What is F.O.D?

here's another one for the FOD issue, on the Yard Darts(F-16's) you needed to remove all items in your pockets, due to the AcesII ejection seat was reclined 30 degrees and possible FO in the cockpit, and pilots didn't want to see you pocket fuzz doing a 9G turn, also had to make sure all items where removed from avionic bays to prevent damages to the flight control computers
Isn't this FOD issue going nuts?

BTW, the gentleman that was sucked into the F-18 intake WAS hit by the rotor blades. He was lucky enough just to be slightly scalped, plus lost an ear. The fast thinking of the pilot saved his life. Believe me, being on an aircraft carrier, you see that movie played over and over again. Still amazing he lived, if you ask me.

demono69

well all FOD walks that we're supervised by QA were done weekly but the T&F(tool & FO) checks are part of the maintenance proceedure as well as the dailys and I really didn't account for them, like putting change in you pocket at check out line in Wally World, But if your stationed overseas then you should know that there are rarely any apron maintenance do, the planes are parked in HAS's or Tab Vee's and they are swepped out when the planes have taxied for their sorties and what you take into them you must take out thats disposable or trash, I think you could get the picture of what I mean, as for watching things gettting injested when I was TDY to Luke AFB I watched some young Airman get sucked into a running F-16, that killed the guy and totaly destroyed the F100PW200 engine, and the next day TAC banded all use of the field jackets parka hood attachment for all F-16 wings and everyone who had the parka attachment had to turn it in to the DCM(Deputy Co, of Maintenance) of the wing,

72cuda, a weekly FOD walk? We do it first thing in the morning and another at shift change, plus a tool/FOD check after any maintenance.

We were required to count all shirt buttons, sniglets at the end of shoe laces and other items that could become seperated from our uniforms or person before entering the intake plenum. This list was kept on the toolbox then everything was recounted, if something was missing it was back into the plenum until it was found. A shirt button can do some damage. We were, probably, the only ones to intenionally introduce FOD (sort of) into a turbine.

FOD is in layman terms the stuff you see on the side of the road, basicly trash that's on the flight line or flight apron, and with most units in the US military they do FOD walks weekly mostly on Mondays at shift change to try to rid the problem but with jets like the F-16(the world largest vacuum cleaner or lawn darts) they'll even pull the tar from the cracks on the aprons, I should know I've worked them for over 8 years, now I have a break and now work the most deadliest tank killer in the world, the Hawg(A-10) and she's the most forgiving airframe around, but she's still susceptable to FOD damage, I've work just about all of the aircraft in AF's inventory and to top that I've even work corp. jets as a civilian(I'm an AF Reservist now) and FOD is still considered a Killer,---FOD is Foreign Object Damage or possible damage to the airframe or engine causing extensive repair or total distruction to airframes or powerplants, FOD ranges from blades of grass to Human beings to hand tools to ball point pens or even a B-B, a .25 cent ball point pen can destroy a $25,000,000.00 engine and the USAF & US Navy has a major campain to rid this problem but it's still there because people are not perfect and they drop things without knowing it(normal human nature) and the next person doesn't pick it up and thats FOD, on the MiG 29 she has anti FOD doors on her intakes to stop the engines from injesting FOD while on taxi's, take off's & landings, but like all A/C(aircraft) FOD can still get them in the air, birds are Flying FOD and they don't even know it until it's way to late, I know I've overloaded you with so much information but I hope you get the picture if you have any questions e-mail me at 72cuda@gimail.af.mil
thanks

With all the junk that ends up on runways, as well as birds, sometimes I think it's a wonder there isn't more FOD!

There's some video out there of a guy getting sucked up into an A-6 intake. He lived, and the only reason is that his belt got caught on a probe that's located in the forward section of the intake. If he or anyone makes it to the turbine blades it's all over...

To Really understand FOD,
The next time that you are at your local airport, toss somin in the path of a spooling engine. NOW thats FOD!!
Flaps up, Mike

ATTENTION TO ALL WHO HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR,THIS IS ONLY A JOKE!! No engines were harmed in the writing of this post.Now we return to your regularly schedule browsing of FSM forum

A human going down an intake, with an engine running, only has a very slim chance of survival. The pressure in the intake would collapse his lungs. It would just suck the air out of him. I have seen the results of two people that have been removed from intakes. All were dead and each did not have a mark on them that you could see. Both of them died of suffocation.

I, too find that hard to believe unless there were some sort of screen forward of the LP Compressor blades. I would think he would still be in the hospital...er, sorry for the Brits..."in hospital" an hour after the incident. He wouldn't be able to hear squat of what was said in the meeting due to the ringing in his ears!

I worked with GE LM2500s (same engine as the DC-10) in a marine application and nothing larger than a finger would or could come out the other end.

Evidently he was feeling better? I have seen someone go through a jet engine.....trust me when I say I wished I had'nt seen it.

Where the heck did you hear that?

Trust me...nothing makes it through the LP Compressor (Fan) of a jet engine while running.

You sure?

fyi----I work for Pratt rebuilding jet engines

There was a man who was F.O.D. He was sucked though an engine, and an hour later he was sitting at a meeting about job safety, in a full body cast.

I once saw a picture of a C-17 at an airshow sucking up water from a puddle on the tarmac. Having seen how high that thing's engines are from the ground, thats a lot of pulling power.

I wonder if it was trying to dislodge other FOD. To quote just about every dentist when the drill makes that horrid grinding and skipping noise on a tooth:

"Okay, rinse." ;-)

That's why I was glad to be an electrician and not a powerplants guy!

Had a turkey buzzard takeout the left windscreen on an A-10........ohhh...about 1996......then went down the intake and destroyed the engine......pilot climed out looking like road kil....lol

And boy do those motors stink when they've sucked a bird....:)

Having had to "dive" intakes pre and post flight, I used to hate those sensors (Total Temp, if I'm not mistaken) in the intake, as they would snag you both going down and coming out. That was one lucky sailor. Bet his ears were ringing! Fun fact for any "Scooter" fans...the only way to get the generator out was to dive the right intake to remove the access panel. Not alot of room and that sucker is heavy! Naturally, the job falls to the little guys!

I know you guys have seen the carrier video of the guy getting sucked into an intake. Spit his vest and helmet out the other side. Only thing that saved him was his belt hooked on something as he went in, his head was inches from the turbo fan. The pilot saw the fluctutation in the guages and the fire alert and shut it down immediately.

That would have left a nasty looking spiral stain down the side.

Mike

berny13, don't you just hate it when rabbits fly?!? What do they call that? A "Bunny Strike"? While flying F-4S's, we once fodded an engine by an over anxious RIO. He was in such a hurry to exit the jet and set his navbag on top of the intake before engine shut down and had a map sucked in. Frankly, he would have been a better choice!

As was pointed out earlier, FOD is not confined to engines; the Concorde Crash at Charles DeGaulle was due to debris from the runway.

At Zaragosa Spain in 1972, an F-4E was flying low level, making a bomb run when a rabbit came through the left windshield. It dislocated the pilots left sholder and shattered the parachute fiberglass housing. It tore out the left side of the rear instrument panel and hit the WSO in his helmet, cracking it. It came to rest jammed into the banana link, used for the canopy ejection. The pilot flew the jet back to Zaragosa with help from the WSO. A part of a hawk was also found embedded into the vertical stablizer.

The most graphic FOD I've seen was a seagull who hit the lip of the starboard intake of our F-18 and left a bloody spiral down the intake wall.

We had an engine change in Da Nang. Had to fly the engine down from Okinawa, borrow a wrecker from motor t and work out in the sun. Prop mechs rehung the prop and left a scribe in the intake. Take 2. Glad I wasn't an engine mech!

I showed that Delta Airlines pic to our training guy. It reminded him that he was present when they first tested the re-engined KC-135 with the big, low-hanging turbofans. When they fired it up for the first time, one engine sucked up a 10-foot square patch of asphalt from the ground and Fodded it.

Must remember not to stand in front of airplanes.

makes you wonder what happened to the guy who had the flashlight.....?!!! LOL

FOD is not just related to engines. You can also have FOD all over an aircraft. Pilots do not like FO in cockpits as it tends to fly up and hit them at the worst possible moment. I knew an FCF (test) pilot that would fly inverted and pick FO off of the canopy. He would then give it to the crew chief and tell him his cockpit FOD check wasn't too thorough. I once recovered a flash light from a wing fuel cell in a F-102A. The flash light had the Convair logo on it. How long had that one been in the fuel cell?

FOD is not limited to ingested debris for aircraft. I was lucky enough to tour the then McDonnel Douglas F-15 production line in St. Louis when I was in DEP for the Navy. At the end of the line they have a cradle that clamps the aircraft, lifts it up and gently shakes the bird. Basically shaking the crap out of it. They had a display of the FOD that had been recovered from various airframes. Tools, lunch boxes, shoes, glasses, hard hats and a plethora of other nasty stuff. We were told that the debris came from all conceivable locations on the airplane. They even found a pair of pants in a Phantom. The pants were on display, no word on the Phantom though. More useless trivia.