Because I think I describe my event somewhere else, I won’t rehash it here, but I will tell you that about two years ago we had a squadron reunion down in Austin Texas.
Now, my recollection of the dual compressor stall/loss of control event included my detailed communication with my backseater a great guy who we will call “Ferris”. When the left engine stalled, I tried to fly the airplane, when it was clear that the airplane was out of control, because of thrust asymmetry, I told Ferris, “I’m pulling back the power on the right“ and when it stalled I said “I’m shutting down the right because I know that’s a good engine”. I continued describing my flight control inputs to regain control of the airplane, as we lost over 15,000 feet, really closer to 20,000 feet before saying on the ICS (intercom) “I’ve got it I’ve got it.”
So though it happened 30 years before the reunion, I’ve always carried the memory of what I thought was exceptional communication on my part, to keep him informed about the progress of my efforts to recover the airplane.
I should point out that with the left engine, stalled, and the right engine off, we had lost both generators and we were working only on back up electrical power. The backup electric generator used combined system hydraulic pressure, provided by the engine driven pump from the left engine.
but each flight control input also demanded hydraulic pressure from that one system, and the engine was running below idle rpm, so there was not as much hydraulic pressure as we would’ve liked.
Over a couple of bourbons, Ferris and I described our event to another fighter pilot. I described in detail what I had said over the ICS.
Ferris says, “yeah, I didn’t hear any of that”
Because, it turns out, that the inconsistent electric power kept causing problems with the ICS.
I was honestly shocked, his recollection destroyed mine.
So, gobsmacked, I stared at him, and said “why in the hell did you stay with me through 20,000 feet of out of control Flight if you didn’t know what I was doing?”
He sort of shrugged and said “we still had altitude.”
“When you said I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I figured it was gonna be all right.”