Tag Archives: fuel tank disintegration

Following is the list of the most interesting consequences of my recent blog posts about the Argentine Air Force IA-63 Pampa crazy flyby and about the Argentinean A-4AR’s tank disintegration:

1. both posts generated comments in a sort of never ending quarrel between those who believe the Argentinean pilots are brave and perform such maneuvers because they are among the best pilots in the world, and those who believe that the Pampa flyby and similar one are only clownish stunts that could be extremely dangerous.
2. since I’m among those who consider “poor airmanship” such improvised air shows, there’s someone who believes I don’t have a high opinion of the Argentine Air Force and Argentinean pilots
3. I’m receiving many more links to videos of similar maneuvers; most of the them about Argentinean aircraft.

Dealing with Pt. 1, I’ve already said that I don’t think the Pampa “low passage” had anything to do with braveness or skill. I don’t even think that there’s a particular need for current military crews to train flying that low. There are many videos of French Mirage F1 flying in Chad at ultra low level, but they don’t seem to fly as low as the Argentine Pampa.

Dealing with Pt.2, I simply sustain that THAT (or THOSE) pilots involved in the maneuvers can be blamed, not all the Argentine Air Force that I deeply respect and that I would like one day or another to be able to know more in-depth and to write about – if they invite me to fly with them for a special report I’ll be more than happy to accept! :-).

Dealing with the videos, I’ve been pointed to a couple that show how risky improvised air shows can be, even when they don’t imply difficult maneuvers. The problem is that in Aviation, “Improvised” things are usually “Dangerous” things….

The following video shows an accident that occurred in 2001 to a T-34 Mentor at the Escuela de Aviación Militar de la Fuerza Aérea Argentina of Cordoba. The formation leader misjudged the position of the left wingman who hit the control tower. The left wingman was watching the leader (as it always happens in formation flying…do you remember what happened to the Blue Angels?) and could not see the left wingtip hitting the tower.

Since not all the videos I receive deal with the Argentine Air Force, here’s one that has been circulating for a while showing a French Rafale almost crashing into the sea during a quite unusual air display next to a ship. I don’t know if it was a pre-planned display or not, and if the aircraft was flown by a qualified display pilot. Still, the plane went too low because of a pilot error (maybe induced by the environment).

One of the recent most discussed topic on this blog was the one about the Argentine Air Force IA-63 Pampa performing a crazy low passage. If you read my post and the subsequent thread of comments, you’ll see that the video caused a debate between those (like me) who consider that flyby an example of poor airmanship and those (mainly Argentinean readers) who believe that the “low passage” showed the skill of Argentinean pilots.

In the meanwhile, a new video shows how risky this performances can be. An amateur footage posted on Liveleak shows an Argentine AF A-4AR Fightinghawk performing a high-G climb from low level whose “collateral effect” is the collapse of the right fuel tank (with debris falling on the airport). Obviously, the maneuver which caused the fuel tank “disintegration” is not as dangerous as the Pampa one, but it demonstrates that flying at low altitudes at high speed (in this case with modernized planes built in the ’70s), when not strictly required for operational purposes, can stress the airframes to such an extent they could break apart, (potentially) causing loss of control of the aircraft or simply rendering an airport unserviceable because of debris and consequent FOD (Foreign Object Damage) risk. Don’t forget that the IA-63 Pampa pilot in the above mentioned video, pulled 5.3 G (the HUD signals “Max G”) in the zooming following the flyby. What if his fuel tank collapsed creating a weight unbalance at ultra-low level?