An global student pilot was training in a U.S. Air Force Arizona Air National Guard F-16 on May 5, attended by an instructor pilot in a separate F-16.
Advertisement
This is the fourth successful recoveries the Air Force has credited Auto-GCAS with since the introduction of the system in 2014.
Aimed at reducing accidents caused by controlled flight into terrain by 90%, the system completed research and development under Air Combat Command’s Fighter Risk Reduction Program in 2010. The F-16 recovered itself from the dive in under 30 seconds.
Auto-GCAS works by continuously comparing a prediction of the plane’s trajectory against a pre-existing terrain profile.
In May of this year, an worldwide F-16 student pilot was undergoing basic maneuver training over the southwestern United States when he experienced G-induced loss of consciousness (also known as G-LOC) as he rolled and started to pull his F-16, experiencing around 8.3g. G-force induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC) is a particular concern for fighter pilots who perform strenuous manoeuvres.
After only 22 sec., the F-16 was nose-down nearly 50 deg. below the horizon and going supersonic. The shocked instructor called “2 recover!” as the student passed 12,320 ft.at 587 kt. Two seconds later, with the nose down in a 55-deg. dive, altitude at 10,800 ft. and speed passing 613 kt [705 miles per hour, 1,134 kph]., the anxious instructor again calls “2 recover!”
In a press statement issued earlier this month by the USAF, the student pilot said, “I started to roll and started to pull and I’m following [the instructor pilot] with my eyes”. The radar altimeter suggests a minimum altitude of about 2,940 feet which, at that speed, isn’t a whole lot of breathing room. An Automatic Air Collision Avoidance System (Auto-ACAS) was also recently developed, and the 416th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB is working to combine the air-to-air and air-to-ground collision avoidance software into one Automatic Integrated Collision Avoidance System (Auto-ICAS)-the first all-around collision avoidance system for production aircraft.
Advertisement
Obtained by Aviation Week, the declassified footage below shows the importance of Ground Collision Avoidance Technology (GCAT).
