In 1956, the Grumman aircraft corporation was testing its recent fighter, the F-11 Tiger, off the coast of Latest York state. The pilot fired an extended burst from its guns and moments later suffered mysterious, catastrophic damage that caved within the windshield and mortally wounded the engine. What happened? The pilot had shot himself down.
The F-11 Tiger, like all Grumman aircraft, was named after a cat. Fast and nimble, the F-11 was only the second supersonic fighter within the Navy’s inventory, able to 843 miles per hour (Mach 1.1).
This content is imported from poll. Chances are you’ll give you the option to seek out the identical content in one other format, or it’s possible you’ll give you the option to seek out more information, at their website online.
The plane was actually Grumman’s first supersonic fighter, and the corporate’s inexperience with the implications of supersonic flight, in addition to the fighter’s amazing speed, could be one test Tiger’s undoing.
On September 21, 1956, as DataGenetics explains, a Grumman test pilot flying a Tiger off the coast of Long Island dropped his nose 20 degrees and pointed it at an empty spot of the ocean. He fired a temporary, four-second burst from his 4 Colt Mk.12 20-millimeter cannons, entered a steeper descent, and hit the afterburners.
A minute later, his windshield suddenly caved in and his engine began making funny noises, eventually conking out because the pilot attempted to return to Grumman’s Long Island airfield.
The test pilot had assumed he had been the victim of a bird strike, however the accident investigation revealed one other cause: In his fast descent, the pilot had actually flown into his own stream of 20-millimeter cannon rounds.
Although the rounds had a head start (the air speed of the aircraft, plus the muzzle velocity of the rounds) they slowed quickly resulting from drag passing through the encompassing air. The rounds decelerated, the Tiger accelerated, and the 2 reunited within the sky, with fatal (for the aircraft) consequences.
The Tiger was totaled through the crash and the pilot, while severely injured, was capable of return to flight status lower than six months later. The Navy only purchased 200 Tigers, and withdrew them from service once faster, higher planes just like the F-8 Crusader and F-4 Phantom II entered the fray.
The Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team flew the F-11 Tiger until 1969.