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F-14 Question, yes, another one!!


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This one is not an easy one! I was looking at some pictures of the Tomcat and I noticed a detail that it's hard to see unless from a museum or Vulture's Row. If you take a look inside the air bleed doors, you'll find some kind of actuator or reinforcement bar, as seen HERE and HERE Now the question is, was it present in all Tomcats or just in some early batches??

 

Thanks!!

I.Martin

Edited by I.Martin
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I heard a story somewhere that the door on the top used to move but were disabled after a technician had his head in there, electrical power was applied to the airplane and the door closed and he was killed. Can anyone remember something like this?

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2 hours ago, tomthegrom said:

I heard a story somewhere that the door on the top used to move but were disabled after a technician had his head in there, electrical power was applied to the airplane and the door closed and he was killed. Can anyone remember something like this?

 

The door on top is called the Bleed Door. The F-14A was initially delivered with the doors capable of moving to 2 different positions, Open or Closed depending on AOA/Mach number. In the closed position it allowed 100 square inches of exit area while in the open position it was 150. It was controlled by the AICS. The 1972 version of the NAVAIR 01-F-14A-1 Flight Manual (Preliminary) has some good working details of the system on pages 1-14 through 1-22 and is available at Avialogs; http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-14tomcat/3368f-14atomcatnavair01-f14a-11jun1972.html

 

I have no idea as to when the bleed doors were deactivated and fixed into position but I think it was early in it's career.

 

Cheers,

 

John

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2 hours ago, CF104 said:

 

The door on top is called the Bleed Door. The F-14A was initially delivered with the doors capable of moving to 2 different positions, Open or Closed depending on AOA/Mach number. In the closed position it allowed 100 square inches of exit area while in the open position it was 150. It was controlled by the AICS. The 1972 version of the NAVAIR 01-F-14A-1 Flight Manual (Preliminary) has some good working details of the system on pages 1-14 through 1-22 and is available at Avialogs; http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-14tomcat/3368f-14atomcatnavair01-f14a-11jun1972.html

 

I have no idea as to when the bleed doors were deactivated and fixed into position but I think it was early in it's career.

 

Cheers,

 

John

Good stuff!

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I did a search on the tomcat sunset site.
Ship 45 was the aircraft that killed a tech when hydraulic power was applied and the bleed door slammed shut. A couple of quotes from posts about it.

 

" BTW, ship 45 in the first photo, (September 1973) is the airplane that was involved in a R/H Bleed door accident in which we tragically lost a Grummanite "

 

" Worst one I ever saw was in August of 73, Plt 6, about 11:30 in the morning. The poor soul had his head inside the R/H engine bleed door,top deck. When the hydraulic rig was turned on it slammed shut. It was horrific. Enough said "

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3 hours ago, Darren Roberts said:

Ewww! No wonder they disabled it.

 

Why, because some maintenance crew didn't follow standard lock-out / tag-out safety procedures before working on the aircraft?  If the military disable every system that managed to hurt a maintainer, there wouldn't be anything left to work on.  Pretty sure the reason why this was disabled has nothing to do with the fact that someone got hurt. 

 

 

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Thank you very much to all for your helpful answers, everything clear now. Great link John, document loaded for future reading. I don't know the reason but the mechanism was not mounted in all Tomcats, as seen in this nice LINK

Perhaps I'll include the actuators in my future Tomcat.

A loss of a live is always sad.

Thanks again for your help!! :thumbsup:

 

I.Martin

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2 hours ago, 11bee said:

 

Why, because some maintenance crew didn't follow standard lock-out / tag-out safety procedures before working on the aircraft?  If the military disable every system that managed to hurt a maintainer, there wouldn't be anything left to work on.  Pretty sure the reason why this was disabled has nothing to do with the fact that someone got hurt. 

 

 

 

I understand, but that incident wasn't just getting hurt. I would imagine they decided the doors really weren't needed, but don't you think that horrific accident may have had some impact on the decision?

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1 hour ago, Darren Roberts said:

 

I understand, but that incident wasn't just getting hurt. I would imagine they decided the doors really weren't needed, but don't you think that horrific accident may have had some impact on the decision?

 

Absolutely not. There are steps to be taken by ground crew that if followed, should have prevented this incident from happening. As a former F-14 maintainer, I have dived many ducts, and had my head and shoulders above the ramps many many times. Never ever, and I mean EVER, did we have (opposite) engines turning or hydraulic power otherwise running when we did it. Ground hydraulic carts were not even authorized to be hooked up to the aircraft. This was a hard and fast rule to prevent stupid crap like what was described above from happening. As sad as it is to read a story of a Grumman maintainer getting crushed like that, they broke a cardinal rule and paid the price that nobody should have to pay.  

 

The doors were removed because someone did a study on their usefulness and convinced someone else with clout to make a decision to delete them... just like what happened to the glove vanes.  

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4 hours ago, Neeko said:

 

Absolutely not. There are steps to be taken by ground crew that if followed, should have prevented this incident from happening. As a former F-14 maintainer, I have dived many ducts, and had my head and shoulders above the ramps many many times. Never ever, and I mean EVER, did we have (opposite) engines turning or hydraulic power otherwise running when we did it. Ground hydraulic carts were not even authorized to be hooked up to the aircraft. This was a hard and fast rule to prevent stupid crap like what was described above from happening. As sad as it is to read a story of a Grumman maintainer getting crushed like that, they broke a cardinal rule and paid the price that nobody should have to pay.  

 

The doors were removed because someone did a study on their usefulness and convinced someone else with clout to make a decision to delete them... just like what happened to the glove vanes.  

 

Roger that.

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It's pretty standard procedure around ANY aircraft that before applying any hydraulic power engineers present or not to conduct a ground check to ensure another accident like that will ever happen.

Pretty sad though.

 

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12 hours ago, dehowie said:

It's pretty standard procedure around ANY aircraft that before applying any hydraulic power engineers present or not to conduct a ground check to ensure another accident like that will ever happen.

Pretty sad though.

 

Most safety procedures (and the NATOPS for that matter) are developed after someone finds out the hard way that there is a problem.  They literally are written in blood and you modify / ignore them at your own peril. 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not related to the bleed doors but early F-14 question. Was the TARPS pod operational in 77/78 and would a TARPS bird carry the external tanks in that time frame if the pod was loaded?

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On 11/26/2016 at 8:49 AM, 11bee said:

Most safety procedures (and the NATOPS for that matter) are developed after someone finds out the hard way that there is a problem.  They literally are written in blood and you modify / ignore them at your own peril. 

 

 

 

 

 

As all maintainers know or find out, these military planes,especially fighters, can kill & maim without being in the air.

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13 hours ago, torchf4 said:

Not related to the bleed doors but early F-14 question. Was the TARPS pod operational in 77/78 and would a TARPS bird carry the external tanks in that time frame if the pod was loaded?

No TARPS for a 70s bird. Testing started had started around 80 I think and fleet intro didn't begin before '83 IIRC.

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The first time I closed the bomb bay doors on a P-3, I looked down at the console, located the switch and closed the doors. I looked out of the cockpit and my safety observer had disappeared! You can imagine the thought going through my head! Thankfully, after the doors closed he hadvjust gone aft and was finishing his preflight.

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