The Mother of All Negligent Discharges
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Re: The Mother of All Negligent Discharges
this is so not gonna look good on the resume
~Tracy
Gun control is what you talk about when you don't want to talk about the truth ~ Colion Noir
Gun control is what you talk about when you don't want to talk about the truth ~ Colion Noir
Re: The Mother of All Negligent Discharges
It's probably what it looks like...an accident with someone's working life in tatters, buuuuuuuuut, an investigation is absolutely required.
Re: The Mother of All Negligent Discharges
I talked to my boss (former F-16 instructor pilot, former maintainer on A-7s and F-16s, both of which have similar guns) about this when he come into the office, and he thought it a bit...unusual... as well. He noted that to fire it, at least from the cockpit, one would also have to set switch(es) to arm it (similar to what G26ster had to do in a Cobra) before the trigger would work.mayor wrote: ↑Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:20 pmI agree with this assessment. LOTS of safety interlocks had to fail for the gun to fire. When weight is on the wheels, some systems are offline, namely radar and the gun unless it's in maintenance mode.ELB wrote: ↑Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:42 am A pretty amazing story, but...
To my (limited) knowledge the Gatling gun in an F-16 has to have both electrical and hydraulic power to fire, and there is a safety that prevents the gun from firing if there is weight on the nose gear. Plus, of course, ammo.
So a lot would have to happen/go wrong for the gun to fire on the ground.
I've seen a couple subsequent reports that a Belgian F-16 being worked on burned up, but no mention of gun fire. Hope we get to see the final report.
He did suggest one plausible scenario: if there was a round in the chamber, a transient electrical impulse might trigger that single round to fire (similar to the Zuni rocket that lit up John McCain). He said that happened to one of his unit's A-7Ds, albeit while it was flying, not on the ground. It was approaching the runway with the cockpit arming switches in the off position when the gun discharged and put a single round in the runway.
However I suspect that the final story will be there was a small explosion that started the fire that destroyed the one F-16, and the sound of the explosion was initially thought by some people to be a round fired from a nearby F-16.
USAF 1982-2005
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Re: The Mother of All Negligent Discharges
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Re: The Mother of All Negligent Discharges
Interesting the article used the term "bullet" not "shell"
Government, like fire is a dangerous servant and a fearful master
If you ain't paranoid you ain't paying attention
Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here- John Parker
If you ain't paranoid you ain't paying attention
Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here- John Parker