Ovearhead break landings during wartime?
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Pretty much what the title says, is it realistic to use overhead patterns to land your flight during a war if the weather doesn’t require IFR?
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@Master-Yoda said in Ovearhead break landings during wartime?:
Pretty much what the title says, is it realistic to use overhead patterns to land your flight during a war if the weather doesn’t require IFR?
Yes, I think so. I think it was actually developed for wartime operations to be able to recover aircraft quicker than when they come straight in.
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@Master-Yoda said in Ovearhead break landings during wartime?:
Pretty much what the title says, is it realistic to use overhead patterns to land your flight during a war if the weather doesn’t require IFR?
Not with live ordnance under the wings.
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@Dee-Jay said in Ovearhead break landings during wartime?:
@Master-Yoda said in Ovearhead break landings during wartime?:
Pretty much what the title says, is it realistic to use overhead patterns to land your flight during a war if the weather doesn’t require IFR?
Not with live ordnance under the wings.
Are you sure about that? This F-14 carrying a JDAM is doing an overhead break at 3:25:
Granted, that is on a carrier and may be different than at an airfield. Here in Holland I’m not sure about what they do when carrying bombs, but I’m certain I’ve seen the QRA F-16’s carrying live Amraams and sidewinders do overhead breaks:
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It depends. Unless the ops group commander determines that local conditions (threat condition, populated areas, etc) dictate otherwise, pilots will not fly overhead patterns with unexpended heavy-weight ordnance (larger than BDU-33).
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@Master-Yoda - in the Navy/USMC, yes. I know guys that did that during the Afghan wars - both over the ship, and ashore. General rule of thumb - “you fight like you train”.
As for unexpended ords - pilots do not like to bring live ords home, but they sometimes will depending on how many are left in the magazine or what they are…in general missiles are always brought home. Otherwise, afloat they will just drop them into the sea on the way home, or in the shore based Afghan case they had a specific area where they could go drop them prior to landing.
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@Stevie said in Ovearhead break landings during wartime?:
@Master-Yoda - in the Navy/USMC, yes. I know guys that did that during the Afghan wars - both over the ship, and ashore. General rule of thumb - “you fight like you train”.
As for unexpended ords - pilots do not like to bring live ords home, but they sometimes will depending on how many are left in the magazine or what they are…in general missiles are always brought home. Otherwise, afloat they will just drop them into the sea on the way home, or in the shore based Afghan case they had a specific area where they could go drop them prior to landing.
I read that too, but I also remember reading that at some point they stopped dropping them, because it became too expensive. At some point the wars slowed down enough that they hardly ever had to drop ordnance in combat anymore. So at that point I read it became standard to bring it back and land with ordnance.
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@Tomcatter31 - Yes…as mentioned, it depends on what’s left in the magazine at some point.
Or if you’re operating on the ship - those guys really don’t like to come home heavy - for one thing, the wire won’t stand for it. One of the things I went looking for firstly in BMS was a max landing weight limitation, and I couldn’t find one. An FF-16 is a little jet and maybe it doesn’t matter, but for Navy jets it matters a lot.
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@Stevie said in Ovearhead break landings during wartime?:
max landing weight limitation, and I couldn’t find one
The F16 has no maximum landing weight
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@Korbi - Yeah…that’s what I’ve sort of noodled and have been operating to.
I still have a feeling that is matters for arrested landings, though…but I’d need to see engagement data for the field gear.