Its the Good Ones Who Will Kill Ya

Author: Larry Harris

Our student pilot class at Columbus AFB, MS, was finishing up, and there weren’t so many sorties available in Scorpio Flight, 50th FTS (T-38s).  My own students had pretty much completed the course.  Our scheduler loaned me out as a “guest” IP to one of the other flights down the hall to help out with their load, until we got a new class of students in a week or two.  They put me into a 2-ship formation training flight; I was the instructor with one student in my plane and a solo student in the other.

A review of the gradebooks showed no particular problems; in fact, the student in my plane seemed especially outstanding.  The weather was great.

We briefed up the mission with particular attention to a few maneuvers that hadn’t been accomplished in a while.  We planned to spend most of the flight in our assigned area and return to the base for a full-stop landing.

I was in the rear cockpit of the T-38; my student was in the front.  Ground ops, taxi, takeoff, departure to the maneuvering area - everything went well.  The two students worked well together.  Pitchouts, rejoins, heavy wingwork, echelon turns, a bit of close and extended trail - everything was going great.  These students were good.  Bingo fuel.  Time to return for landing.

Descent/ traffic pattern entry - I’ve got my head back on the headrest and both arms resting along the canopy rails.  We led the departure, so we’re now number “2" coming back to the pattern.  Close fingertip coming up Initial.  The solo lead breaks hard into the pitchout.  1 - 2- 3 - 4 - break.  Excellent pattern.  My student rolls out on the downwind and adjusts his pattern for the crosswind.  Gear down.  Flaps.  Roll into the final turn.  “2 - Gear down, full stop” radio call to the RSU.  He rolls out lined up with the runway, just perfect.  155 knots.  Both my arms are still resting on the canopy rails.  This student has an easy “E” (Excellent) going for him.

Short final. The nose comes up, and the throttles come to idle - way too early.  Since he had been such a great student up to this point, I’m about to give him a verbal correction, “Let’s lower the nose and keep a little more power on the plane...” when I see that we are dropping vertically to the overrun, short of the runway.  I wish my hands had been closer to the controls.  Without time to say a word, I rip the stick and throttles from the student’s hands, slamming the throttles into afterburner and dumping the stick forward to prevent a stall.  Then I brought the stick back to fly on the edge of the stall to keep from driving the landing gear through the wings.

We wing-rocked in a semi-stall to the ground, landing about 1 foot across the threshold.  The nose was high in the air.  The RSU Controller was swallowing his microphone, “Flare, GO Around!!! ”  The afterburners lit just about the instant we touched down.  We rocketed back into the air.

Not a word was said in the cockpit.  I flew the following pattern and full-stop landing from the back seat.  The RSU Controller called on the radio during the rollout to have Maintenance check out our afterburner cans when we parked, because he thought we hit the tail first on the first landing.

The crummy students will never hurt you because you’re always on guard.  It’s the good students who can kill you.