MotiveGrounds.com - I don’t live in my sister’s basement dammit!

Then I don’t think Iran will have much luck if they get trigger happy.

I really like reading up on and learning about aircraft, namely fighter jets. This story I found on Wikipedia on the F-15 is one of those “Holy shit how is that possible” moments.

“On 1 May 1983, during an Israeli Air Force training dogfight, an F-15D collided with an A-4 Skyhawk. Unknown to pilot Zivi Nedivi and his copilot, the right wing of the Eagle was sheared off roughly two feet (60 cm) from the fuselage. The F-15 entered an uncontrollable spin after the collision. Zivi decided to attempt recovery and engaged afterburner to increase speed, allowing him to regain control of the aircraft. The pilot was able to prevent stalling and maintain control because of the lift generated by the large horizontal surface area of the fuselage, the stabilators and remaining wing areas. The F-15 landed at twice the normal speed to maintain the necessary lift, and its tailhook was torn off completely during the landing. Zivi managed to bring his F-15 to a complete stop approximately 20 ft (6 m) from the end of the runway. He was later quoted as saying “(I) probably would have ejected if I knew what had happened.”

Ok, a couple of things - I know it’s possible to stay airborne with wing damage - the A-10 Warthog can do this even with ends of the damn wing blown off - but how the hell do you recover from a spin with most of your wing gone? That’s some skill.

Second, the guy actually makes it back to the carrier (I’m assuming it was an aircraft carrier due to the tailhook) and lands it. I would have shat my pants the moment I realized the tailhook had been ripped off, and if not, I certainly would have when that last 20 feet of runway started coming up. And if that didn’t do it, looking at the plane after getting out of the cockpit would do the trick.

If the pilots we train are good enough to limp back home after that, imagine how good our own pilots are? The design of the plane helped, but many pilots will tell you that even the best plane doesn’t make up for aviation skill.