My wife just ran across this video while doing a search for an old friend, Jerry Cadick.
Aviation Video: FA-18 MCAS El Toro Crash | Patrick's Aviation
Jerry and I were in the same squadron at El Toro MCAS right after getting our wings. We went separate ways for a while, but when we got back from Vietnam, we were flight instructors in the same squadron in the Navy Advanced Jet Training Command in Beeville, TX. Then later we were stationed in Iawakuni Japan together.
There is a description from Wikipedia right under the video, but I'll add to it. He hit the runway with a force of 73 Gs, which shattered the all time survival record. His shoulder harness broke and he hit the stick with his face, breaking all of it. His eyeballs were hanging out on his cheeks. Among many other repairs, they gave him aluminum eye sockets. A piece of his hip is screwed along side his spine to an aluminum rod. His left foot remains rolled 45 degree outboard and rotated 45 degrees from straight ahead.
The entry describes him as CO of MAG-!1. That means Marine Aircraft Group 11, which was the parent unit of a few F-18 squadrons. He was considered to have a good shot at making Brigadier General.
After the accident, there were lots of Marines questioning why a Colonel was even flying in an air show. That is usually a job for a Captain or Major. But Jerry was sort of a Mr. F-18 in the Corps, having been in on the ground floor of the program, and prided himself in still being a player. He made a point of going out for a one versus one fight with every pilot in each of his squadrons.
Of course he was medically retired, but they held a pilot disposition board and gave him a going-way present by pulling his wings, even though there was no way he was going to fly again. He was very bitter about that.
The description says that he was doing a loop and simply didn't have room to complete it before hitting the ground, and that is what I thought for about a year. He remained in seclusion and was quite depressed, but his wife finally got him to accept an invitation to come over to our house for dinner.
He said that the intended maneuver was a half cuban 8, which is the first half of a loop, but then you roll upright on the top rather than continuing to pull through the second half. In this case he was going to accelerate, then do another half cuban 8 to show the capability of the aircraft, but for some reason he just continued with a loop rather than rolling upright on the top of the first one.
He had done this maneuver many times before in airshows, and had done it perfectly in a rehearsal the previous day. Any one of my flight students could perform a half cuban 8, even if he didn't do it perfectly. It is inconceivable that Jerry could have been so disoriented that he continued with a loop. The problem is that his brain dumped all its short term memory on impact, so he can't say what happened.
Some of his detractors say that he was showboating, doing the loop just to show off. As he puts it, he wasn't quite dumb enough to do that in front of the Commanding General and a hundred thousand spectators.
After about three years (as I recall it) of rehab he joined a civilian team that flew a hot Italian prop plane in airshows all over the country, and he ended up being part of the airshow at El Toro again.
This new career required him to be gone barnstorming all over the country about 9 months of the year, so that was enough for his wife. She had stuck by him and nursed him back to health, but she wasn't a masochist, so they divorced.
Aviation Video: FA-18 MCAS El Toro Crash | Patrick's Aviation
Jerry and I were in the same squadron at El Toro MCAS right after getting our wings. We went separate ways for a while, but when we got back from Vietnam, we were flight instructors in the same squadron in the Navy Advanced Jet Training Command in Beeville, TX. Then later we were stationed in Iawakuni Japan together.
There is a description from Wikipedia right under the video, but I'll add to it. He hit the runway with a force of 73 Gs, which shattered the all time survival record. His shoulder harness broke and he hit the stick with his face, breaking all of it. His eyeballs were hanging out on his cheeks. Among many other repairs, they gave him aluminum eye sockets. A piece of his hip is screwed along side his spine to an aluminum rod. His left foot remains rolled 45 degree outboard and rotated 45 degrees from straight ahead.
The entry describes him as CO of MAG-!1. That means Marine Aircraft Group 11, which was the parent unit of a few F-18 squadrons. He was considered to have a good shot at making Brigadier General.
After the accident, there were lots of Marines questioning why a Colonel was even flying in an air show. That is usually a job for a Captain or Major. But Jerry was sort of a Mr. F-18 in the Corps, having been in on the ground floor of the program, and prided himself in still being a player. He made a point of going out for a one versus one fight with every pilot in each of his squadrons.
Of course he was medically retired, but they held a pilot disposition board and gave him a going-way present by pulling his wings, even though there was no way he was going to fly again. He was very bitter about that.
The description says that he was doing a loop and simply didn't have room to complete it before hitting the ground, and that is what I thought for about a year. He remained in seclusion and was quite depressed, but his wife finally got him to accept an invitation to come over to our house for dinner.
He said that the intended maneuver was a half cuban 8, which is the first half of a loop, but then you roll upright on the top rather than continuing to pull through the second half. In this case he was going to accelerate, then do another half cuban 8 to show the capability of the aircraft, but for some reason he just continued with a loop rather than rolling upright on the top of the first one.
He had done this maneuver many times before in airshows, and had done it perfectly in a rehearsal the previous day. Any one of my flight students could perform a half cuban 8, even if he didn't do it perfectly. It is inconceivable that Jerry could have been so disoriented that he continued with a loop. The problem is that his brain dumped all its short term memory on impact, so he can't say what happened.
Some of his detractors say that he was showboating, doing the loop just to show off. As he puts it, he wasn't quite dumb enough to do that in front of the Commanding General and a hundred thousand spectators.
After about three years (as I recall it) of rehab he joined a civilian team that flew a hot Italian prop plane in airshows all over the country, and he ended up being part of the airshow at El Toro again.
This new career required him to be gone barnstorming all over the country about 9 months of the year, so that was enough for his wife. She had stuck by him and nursed him back to health, but she wasn't a masochist, so they divorced.
