Is this a photo of a crashed Senior Trend prototype at Area 51?

Not saying he WOULDN'T use it, because they always do, just saying that the REGULATIONS are that when he lands at his home station, he's not REQUIRED to use it like he is at other stations. He's almost 100% certain to use it though.

Fair enough!

I was only trying to put what is in the photo in prespective. As has been pointed out, there is no visible chute in the photo of the crash-landed F-117A.

Tim

He may have touched down and had a chute malfunction. They're rare but do happen, and he tried to turn it off at the high speed turn off, and the gear collapsed. Just a theory though, I'm sure there's an accident report out there somewhere about it if anyone digs it up.

Don't want to seem to-much the pessimist on the photo.. just wondering why the nose antennas are straight and not bent upward? Sure there must be a logical reason, just not one I can come up with at first glance.

Dallas

It all depends on how the gear collapsed. It's possible that it came down more on the gear door, and then fell onto the nose in a "softer" impact than if it just flopped onto the nose like if the gear had never deployed.

Judging by the size comparisons in an earlier post, the photograph just doesn't look right to me, the perspective is all wrong and you can see where they have superimposed the crew to look as if they are in front of the craft. Sorry an all

reply to post by SimonGray


Hi, CTK here,

I was on swingshift when this incident occured. I'm a crewchief, retired now but was assigned to the 8th Fighter Squadron. The aircraft in question, tail no.# 803 was assigned to the 8th FS at the time of the incident. The report is true. The weather that night was crazy, it was raining, high winds. The winds were coming from all directions.
The reason this occured was due to the constantly changing wind directions and speed, from ground level to at least 12,000 ft. approx.

The pilot did the best he could in saving the aircraft which he did. In my book, he is one of the top 10 F-117A pilots period.
The picture is not "doctored up" The chute probably would not have been used due to the weather above and on the runway, alas it's up to the pilot and the flight manual on that one. The cable was not engaged because he was landing the aircraft with no issues reported to the SOF or tower.