re: What's your favorite military plane ?

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After leaving port and headed to Hawaaii VF-11 was doing a SS flyby and starboard engine had a catastrophic failure. Discovery got footage of it (I think a panel got ingested). Both pilot and RIO were picked up and investigators got Discovery footage to do investigation it was that good compared to anything else.

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Yeah - that pilot was Rick “Biscuit” Lucas - went through advanced flight training with him. He and his RIO were very lucky. The mishap was attributed to something called “Afterburner Burn-Through” caused by a faulty afterburner can. This situation actually happened several other times, as well, although not all those crews were as fortunate as Biscuit and his RIO in punching out out alive. The Navy didn’t figure out the cause of the problem until the end of my ‘96 cruise. Due to the uncertainty, we flew that entire cruise under orders not to use burner unless in an emergency (…and there were a lot of “emergencies” )