This is an incredible video. Hearing the pilot gasp for air while a) his wingmates yell on the radio and b) seeing the details on the HUD are amazing.
The airspeed goes above Mach 1 while the altitude drops from about 16,000 ft to 4,000 ft. The pilot sustains over 9G when the automated system pulls him out of the dive.
This looks like it was an air combat exercise. At the very start of the video (0:07) you see a big round circle and some lines that are spread a the top and close together at the bottom. That's the EEGS gunsight, and in the censored portions of the screen is likely the bandit/hostile he was tracking. (Exercise of course.)
Either his target slips out of gun range or he switches to a different mode, but regardless it looks like he pursues, rolls 90 degrees and
"buries the stick in his lap" (F-16 has a side stick that doesn't move, but whatever. =). I'm told you have to be careful with this, and probably in the F-16 doubly so. (As C.W. Lemonine has said in a few of his videos, the F-16 will try to kill you.) In the top left of the HUD, straight up from the "C" is a decimal number showing the Gs on the aircraft, and it climbs rapidly from 3-4G up to 9G. He loses about 100knots of airspeed (still pretty fast though!) but then you hear that exhale around 0:18 and he starts to slip off the horizontal and enter that dive. His 9G turn probably is what knocked him out, and yeah, breaks Mach 1 briefly as he heads downward.
Then as ya said, he pulls another 9G when the system pulls him out of the dive.
The "knock it off" calls after are to indicate that they're not fighting anymore. As I understand, that's not slang, that's the actual terminology used.
> The "knock it off" calls after are to indicate that they're not fighting anymore. As I understand, that's not slang, that's the actual terminology used.
Yeah, AIUI that is essentially the safe word (phrase) that anyone can call at any point that says "everyone involved stop now".
You hear SULLY1 call "SULLY knock it off" (command) and then call out his own confirmation/the now conscious pilot calls the confirmation as well.
From what I've read in the past, Auto GCAS computes a 5G recovery pull. Speculation was that the pilot came to consciousness at some point during the recovery and applied some extra input to hit 9Gs.
Pilot recovered while pulling 5G? I'd think they would have designed the GCAS to avoid a crash at all costs, regardless of the Gs required. Crashing is worse
It is designed that way. It realizes that by defining a roll to level and +5G climb as a successful recovery, and preventing the aircraft from being flown into a condition where a successful recovery is impossible.
So if you're flying right above terrain and you suddenly fly down, the airplane should accept your inputs and fly towards terrain until the moment recovery is impossible and will then engage.
Agreed, even if he was conscious during that nose dive, pulling 9.1 G’s would send him right back into GLOC before fully recovering.. and likely into the ground as he was already so low...
Only this computer system could’ve pulled off such a save. Awesome!
how can you read that? I look at your comment and look at the HUD and can't match up any of the numbers and axis to your observations? how do you read this?
They probably used to play flight simulators (I did). The vertical ticker on the left is airspeed in knots. Ticker on the right is altitude in feet. Then underneath the left ticker find the word SIM, directly beneath it is the plane's current mach number, and diagonally below and to the left of that is a counter that tracks the highest G load the plane has sustained (it goes to 8.4 right as the pilot passes out then peaks at 9.1 during the pull out).
The airspeed goes above Mach 1 while the altitude drops from about 16,000 ft to 4,000 ft. The pilot sustains over 9G when the automated system pulls him out of the dive.
Wow!