Calling All Hornet Drivers...

[AdlerDriver]

........Do any fighters actually have guarded three position start stop selectors like airliners or corporate jets do? I guess my main concern is trying to figure out the protection for an inadvertent shutdown. That's harder to do with a knob you have to pull OUT as opposed to a toggle.

If you care to share how the Viper or Eagle do it that would work great also. This thing is actually closer in SIZE to an F-16...

The Eagle has a Jet Fuel Starter which is started using a hydraulic accumulator. It's basically a small jet engine with a clutching system to engage the engine's accessory drive. Once the JFS is running, you lift a lever on the front of each throttle to engage the engines one at a time. Once engaged, the engines start turning and at about 18% you move the throttle from cutoff past a detent to idle. Fuel flow starts and it's a normal jet engine start from there. At 45-ish %, the JFS disconnects automatically. Repeat for next engine. To shutdown, you just lift the same lever which allows the throttle to be moved past the idle detent into cutoff. The throttle cannot be moved past idle without lifting the lever and this avoid inadvertent shutdown.

Hope that helps.

 

[Gunfighter]

Do any fighters actually have guarded three position start stop selectors like airliners or corporate jets do? I guess my main concern is trying to figure out the protection for an inadvertent shutdown. That's harder to do with a knob you have to pull OUT as opposed to a toggle.

If you care to share how the Viper or Eagle do it that would work great also. This thing is actually closer in SIZE to an F-16...

The F-16 uses a Jet Fuel Starter (JFS), which is a mini jet engine that gets it's initial starting power from hydraulic accumulators. The JFS is started with a toggle switch. At 20% RPM, the trottle is advanced to idle. There is a spring actuated locking pin that engages as the throttle is moved from off past idle to prevent the throttle from being unintentionally placed back to off. When ready to shutdown, you disengage the locking pin, rotate the throttle outboard and pull it back to off.

 

[JungleJett]

Change the fighter in your book to the ultimate air-to-air killing machine and I'll help you out.

The F-22?

We had some fun with the Gorilla's while deployed to Northwest Saudi Arabia in 2003. They had a sign above their hangars which stated "When Gorillas fly, MiGs Die"

Our saying was "When Gorilla's Fly, Boomers stay current."

The ultimate air to air killing machine NEVER had a jet engine on it.

God love you guys for what you do.

 

[LegacyDriver]

Thanks guys!

 

[DashCojones]

Man, NOBODY can help me here?

Come on guys someone step up to the plate for me as I'm up against a deadline and I can't find a decent answer online anywhere else.

HELP ME OBI WAN!

The choke is actually a lever. Turn that to "1/2" and then yank on the "pull" handle until she fires up.

...sorry.

 

[furloboy]

If you're still interested, the start procedure for the F/A-18:

1. Battery Switch (metal toggle switch): ON
Do a bunch of checks.

2. APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) Start Switch: ON

This switch is a silver metal toggle switch. When the adjacent green light illuminates indicating that the APU (small turbine engine) is turning at speed,

3. Start switch (metal two-position switch) to right engine. When engine reaches 15% RPM, advance throttle to idle. When engine comes to speed, turn on a bunch of stuff and then repeat the process for the left engine.

 

[LegacyDriver]

Thanks.

 

[Gorilla]

The F-22?

We had some fun with the Gorilla's while deployed to Northwest Saudi Arabia in 2003. They had a sign above their hangars which stated "When Gorillas fly, MiGs Die"

YEAH BABY! :nuts: Dem Gorillas is some bad Mofo's!

Furloboy, did the hornet's JFS crank via a battery or a hydraulic accumulator bottle? In the F15, you had two chances to use accumulator pressure to crank the little JFS. I don't know what the percentages are for 1st bottle crank, but it wasn't 100%. When both bottles are blown, and no JFS start, the poor mechanic had to go below and use what looked like a big torque wrench to manually pump the accumulators back up. This took a long time and a lot of hard effort from the crew chief. I thought it was a chicken-$hit system; nothing like watching your boys launch on a scramble while you sit there and the poor crew chief is frantically jacking on the accumulator.

On the Viper - incredible airplane. We had a Gorilla move to the F16 aggressors in the late '80's. When he came back during an exercise, we dragged him into a locked room and said "OK, what's the REAL story on F-15 vs. F-16? Who will win?" He thought for a moment, and said "Any F-16 guy who loses a turning fight deserves to be flogged. But I'd still ride the F-15 into air-air combat given a choice." Straight from the horse's mouth.

 

[JungleJett]

YEAH BABY! :nuts: Dem Gorillas is some bad Mofo's!

Did you read the rest of what I said?

The base we were at was a crap hole before the Herks got there. The -15's knew they were short timers and did nothing to improve life around base. We knew we would be there for sometime and went to work straight away. The whole base benefited from our work. The fighters punched in late April and we were there for another four months. I guess when the Iraqi's never launched a single sortie, no reason to hang around! Air supremecy or something like that....

 

[Huggyu2]

Responsible for 36 of the 39 kills in Desert Storm (and just for the record, 2 of the others were by another quite capable twin-engine McDonnel Douglas product).

Maybe just a typo, but the A-10 had 2 kills in The Storm. And; a Tomcat had 1 kill. 36+2+1=39. Did the Hornet get a couple more? Also, didn't an EF-111 get credit when an F-1 chasing hit hit the desert?