From Hero to Zero!
Author: JT
It was a morning like any other morning in the flight room on early week about mid-way through the T-38 phase. Immediately after the morning stand-up and before beginning to huddle with our IPs, the flight commander stood up and announced to the flight, "If you have hot brakes DO NOT taxi over to the fire department like one T-38 student did yesterday…"
The same warning was being repeated in all the T-38 morning briefings that morning at the behest of the squadron commander. Without hearing the entire story, everybody must have thought whoever did that was a moron, probably sitting on a bunch of unsats, definitely on triple SMS, and most likely on the verge of washing out. After all, we had designated hot brake areas.
Well, here's the rest of the story….
I had just landed on the right side of the runway for the full stop after a solo sortie with the requisite 3000 ft spacing from the jet in front of me that landed on the left side. I aero-braked until about 100 knots and lowered the nose wheel to the runway. I started a gentle brake application, and the left brake worked, but the right pedal had no pressure; it headed towards the floor. The jet started a 45-degree turn off the runway heading and passed over to the left side of the runway.
I immediately released both brakes, centered the rudder pedals, engaged the nose wheel steering, and then applied right rudder. The jet mercifully came back to the right and straightened out, albeit now left of the centerline. I started pumping the brake pedals, trying to get the pressure back on the right side brake, being as gentle as possible with the left brake lest I repeat Mr Toad's wild ride. Oh ya, and there's that little issue of another jet in front of me whose 3000 ft spacing I was now using up rapidly with my brake problem.
Once the right brake pedal firmed up, I applied the brakes very firmly to avoid locking a wheel or blowing the tires. Thankfully, I avoided rear-ending the preceding jet and slowed to taxi speed just as we both exited the runway in tandem, with my airspeed indicator actually registering off his exhaust.
While holding short of the inside T-37 runway, waiting for clearance to cross, my heart started beating again as my mind was unscrambling what had just happened. After we crossed and started down the taxiway in front of the T-37 parking ramp (T-38 parking was at the far end the ramp) as I was almost the end of Tweet ramp it suddenly dawned on me I might have hot brakes with all the heavy braking I done on the last third of the runway.
So I looked right and the right wheel assembly looked normal and as I looked left there was gray smoke pouring off the brake. There, on the taxiway, pretty much half way between the two hot brake areas (each of which was probably a half mile plus away) as I looked right again I noticed I was abeam the fire department (which sat smack in the middle between the T-37 and T-38 parking ramps).
Problem solved….I hung a right hand turn, stopped off the taxiway on the open apron in front of the fire department and declared hot brakes. The fire department didn't have to go too far to respond to deal with the hot brake issue and actually seemed very surprised to see me sitting on their doorstep.
After the hot brake issue resolved I felt like I had made the best of a bad situation and was soon to be hailed with the "Student with the best SA of the Week Award"….until the next morning when every T-38 student learned of some nameless students "gaffe" the previous day during their respective morning stand-ups by being told "If you have hot brakes DO NOT taxi over to the fire department….." without hearing the whole story.
Thinking that was the end of it, several years later another pilot in my squadron (who had gone to the same UPT base but was two T-38 classes ahead of me) and I were discussing stupid things students did while we were in UPT. His fondest stupid student memory "Do you remember the dumb-ass that taxied to the fire department with hot brakes?"
No, I must have missed that one….do tell.