On May 1st. 1983, a dogfight training
took place between two F-15D's and four A-4N Skyhawks over the skies of
the Negev desert in Israel. The F-15D (#957, nicknamed 'Markia Shchakim',
5 killmarks) was used for the training of a new pilot in the squadron.
Here is the description of the event as described in "Pressure Suit":
" At some point I collided with one
of the Skyhawks, at first I didn't realize it. I felt a big strike, and
I thought we passed through the jet stream of one of the other aircraft.
Before I could react, I saw the big fire ball created by the explosion
of the Skyhawk.
The radio started to deliver calls
saying that the Skyhawk pilot has ejected, and I understood that the fire
ball was the Skyhawk, that exploded, and the pilot was ejected automatically.
There was a tremendous fuel stream going out of the wing, and I understood
it was badly damaged.
The aircraft flew without control in
a strange spiral. I re-connected the electric control to the control surfaces,
and slowly gained control of the aircraft until I was straight and level
again. It was clear to me that I should eject. When I gained control I
said :
"Hey, wait, don't eject yet!". No warning
light was on and the navigation computer worked as usual; I just needed
a warning light in my panel to indicate that I missed a wing..." The instructor
ordered me to eject.
The wing is a fuel tank, and the fuel
indicator showed 0.000 so I assumed that the jet stream sucked all the
fuel out of the other tanks. However, I remembered that the valves operate
only in one direction, so that I might have enough fuel to get to the nearest
airfield and land. I worked like a machine, wasn't scared and didn't worry.
All I knew was: as long as the sucker flies, I'm gonna stay inside. I started
to decrease the airspeed, but at that point one wing was not enough.
So I went into a spin down and to the
right. A second before I decided to eject, I pushed the throttle and lit
the afterburner. I gained speed and thus got control of the aircraft again.
Next thing I did was lowering the arresting hook.
A few seconds later I touched the runway
at 260 knots, about twice the recommended speed, and called the tower to
erect the emergency recovery net. The hook was torn away from the fuselage
because of the high speed, but I managed to stop 10 meters before the net.
I turned back to shake the hand of my instructor, who urged me to eject,
and then I saw it for the first time - no wing " |
The IAF (Israeli Air Force) contacted McDonnell
Douglas and asked about the possibility to land an F-15 with one wing .
 MD
replied that this is aero-dynamically impossible, as confirmed by computer
simulations... Then they received the photo.... After two months the same
F-15 got a new wing and returned to action.
"Flight international, 8 June 1985" wrote
about the incident and said that the student who outranked his instructor
was later demoted for disobeying his instructor, then promoted for saving
the aircraft. McDonnell Douglas attributes the saving of this aircraft
to the amount of lift generated by the engine intake/body and "a hell of
a good pilot"
This is definItely a testament to modern
combat aircraft design. Could it be that the fuselage acting as an airfoil,
a high thrust to weight ratio and two engines (differential thrust) helped
in this impressive feat? What about the fact that the F-15 has elevons
and not elevators and so it had some aileron control without the right
wing?
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