T-38 Seaplane: Not A Good Idea

Author: Buck Wyndham

There are a lot of small, seemingly insignificant notes in the Flight Manuals of every type of military aircraft. Some of them have to do with servicing quirks, some with proper switchology, and some with things as innocuous as minor weather-related performance variations. Most of them don't stand out as being gravely important because, frankly, they're not presented as such. (If they were really important, they’d be "Cautions or Warnings," right?) Every once in a while, however, you find a note that could really ruin your day if, intentionally or otherwise, it's not adhered to. Back in 1994, I experienced one in the T-38.

It was going to be a fun weekend. I was leading a six-leg, formation cross-country flight of two T-38s. My wingman and I were each very experienced instructors and for once, each of us was solo in our respective airplanes. We had stopped for the night at Holloman AFB, and we planned to head out for Edwards AFB in the morning.

Although we arrived at Holloman during a gorgeous sunset, the base weather office informed us that lots of rain and high wind was on the way, but would probably end by 6:00 am. Sure enough, it rained heavily all night, but Saturday morning dawned sunny and windy. As we ate a quick McBreakfast, we noticed that the ground was still very wet from the rain. We arrived at Base Ops and began planning our westward leg. Among the many bits of information I digested during this time was a line from the Airport Remarks section of my Flight Information Publication which said, in effect, "Water may puddle on Runway 25." (Any foreshadowing was not apparent to me at the time.)

The nice lady at Base Operations told us that a vehicle was already out on the runway performing the morning inspection. Five minutes later the results were in—the runway was pronounced "wet, with no standing water." Our minds now set on the tasks at hand and our preflight planning complete, my wingman and I strapped into our jets and cranked them up.

While taxiing out for takeoff on Runway 25, I once again asked tower about the status of the runway. "Wet," came the reply. Due to the crosswinds, I told my wingman we’d do a 10-second interval takeoff. Tower wished us a good flight and cleared us for takeoff. "California, here I come," I thought to myself as I stood on the brakes and pushed the throttles forward. A sharp salute later and I was rocketing down the left half of the runway with my wingman 10 seconds behind me, on the right side.

You know, the human brain gets in a rut when it does the same thing over and over again. I've done a few thousand takeoffs, and 99.99% of the time they happen like they're supposed to: You accelerate to a certain speed, pull back on the stick a bit, and bingo—you're flying.

When, at 130 knots, both of my engines simply quit cold, my poor brain just couldn't quite grasp it at first. My first response was to slam both throttles forward into the instrument panel. But they were already there, in the full afterburner position, so now I performed a super-high-speed mental data search for any Boldface procedures that might apply to the situation. “Engine Failure On Takeoff” seemed right, but I recalled that it contained a step about attaining single engine takeoff speed (SETOS), and I definitely was not accelerating. It was also WAY too quiet in the cockpit to consider aviating.

I didn't recall any procedure for "Sudden Dual-Engine Failure for Unknown Reasons," so I finally decided to follow the Abort procedure (as if I had a choice).

All of that happened in about two seconds. In my best, super-cool “astronaut voice,” I transmitted "Cool 52 lead is aborting." Meanwhile, my wingman, who had observed my entire airplane disappear in a huge spray of water from the large, unseen puddle I'd gone through, had already begun his abort. As I braked to a stop about 300 feet from the end of the runway, I mulled over what would have happened if the double flameout had occurred a few seconds later, as I lifted off. I'm told that my subsequent radio calls to tower and my wingman were not as calm and collected as my first.

My airplane was immediately impounded and vigorously inspected. A maintenance technician told me that a J-85 engine was quite susceptible to flaming out after directly ingesting a fairly small quantity of water thrown upward by the nosewheel. My wingman estimated that each of my engines rapidly ingested at least ten gallons. Two days later, after nothing was found to be wrong with the engines, I flew the airplane home.

What lessons can be learned from this experience? Well, obviously, that there are some "little, insignificant notes" in the Flight Manual which are actually "no-shitters," like the one in the T-38 manual that says engine flameouts can occur if you drive through deep puddles.

More importantly, though, it’s the pilot's responsibility to ensure that conditions are safe for flight. The heavy rain the night before, coupled with the line in the Flight Information book about possible puddles, should have raised a bigger alarm, no matter what the tower was reporting. In this case, the Base Operations van had driven down the CENTER of the runway, and sure enough, there were no puddles there. Fifteen feet left of center, however, were puddles big enough to float a small cabin cruiser in.

The next time I'm at Holloman, I’ll probably take a little ride out there with the operations van, so I can assess that "wet runway" myself. And I'll definitely pay attention to the fine print in the Flight Manual.