by a quick and capable and frankly, unerring mind. Maintaining spatial and terrain awareness being key. He received low level training and was aware of the risks and hazards in his situation. He absolutely prioritized a bird and some faux situational awareness of his surroundings over low level aviating within a valley and it hijacked his SA, or was seriously negligent and definitely recklessly complacent about crosschecks (CFIT time to die) prioritization. Put it another way. If you saw a cat on a mountain road (with a raveen on one side) and that momentary distraction almost caused a head-on collision with a truck, and I were a cop, had it on dashcam, a judge would consider hard to suspend your licence. Now imagine if you were a bus driver with 50 people on your bus? Ok fine, you didn't become a bus driver but a fighter pilot. And the cat was a bird. Is almost dying and destroying an aircraft because such a stupid mistake a reason to loose wings? I hope so. Not to say that all people don't deserve a second chance, but that's an exception and the USAF has plenty of new pilots to choose from that will be a little more careful.

Yeah, but you get to be a General by CYA and politics. That's the mindset that will overturn a deal and stick it to an underling.

Counter productive?? He was a seasoned pilot. He made the mistakes. He DOES deserve this reprimand!! And lose his wings.

@@SharkyShark94 Agreed!!!

@@SharkyShark94 He didn't save his career. He lost his wings.

@@SharkyShark94 not the right call. everybody makes mistakes. He lived to fly another day, and it wasnt negligent. How much did it cost to train him ? All that lost for what ?

Omg I thought exaclty the same thing .. LMAO

I love it when someone with personal experience of the incident mentioned in the youtube video comments on that video. thanks for your input!

NPC's do like their unrelated nasty posts.

@CSXRockford and trump is making sure of.it

@Jake Heke lol milotary aviation vids are always a shitshow

You civs need to chill out. Take your politics to Reddit.

It's a switch near the HUD to select details on the hud. When dog fighting during this era some pilots felt it was cleaner. It's very much like cleaning all the toolbars in a program when only needing one. Why clutter eyes, mind, and brain with visual noise when not needed? Aha! Gotcha.

Ahahaha true.

Just keep your head up and go visual.

Fucking gold 😂👌

Nostra Dumbass also at 5:26.

He didn't use all that experience to not hit a tree, didn't he?

@@mike89128 hitting the tree was the experience you bloody idiot

some people don't understand...

However if it takes hitting a tree for him to learn not to turn off all the nav aids, then the rest of his education could be very expensive.

@@tjsbbi Im sure this person learned their lesson and will most likely (if he was still in the Air Force) tell that story to everyone, so, not only the educational video, but the actual person who made the mistake can re assure other training pilots. This will likely reduce the amount of times a similar situation will occur drastically.

For low level flying there are quite a few reasons. You don't know the heights of the peaks, so referencing crossing altitudes to it won't work. The radar altimeter only tells you your current altitude with respect to the terrain, not the altitude to terrain infront, so even knowing the altitude wouldn't have alerted him to the approaching ridge line. However, having it on would tell him just how low he is crossing the previous ridgelines, letting him make a mental picture of a safe height. It probably isn't a factor here, but having a decluttered HUD would help with visual scans for obstacles (powerlines, windmills, other narrow items) that could be masked by the altitude tape.

As said, it is not accurate on ridgelines, and overreliance on such tech supports overconfidence and complacency. Know the limits of the system and use your mk1 eyeball.

in such hilly terrain an altitude figure basically means nothing

And.. if you have something in your HUD during an Air to Air engagement, where you normally would be high up... means it could block your vision...

Guy thought he had set the warning 200ft below lower limit of 300, had actually set it 250ft below that, and even then broke through several times. This was entirely on him. Im not sure if there is even a lesson learned. Oh dont be severely negligent? Nice

ravener , I agree the pilot was at fault. I’m not a pilot so if these mistakes/negligence are clear grounds for straight dismissal then i will agree with that too. However, I’ll make a “layman’s guess” that the habits that this pilot had picked up through his career were practiced by several of his colleagues as well. If so, then the question of how to prevent recurrence becomes more complicated in my mind. I believe that this sort of presentation leads to a positive learning: “if we keep doing this we can clearly get killed, so let’s all agree to change our behavior”. The next time someone screws up, they may be open to sharing that lesson too. Unfortunately when we are quick to dismiss those that screw up, it can build a culture of everyone’s immediate reaction to mistakes/negligence is to collectively cover up the incident.

And this one is still flying.

leeveraction, Strickland didn't separate, he's a Colonel now and vice commander of the 9th Recon Wing, home of the U2 Dragon Lady fleet. Not bad after pancaking an F16.

Stricklin was not drummed out of the service. He flew a desk for a while, but ended up as an instructor. He made a dumb mistake in not doing something they teach you on the very first day of flight school: Set your altimeter to local conditions! This "tree incident" is different. The whole point of the exercise is to press your luck. I would imagine that they evaluated what happened and decided not to waste all that training. If they threw everyone out who did something dumb there would be no pilots.

It all depends on why they commit an error. Generally you don't want to get rid of pilots after situations like those, because the more experience a pilot has, the more valuable they are as a pilot, especially if it's a rare experience. An exception would be if they have a track record of reckless behavior - but even then they would usually be terminated due to psychological evaluation even before they would get into that kind of clusterfuck. Usually.

Haha! No… I had only a 3/4" tape deck to copy this from. There was no more useful info on the original, so I stopped recording there. I've gotten more skills since then. Funny RU-vid handle, BTW.

@@KutWrite When this mishap occurred, I was the "on call" video guy at Nellis. The AIB Colonel showed up with a handful (8) 3/4" Umatic tapes and asked if we could make dubs of them. Sure... so I took them in the back and just by pure chance, I grabbed the mishap airplane tape first and stuck it in the machine. Not knowing anything about the mishap and watching this sortie "AS IT HAPPENED"....... Later on, when this pilot was required to make the "confession", we produced it, it was shot in our studio at Nellis. I edited this video and it was sent out to the entire fighter community so everyone could learn from his mistakes. He was returned to flying status afterwards.

@@LVVideoGuy: Thanks for those details. I got one of your dubs at TOPGUN and filled multiple instructor requests for dubs... also in 3/4".

WalksWithTurkeys *MILL - E - YONS*

yeah especially since the video itself was how he was supposed to keep his wings. and lets face it I think the both harassment of having to make the video and the fact he probably scared himself shitless when it happened is enough that he would never do anything like that again so pulling his wings is like saying I know you have been punished but guess what you are getting another even worse one now oh and go fuck yourself.

No, most pilots don't fly into terrain, this was not "just a mistake". He broke the rules and lost control in a no-pressure situation. There must be consequences to breaking rules, so people take them seriously - especially in the military where someone's recklessness can easily cost a fortune and get other people killed.

You won't be allowed anywhere near an F-16 Fighting Falcon by calling the job an "F16 driver"

BraeJordan04 pilots tend to call each other "drivers", thats just a slang. OP is ahead if he already knows his slang

@@Killdozer-do4mc yes, but I highly doubt he was using slang pilot terminology in a RU-vid comment section. Plus, you refer to the occupation as a "pilot" not a driver. You don't ask to be a receptionist and then say "I wanna be a desk sitter"

@@braeeee_ except, it's been common knowledge that the men and women behind the stick refer to themselves as Drivers. "I'm an Eagle Driver, she's a Viper Driver, He Drives a Super Hornet." Even 1984s RedDawn "LtCol Tanner introduced himself as an Eagle Driver. This isn't secret knowledge.

@@Reeeetard at no point did I say it was

Nope. Not at TOPGUN. The hard deck is much higher than 50 feet.

@@KutWrite Maybe I got the name wrong... senior moment. Red Flag most probably. I can assure you Buccaneers were flying at 50 feet on occasions. US fighters positioned themselves to shoot as the Buccaneers rose over ridges only to find the Buccaneer pilots were inverting as they rose over the ridge and went right side up after passing. Not a single Bucc was downed over the entire exercise.

@@oriorda9470My instructor was one of these RAF pilots, he remembers the Americans being told outright that if they tried to follow the Buccaneers and survived, they’d be court martialed. the Buccaneer has blown boundary layer control to assist with low level flying

Read the description, that is the exact case.

Captain for life.

what happens to those destroyer captains who run their ships into cargo freighters even though they have the best radar systems on the planet?

www.stripes.com/news/how-would-admiral-nimitz-have-been-dealt-with-in-today-s-navy-1.102689

They were not meant to operate on carriers, nor to actually shoot, so they did not need beefed up landing gear, navy tailhooks nor weapons. The TopGun school then was based in Miramar, on land. The purpose of the plane was to provide an adversary, an "enemy" fighter that looked different from the F-14s that the Navy flew, and to simulate the flight characteristics and tactics of the enemy planes (generally Soviet designed) that the Navy pilots would encounter, from the older Mig17s up through the 4th generation aircraft like Su-27 and Mig 29. Operational guns and missiles were replaced with dummy missiles and instrumentation that allowed the training dogfights to be analyzed and show the F-14 pilots what happened, so they could learn from it and do better next time.

You're gonna have a lot of posthumous promotions with that standard.

Well , I didn't say they should fly INTO the trees , just really , really , really , really , really close to the trees.

Haha! That was Jerry Mathers, though. A callsign would simply be "Beaver" or better, "Beav."

Read the description and click "show more." The details I know are there.

@Brian Landers I dont see where he is a "wannabe" based on his comment. But you do you. I am on the fence about the pilots wings being taken away, but if it serves as a future warning to future pilots and a reminder to the veteran pilots. So be it.

USA is not a third word country where hardware is valued more than the trained operators. For countries which produce military hardware, the price of the equipment is a reference value they would demand when selling the equipment to other countries. Usually the military equipment is given away later to friendly countries in the form of aid and a dollar value us assjgned to it to show how much aid is given away. Look at the Arizona desert where hundreds of surplus F-16s are parked. Do you think that equipment will be produced in such numbers and deemed surplus if it really cost someone several million dollars?

Brian Landers Are you really that insecure?

@@juliomaldonado4028 He isn't ever going to be allowed into the cockpit of a IATA airliner, except maybe to clean it. No airline will hire him.

@@juliomaldonado4028 on the other hand, I think he should've kept his wings. The USAF invested however much fixing the plane cost in training him, and chances are, he's gonna be safer than a pilot that's not been in an accident going forwards.