Every Year, USAF Pilots are required to attend an instrument ground school, take a written test, and fly an instrument check ride.
One year while stationed at Moody AFB, in the F-4E, I was going through the instrument check ride process, ground school, written test, and was scheduled for the flight check. The SEFE (Standardization Evaluation Flight Examiner) came to the squadron and we briefed the flight profile. We would takeoff and I would fly an instrument departure procedure, demonstrate a point to point leg as we climbed to altitude for “confidence maneuvers” which were various aerobatic and advanced handling maneuvers. With that completed, we would then proceed to a high TACAN penetration to an instrument approach, missed approach, and various other types of instrument approaches with a single engine approach and landing.
So, we get to high altitude and start the confidence maneuvers of the profile. At altitude, the SEFE asks for loop. Entry speed for a loop in the Phantom is 500 knots and requires 10,000 feet of vertical airspace to accomplish if done correctly. He asks for a barrel roll (which, by the way, is not a defensive move in the real world of air combat), I do it by the book, and he then asks for a high AOA rudder roll.
A side note here. I’ve just come from an F-4E Air to Air Squadron, the 36 Tactical Fighter Squadron, aka “The Fantastic Flying Fiends”, at Osan AB, ROK. A typical dogfight sortie was flown clean (no eternal drop tanks or other stores) and would last maybe 45 minutes from takeoff to landing. We became VERY proficient and comfortable flying the Rhino to the edge of the performance envelope and sometimes hang the jet out over the edge. A good offensive dogfight seldom required more than 5-5 1/2 Gs if energy management was done properly. More Gs than that after landing was a pretty good indicator of being forced into a defensive state. Our max clean symmetrical G load was +7.33. So, energy management was key. It was foolish and unsurvivable to do anything that would unnecessarily burn off stored energy. The High AOA Rudder Roll was one of those maneuvers. It was never used in a fight because the result was a gross bleed off of energy, virtually stop the jet, turning it into a hot air ballon, and require nose down with full AB (great heat source for an IR missile) in an attempt to regain fighting energy. Not to mention being a full fledged defensive grape at this point.
So, back to my check ride and the requested High AOA Rudder Roll. I push the nose over while selecting full MIL power (a mechanical stop short of selecting AB) and accelerate to about 500 knots. I intentionally do a milk toast maneuver by pulling to about 4 Gs, pull the nose up short of “high” AOA, and roll the nose with the rudder around a 360 degree arc in an effort to preserve energy vs burn it off and waste gas regaining energy in order to get the “Instrument” part of my Instrument check ride completed. From the back seat comes “no,no, no,that’s not how it’s done let me show you how it’s done I’ve got the jet.” We transfer control of the jet as pre briefed.
He aggressively punches into AB, aggressively dumps the nose, and accelerates as our straps are floating from the push over. Once we are at entry airspeed, he yanks on the pole aggressively, attains HIGH AOA, stomps on the rudder, and the Phantom gains a mind of its own. It instantaneously departs any semblance of controlled flight and is tumbling, rolling, and pirouetting all at the same. I have transition from hands resting my legs to arms braced along the canopy rails as we ride through his “demonstration”. I am silently snickering YGTBSM and keep my mouth shut as he starts the “Aircraft Out of Control Recovery” procedure. Stick forward, rudder and ailerons neutral, throttles idle, drag chute (as necessary), and wait for the jet to deplete its energetic gyrations and become flyable. In an out of control situation, we are required to eject no later than 10,000 feet AGL (as with all modern day jets) if control has not been regained. We started this somewhere in the mid 20,000 foot range and were starting to regain “control” of the jet well above 10,000 feet.
He recovers to stable flight and we transfer control. We then proceed to the High TACAN fix for a penetration to an ILS, low approach, and fly the various prebriefed instrument approaches, and land. Everything before and after his demo was uneventful.
In the post flight debrief, I have a sh*t eatin’ grin as he glosses over the confidence maneuvers. He knows the demo came close enough to forcing us to eject during an instrument check. My grin also spoke volumes. So, he proceeded to nit pick all of my instrument approaches which were flown within acceptable standards and safely.
Sometimes, silence is pure gold.
