All,

I don't post often, but this thread has struck a chord with me. In the interest of full disclosure, i am a current active duty fighter pilot (not an F-16), so at the risk of sounding like "big government"...

How about instead of taking a bad situation that happened to a fellow aviatior, a situation mind you that very few if any of us have experienced ourselves, we should look at what we can learn here from it. I think the potential of this thread has been lost to an irrelavant discussion or wheter there was "fog" and what "we" think happened. The truth is, the Pilot was no amateur, they were highly trained and proficient, but still bad things happen to good people. We should look at this andattemt to derive some universal lessons learned rather than a "well i really know what happened" type conversation, because honestly no one other than that pilot really truly will ever know exactly what happened.

Back in my heyday, Hangar talk meant telling stories and anecdotes that led you to become a better aviatior, not just a a reason to arm chair quarterback people and glow in their failures.

Maybe my view is a bit altruistic for this forum, but i would like to see opportunities like this become useful to anyone who reads them, then even as tragic as it is, damage to an airplane and a pilot's pride becomes something more than embarrassment and tax dollars spent.

And now to avoid hipocracy...One of the largest lessons here is...Always fly your speeds. A good landing starts with a good approach, which is in turn defined by being on speed, perhaps if this guy did not touch down hot he would have had a different outcome. I agree that the thought of a go around should have been in his head, but let's just say that in this case for whatever reason that wasn't an option. The old adage that runway behind you is useless hold true.

On a technical note, USAF ECS (Environmental Systems) are notorious for having issues with the filters, in that once they are dirty, they create a fog or somke like effect in the cockpit, it can be very distracting and disorienting. If it was bad enough it is completely plausible that it impeded the view of his flight instruments/HUD and cause complications. It may have ven made him question whether or not going around was possible without totally losing control of the aircraft.

Again, consider my point in that this whole forum could be a much more valuable resource if we actually tried to teach each other and learn from things. I agree there are times and things worth griping about, but i strongly feel this isn't one of them.

Batt