just! The Taiwan military's "star fighter" F-16V fell into the sea and disappeared, and once clamored to take down the J-20

"Military Sub-Plane" author: I am Ivan the Great

According to the Global Network and other media reports, at about 3 p.m. on January 11, one F-16V fighter of the 4th Wing of the Taiwan Air Force took off from Chiayi Air Base to carry out training missions. But just 20 minutes later, the plane's radar spot disappeared near the Shuixi range, and local Residents of Taiwan witnessed seeing a fighter jet crash into the sea near the Aogu Wetland, indicating that the F-16V fighter had crashed into the sea.

Up to now, chen Yi, the pilot who allegedly piloted the plane, is still missing, and the Taiwan Regional Air Force has set up an emergency response team to rush to the scene of the incident to see if it can salvage the fighter plane and rescue the pilot who fell into the sea. At the same time, the Taiwan Regional Air Force has ordered the temporary suspension of all F-16V fighters.

How to evaluate this accident

For the F-16 fighter crash of the Taiwan Regional Air Force, ivan the Great, it is described in two sentences: one is "at this moment, just like the moment at that time", and the other is "too inch":

The previously crashed Fighter 6672 and pilot Jiang Zhengzhi

It is very simple to say that "at this moment, just like at that moment," it seems that Colonel Jiang Zhengzhi, commander of the 26th Squadron of the 5th Wing of the Taiwan Air Force, was still yesterday in a flight accident. On the evening of November 17, 2020, Colonel Jiang Zhengzhi flew the F-16A fighter of the squadron Number 6672 and took off to perform the instrument night flight mission, and as a result, just two minutes after take-off, it crashed in about 8 nautical miles north of the Hualien base, and the plane fell into the seabed more than a thousand meters deep, and no one has been found until now.

As a result, the colonel who "stressed politics" there was still not fished up in the sea, and only a year later, there was another unlucky pilot, Chen Yi. The same is a sea flight mission, the same is not long after take-off to fall into the sea, the same is to see no one dead or see the body, we can only hope now, this Chen Yi's luck will be slightly better, can be quickly fished up to give an account to the family.

"Jiang Zhishang", "Jiang Zhengshang", "Uh... Jiang Zhengzhi "... Tsai Ing-wen responded to the loss of contact with the fighter and kept reading the wrong pilot's name...

As for "too inch", the Taiwan military fighter that crashed this time is nothing else, it is the F-16V Block20 fighter that the Taiwan army just formed in the Chiayi 4th Wing on November 18, and even "Xiao Cai" came to the scene to cheer, and it is said that the fuselage number is No. 6650. I remember that when it was just in service, the Taiwan military attached great importance to the F-16V Block20, believing that this type of aircraft was "optimized for avionics and integrated attack and defense" and could detect and destroy the "hidden fighters" on our side. As a result, it has only been in service for two months, and a "semi-new" plane has fallen, and it can only be said that the luck of the Taiwan Regional Air Force is really bad.

Speculation about the cause of the accident

So, what may be the cause of the accident of the Taiwan Air Force's F-16V Block 20 fighter jet compared to the Accident of Colonel Jiang Zhengzhi in November 2020? Ivan the Great believes that excluding the "pilot uprising" that is unreliable and not many people talk about it this time, let's first look at the subjects implemented by pilot Chen Yi this time, as well as the airspace and meteorological conditions of the flight airspace.

F-16V in takeoff

Judging from the information released by the Taiwan Regional Defense Department, Chen Yi, who piloted this F-16V fighter, carried out the so-called "ground bombing," which is commonly known as "aerial artillery/aviation fire/aerial bomb ground target" on our side, and the implementation site was in Aogu Wetland, a relatively famous scenic spot near the sea in Chiayi County, southern Taiwan.

Aogu Wetland (Source: Google Earth)

This wetland extends from Taiwan Island to the Taiwan Strait, forming a "U" shaped structure, and the straight-line distance from the Chiayi Air Base of the Taiwan Army is only more than 30 kilometers. Because there are too many residential areas in the coastal area, the ground bombing training of the Taiwan Air Force in this airspace often adopts the "sea target", that is, the target is set in the sea or on the wetland beach. After taking off from Chiayi Air Base, the aircraft only needs to turn in a 270-degree direction, and after a few minutes of flight, it can enter the attack route, and it is quite convenient to organize training.

Why is the weather?

From the perspective of local meteorological conditions, the weather in Chiayi City on the 11th is relatively good, sunny in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon, the wind is only 2 to 3, and the temperature is more suitable. There is no abnormal weather system that may affect the flight, and it should be more suitable for flight.

Judging from the ground attack training subjects implemented by the F-16V fighter this time, this subject is actually not too difficult. If the weapon used is a relatively conventional aviation machine gun, or an uncontrolled navigation air bomb, then after the fighter enters the airspace, it first establishes contact with the range air commander to confirm the clearance of the surrounding clearance and the dangerous area of the range, and reports to the ground the entry direction and altitude speed of the fighter.

The type of weapon that the F-16V can carry

After the ground commander issued the attack password, the fighter swooped along the predetermined route, used the CCIP/CCRP mode to drop the bomb, and after completing the bomb launch, the lever pushed the throttle, exited the attack, and entered the standby altitude. If weapons such as laser-guided bombs or air-to-ground missiles are used, the training process is more complicated, but it is estimated that they will not be used so close to the main island of Taiwan.

Through the above analysis, Ivan the Great believes that we can first rule out the crash of the fighter due to meteorological factors. After all, it was just an ordinary afternoon, with no cumulonimbus clouds, no thunderstorms, no large crosswinds, and no fatal low-altitude wind shear or traps. In such weather, if the plane could be wrecked, this pilot would really be unlucky for eight lifetimes.

Mechanical failure?

Followed by the mechanical failure of the F-16V fighter, or the pilot's unfamiliarity with the maneuvering error caused by the fighter, Ivan the Great believes that there is a possibility, but it is not too big. After all, the F-16V fighter of the 4th Wing, we have popularized before, it is not a new aircraft, but an improvement with the previous F-16A/B Block20 back pot technology. The main improvements are concentrated in avionics systems, fire control systems, and new air-to-air missiles, electronic jamming pods, towed bait pods, and so on.

However, the overall aerodynamic layout of the aircraft has not changed, and the flight control system, including the flight control computer and the fly-by-wire system, has not changed, and the previous mature equipment has been used, which means that the F-16V fighter, at least in terms of control quality and flight control system response, is no different from the previous F-16A/B. Reliability is guaranteed, there is no immature technology, or the technical span is too large, the pilot is difficult to adapt to the new operating habits caused by the mistake, so in general, the possibility of the aircraft crashing mechanical failure is indeed there, but the probability is not so large.

Human error

After ruling out these two possibilities, Ivan the Great believes that the most likely is the "culprit", or we previously guessed in the accident of Colonel Jiang Zhengzhi, the pilot space disorientation disorder. After all, according to the report of the local media in Taiwan interviewing the melon-eating masses at the scene, more than one melon-eating crowd said that they saw an F-16V fighter with its head down and stomach up, and inserted it into the sea upside down, and did not see the pilot eject the capsule.

Taiwan media: This photo was taken by military fans on the island, and said that the flight attitude of the fighter plane was "weird", and this photo has become a key clue.

Judging from the flight attitude, when the fighter attacks the subject on the ground, it basically maintains "flat flight entry, flat flight exit, and maneuver evasion", and no aircraft attacks in an upside-down state and upside down when carrying out the subject on the ground; even because of the mechanical failure of the fighter, such as the attitude distortion caused by the jam of the rudder, the pilot often has enough time to catapult and escape, how can there be such a thing as a person taking the plane to the sea.

There is no reference at all, and visual perception factors are difficult to play

And this kind of "upside-down onion" posture, one to say, is too much like the pilot's space disorientation, and it is not clear which is the blue sky and which is the sea. After all, only in this case, the pilot can unconsciously be in the "pole" state, the result is that the aircraft is adjusted more and more head down, the last end is planted in the sea; and the weather in the Chiayi area at that time, there are certain clouds in the air, this situation, even more than the simple blue sky and white clouds, the pilot is more likely to cause the pilot to have a directional obstacle, and once the directional disorder occurs, when the pilot finds that the situation is not right, it is too late to parachute.

People's brain supplement ability is very powerful, if the air to maintain a flat flight when feeling a certain load, will often be brain supplemented into a large head down, at this time any person's impulse will make him involuntarily left and right pressure rod, into the upside down, while pulling the rod backwards to feel the overload of 1G to get the feeling of the head up - at this time, if there is no clear external reference object for the pilot as a reference, the pilot will think that he is flying flat, as everyone knows, he is rapidly rushing to the ground.

Therefore, Ivan the Great believes that the "first fall" of the F-16V fighter is not a problem with the performance of the aircraft, and the problem is still the pilot. Of course, judging from the situation announced by the Air Force of the Taiwan region at present, it is said that pilot Chen Yi, like Jiang Zhengzhi, did not parachute and directly took the plane to the sea, which means that this unfortunate pilot is most likely not saved.

Why are accidents so frequent?

If it is finally confirmed that the pilot Chen Yi really fell into the sea because of an unprecedented disorientation obstacle, then, counting Jiang Zhengzhi in 2020, the F-16 fighter of the Taiwan Regional Air Force seems to have had two consecutive accidents because of the pilot's space disorientation and the plane was driven to the sea. If there is only one Jiang Zhengzhi, things still have a certain degree of serendipity, and they can not be too calculated. However, there have been two accidents in a year, both of which are space disorientation and the total loss of two F-16 fighters, which has never been done in the history of the equipment and application of the Taiwan military's F-16 fighters.

Taiwan Air Force officials admitted that at present, the F-16V does not have an anti-collision system installed

Looking at the F-16 fighter accidents of the Taiwan military, only two accidents have really been identified as suspected space disorientation, and they are all accidents that occurred under complex meteorological conditions at night, occurring on June 1, 1999 and March 4, 2008, respectively, with an interval of 9 years. And now, in just one year, the F-16 has "fallen twice" due to space disorientation, and it is also an accident in broad daylight and simple meteorological conditions during the day, which is already very amazing.

If the human body moves at a constant speed for a long time, then this constant motion will be used as a benchmark, and after eliminating this angular velocity, it will be regarded as a reverse motion (think about the feeling after the rotation in place suddenly stops).

From the perspective of the occurrence mechanism of space disorientation, pilots are not fully trained, or are too tired when flying, which is relatively more likely to occur. This means that the F-16 fighter fleet of the Taiwan Air Force is either facing the problem of a decline in the number of basic training hours for pilots and an incomplete grasp of basic skills and flight essentials at sea, or is facing the problem that the pilot team is too tired, has poor energy, and is difficult to fly safely when carrying out daily training tasks.

Needless to say, everyone knows these two major problems, and what factors cause the pilots in Taiwan to not have enough time to train, or to have a serious lack of energy during flight. Ivan believes that if our guesses are correct, if the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force continues to maintain a strong frequency of activities in the airspace around Taiwan, then in the future, there will be more and more such space disorientation flight accidents of the Taiwan Air Force, and we will wait and see.

It is worth mentioning that the F-16V with the number 6650 that the Taiwan military crashed this time can also be regarded as our old friend...