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This is an inaccurate account of the incident down to the year even. https://planeandpilotmag.com/grumman-f11-tiger-shoot-itself-down/ It was not due to the high speed of the aircraft so much as the terminal velocity of the bullets vs the plane in a powered dive.
Huh? This doesn’t make physical sense. The bullet was traveling at airplane speed when fired, so in theory is going plane speed + bullet speed. Unless I’m misunderstanding things?
The plane shot the bullets upwards, then continued on a level path.
Once shot, the bullets take on a ballistic trajectory, i.e.: a parabole. On the downwards part of their trajectory, the bullets’ path intersected with the plane’s level flight path.
The bullet loses enough speed from air resistance before it sinks below the aircraft’s flight path and the air plane flies into it essentially, as I understand it.
The bullet knows where it is because it is always where it is, it knows this because it is a bullet, and if you happen be where the bullet is because it is where you thought it isn’t, or wasn’t, this is called error.
The rounds Attridge fired while traveling at 768 mph left their cannons at approximately 2,000 miles per hour. However, immediately after being fired, they encountered enough air resistance to produce significant drag. This drag resulted in a greatly reduced forward velocity, causing their trajectory to curve downward—directly into the flight path of the aircraft from which they had been fired. As the bullets descended and their speeds decreased to about 400 mph, the Tiger also descended but with an increased speed of 880 mph. Just as he began to pull out of his descent, Attridge was struck three times. The first bullet pierced his nose cone, the second went through his windshield, and the final one directly struck his right engine intake. The time between him firing the first rounds and taking the hits was a mere 11 seconds.
https://planeandpilotmag.com/grumman-f11-tiger-shoot-itself-down/
While its time in service was short, its early-day supersonic speeds left a legacy—most famously because it was the first aircraft to be so fast that it shot itself down. (emphasis mine)
I appreciate how this is famous as the first—but apparently not last—aircraft to shoot itself down!
The Navy considered the incident a one-in-a-million fluke and was certain it would never happen again. Attridge was less convinced, however. “At the speeds we’re flying today,” he later said, “it could be duplicated any time.” He was right. In 1973, another Grumman test pilot, this one flying an F-14 Tomcat out in California, was struck by his own missile. Luckily, it was a dummy missile, and the pilot was able to eject to safety. More recently, in 2019, a Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16 accidentally shot itself from its 20mm rotary cannon. The pilot was able to land safely, uninjured.
I imagine the bullet started out faster than the plane but, since it isn’t actively propelled, it slowed down and the plane didn’t. So less so that the plane was faster than the bullet and more that the plane was fast enough to catch up with the bullet before it fell to the ground. Edit: or just a totally made up tidbit, this is the internet after all
Plane shoots, plane dives then climbs in a reverse palabora. Bullet flies mostly straight
I can blow threw 10 ideas a second and then be completely paralyzed by indecision the rest of the day. Beat that.
By the time I’ve thought the tenth thing, I’ve forgotten 6 of the previous thoughts.
“Pumped up Kicks” starts playing in the background.
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Vroom
