F11F TIGER
Would you believe that a jet fighter would go so fast that it could shoot itself down? Well, this one did during its armament development program in 1956. Our picture is an F11F flying with the fleet and is similar to the F11 that shot itself down.
On 21 September 1956 an F11 (issue 138620), flown by Tom Attridge, shot itself down during a fireout test of it’s four 20mm guns at Mach 1 (630 knots indicated airspeed at the test altitude). The firing run was started in a shallow dive with the afterburner on. At 625 KIAS, the first firing was a short burst, followed by a short cooling period, and then a burst to fireout. During the run, the aircraft continued to descend and reached a speed of 670 KIAS at fireout.
Immediately after the fireout the windshield was shattered, but not penetrated, by an object and the engine started to run rough. This roughness was reduced at a power setting of about 78%. At this power setting, and descending at about 700 fpm, Attridge turned toward base. On lowering the landing gear and flaps, at 1,200 feet and two miles from touchdown, it became clear that he would not make the runway. He advanced the throttle and the rough engine lost power. The aircraft hit the ground short of the runway and started to burn. Attridge was injured, but managed to clear the downed aircraft.
Upon examination, it was determined that the aircraft, in it’s continuing descent, caught up with the projectiles from the first firing as they lost velocity and the trajectory drop. A projectile entered the right engine intake causing damage to the engine.
Safe firing limitations were established and no further incidents like this have been reported for this aircraft.
Tom Attridge returned to flight-testing for Grumman Aircraft.
More detail of this incident may be found in “Grumman F11F-1 Tiger”, Vol. II, Historical Aviation Album, and “Tiger That Clawed Itself”, Robert Munroe, Aero Album, Vol. I, pp 12-14, Wing Canyon Publishing, Inc.
"Whoops" Explain it to your CO!!!
Masher
