Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Well, at least Martin-Baker gives you a nice tie (from Gieves & Hawkes no less) and tie-tack after you sample their wares. Does Mac-Air have a similar policy for their ACES II?
Did he say “awww, jeepers.”?
Canadian aircraft (or at least this model) have a male voiced warning system? You learn something new every day.
Its interesting that its a male voice, I thought the voices were female by design so that it gets your attenti0n. Some Discovery Wings show I saw once mentioned that, pilots respond better because they can pick out the voice easier.
Gotta friend w/ a gimpy foot who ejected from a Falcon…nothing’s free.
Scary enough when it gets sucked into the engine. Better that than the canopy I would think. My kid had a bird strike in a Blackhawk – a Canada goose hit his door at 120 knots at night. It punched in the window and got feathers and guts on the armor by his elbow. He told me he spent that night thinking about what would have happened if it had hit three feet forward of where it did. They did a precautionary to check any other potential damage. Found some more blood on one of the rotor blades. Lotta migratory traffic around here this time of year.
BTW, any idea how one of the crew sustained serious injury? Smacked something on the way out? Poor PLF? Dragged by winds?
Well, ejection isn’t a stroll in the park even under the best conditions – and these guys got out pretty low. The CF mishap report referred to ongoing investigations on survival gear. I’d be interested to hear what kind of ‘chure they pack in those CT155′s. The FA-18 had a 40′ aeroconical rig as I recall – that was the most that would fit in your headbox – and you were due for some busting up on your best day. They said the landing velocity even on a no-wind day was like jumping from the roof of a two-story building.
I’m told the ACES II seat is better, tho.
Went to the site that had the video and saw another interesting vid: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6f2_1172251787 — arresting wire snapped as a Russian bird (SU-27 I think) engaged it and the plane rolled off the angled deck into the drink off the Kuznetsov (or whatever they are calling it these days).
I’m curious about something… In a jet, a FOD incident that snuffs out those nice flames has probably caused enough damage that the compressor section isn’t, you know, compressing any longer, and the driven section is probably full of chunks, so the re-light is really a cross-your-fingers sort of thing. The crew is probably happy 33K RPM on a pranged series of blades didn’t have a turbine parts flying out of formation.
In the old days of piston motors, 105 octane avgas, and no ejection seats pilots would try to dead-stick or even attempt a wheels-up landing on whatever surface was available. Really, they had no other option.
Is it a case of ejection is the safest of all the options, hence it’s done as the first choice now, or is it that something inherent in a jet makes dead-stick or wheels-up so much more dangerous than in a piston plane?
I’m convinced of the former, but would like a second opinion.
– Max
Lex, or anyone else,
I noticed on the Soviet video that BeachBum referred to, that it appeared as if the pilot was ejected direcly into the path of the carrier. Any hope, or is all over ‘cept the shoutin’? Perhaps it’s an illusion?
I’m sure that this has happened in the USN. Is the carrier able to avoid making hamburger out of the hapless pilot?
Max, prop-driven aircraft have relatively higher aspect ratios since – come what may – they’re never going to go supersonic. Jet aircraft designed for supersonic or high subsonic flight on the other hand are universally swept-wing designs. The swept wing has the advantage of delaying/minimizing the impact of transonic drag rise, but the disadvantage is that they require the brute force of jet engine technology to push them through the sky for the most part. Engine out, they come down pretty fast.
Now, the USAF has a habit of building dead-stick recovery capability into its single-engine designs. The overhead flameout approach in the F-16 started 8000 overhead the landing zone. One 360 degree turn later and you’d be on deck – lots of fun to practice. I’m told that in the F-104 the high key altitude was 23,000 feet – the difference between that approach and a 90 nose low crash might not have been apparent to external observers.
I don’t know that the CT-155 has a flameout option, but the physics of an engine failure on departure almost inevitably mean that you cannot return to the runway you’ve just left – even going the opposite direction. Without a prepared surface to land on, shelling out is the way to go and it’s considered good form to find a safe place to leave the airframe as you do so.
Guy, I’ve heard of fellas who’ve been ejected right in front of the ship – in the day time we do “clearing turns” first thing off, just in case – but I’ve never heard of anyone getting tangled up. The ship maneuvers if it can, and the pilot is typically very highly motivated to move out of the way if he can.
I thought it was interesting that this was an instruction flight. I imagine that ejecting sucks no matter what but, I think that the student had a pretty crappy way start to his flying career
Both vids were great … but brought home to me, on this cold Nov AM , forty years after the fact, the wisdom of my decision at that time to rely on my leather personel carriers ( thats Boots…Lex Babes), terra firma and what I could carry on my back to stalk the wiley Cong … it must be rampant hubris, a denial of realty or both that keeps you pecker-woods flying… Best
PS, Lex your comment, # 8 above …question the accuracy of the landing velocity after an eject being the same as jumping from the roof a two- story buiding… I cringe at the prospect of even a minimal chance for survival at that speed.
You’re prolly right Snake, as I’ve never taken the silk let down myself I speak only from crumbling memory. Well, that and the visions of all those guys recuperating with broken legs and ankles, growing up. I seem to recollect that the descent rate on that FA-18 seat was something in the range of 30-40 feet per second. I don’t know how long it would take to jump from a 2-story building, accelerating at the rate of 32 feet per second, squared.
I just knew that with retained hardware in my left knee from a motorcycle accident, I was always looking to land my aircraft on the runway, if ever I could.
In case of an ejection off the catapult, drowning (or worse) as the parachute was dragged underwater by the currents of the ship’s propellers was a real concern, and one reason you practiced fast release of the parachute fittings upon water entry in survival training.
Back in my day, one of the “rules of thumb” that some veteran aviators talked about in case of ejection near the ship, was more aggressive than that. They argued that once you had descended to the point that you were even with the flight deck (about 60′ above the water), that you should go ahead and release the parachute.
Sometime in the late 80′s the CAG (Carrier Air Wing Commander) was flying off the ship in the right seat of an S-3 on literally the last sortie of the cruise. There was a catastrophic failure of some sort and the crew ejected. The CAG opted to go for the early release strategy. Unfortunately, judging exactly when you are even with the flight deck is easier said than done. I think he dropped free-fall into the ocean from nearly 100′. Messed up his back pretty badly. Discredited the early release strategy.
Lex, I didn’t mean to come across as a pompous s**t… but in the first week of jump school parachute landing falls (PLFs) are practiced ,ad nausueum, from six foot platforms… thought to be the height that best approxmates what a typical landing might be. Even at six feet its a bone jarring experience …taught to bend your legs when landing( straight legs are verboten) and to fall in certain prescribed ways to prevent injury…it becomes second nature and it does work. A two story building is really up there and terminal velocity or not a fall from that height, pile of hay or horse-s**t notwithstanding, is really going to hurt.
I know the circumstances are entirely different in an eject situation…lord knows a last ditch terrifying prospect at best. Trained to fly and never expecting to jump (that hubirs thing again)… a confused stuation… possably injured on the way out… its a wonder anyone survives. Best
PS, For the Lex Babes continuing military education program:
Army Airborne quilified gomers, like me,playfully refer to non-airborne quilified Army types as “legs” which is short for ” straight-leg” (confused ? … see PLFs above)
Learn something every day – I always thought that they were called “straight-leg” infantry because they weren’t supposed to blouse their trou over their boots like airborne types.
That bird was MOVING!!! Good thing it was not armed.
One thing I found interesting, one thing funny:
1.) You could hear the unspooling of the motor.
2.) The tower verifying their intended ejection area AFTER they punched out.
Lex, I know…I know…more that you care to know on this inane subject… but this will be it…for the first six months in the Army and for four years before that in ROTC playing West Point wanna-be at Norwich University, I used what were called “blousing bands”…green elastic straps that went around the top of each boot to blouse, as in tuck under… the bottom of your trousers around the top of the boot. That all changed in jump school with all that jump school, aren’t we exceptionally great, who -ha grab ass. During and after jump school blousing bands were forbidden…not done, used only by non-airborne “legs” when wearing their non-airborne ” leg ” boots ( shorter and not as supportive to the ankle) . Hencefourth jump boots were to be worn( higher and very supportive to the ankle… and truth be told uncomfortable) with trousers neatly tucked in to the top of the boot for that distinctive “AIRBORNE LOOK”… all that was fine as long as you were standing… absent that and depending upon their length you were constantly re-tucking ( is that a word?) your trousers into the tops of your boots…a small price to pay, indeed, for the priviledge of wearing the silver wings…but then again I was a dumb Butter Bar ( 2Lt. Lex Babes) of 23 and what did I know… thankfully I think a modicum wisdom has come with age…Best
If memory serves me, I recall that the t-10 canopy brought you to terra firma at about 21 fps with all y0ur impedimentia attached or dangling. That chute had/has a 35′ diameter semi-hemispherical shape- that is greater than half a circle which aids in reducing the openning shock. I recall this was a nice feature jumping C-141Bs as the aircrews NEVER could get them below the required 135 knots for a jump. I am dusting off some greymatter here as it has been some time since I even thought about the jumpmastering stuff. So I would expect that the 40 foot canopy you describe would reduce rate of descent further but there could be other factors too as you mention, the faster you are hauling the greater the opening shock low to the ground etc. BTW, what seat does the F-16 A have? Is that the ACES II seat? I have a friend who dead sticked one a few years back in NJ when they still had that sketchy engine in them. He got it down on a 5000 foot civil airport but punched out just before it went off the runway. He got two swings of the chute before he did a feet, ass and head PLF. Some kid filmed it with video and I saw it. We counted 13 seconds from the time he initiated ejection to when his butt was on the runway centerline. BTW the plane burned when it hit the puckerbrush.
Memory – the second thing to go. I had to look it up to verify, as the number “40″ kept coming up rather too often. The SJU-5/6 ESCAPAC system that preceded the ACES II in the FA-18 had a 17-foot aeroconical ‘chute. I believe that later model F-16s carry the same seat.
Low altitude ejections are only barely preferable to crashes. But “barely” is not nothing
I remeber talking with a NJANG pilot at an airshow years ago. He was an F4 driver, with a very recently mangled arm and shoulder, still in cast and sling.
His injuries were incurred in an ejection, the result of some catastrophic failure just after take off. He told me the flight surgeon determined his helmet was not tight enough, which allowed it to “catch air” as he was riding the rail and pulling him into the lip of the cockpit.
Certainly a scary and violent go-around. But as Lex says above, barely is something.
17 foot chute? That is barely a drogue! Even the reserve chute we jumped with had a 24 foot canopy and that wouldn’t have been a fun ride into the ground. No wonder they paid you guys more to stay in the jet than those of us who jumped out of them.
A 17 foot chute is an incentive to stay with it.
Didn’t fly the CT-155 but flew the T-45C. Dead stick landings were STRONGLY discouraged. The closest we came to the flameout approach of was the Precautionary approach but that assumed that you had an engine still going.
A crew out of Kingsville ran out of gas and dead sticked(stuck?) it into a field in Waco. The IP was politely asked to find other employment
GEO6, There is some upside to all this… at least a 17 ft chute gives the hapless pecker-wood dangling below it some seconds to contemplate his own demise and say a final prayer. Best
A couple of comments. One of the reasons you don’t dead stick swept wing a/c is the high horizontal velocity vector, assuming you have broken your sink rate just right. 95% of the mass of your bird is behind you and guess where it goes when the cockpit is slowed down. You could ditch props because the big radial or inline would absorb the horizontal energy.
When a plane goes in the water just forward of the ship the OD’s first command is to turn the ship toward the pilot, this will swing the stern, and the four big screws away from the impact
point.
A flame out approach in the A4 was 9000′ high key, 4500′ low key. Sink rate was 4000 fpm w/gear down, 8000 fpm gear and flaps. We always held 200 kts IAS for the entire approach. The sight angle was literally 30 deg nose down before you started your flare to land. For years it was ok to practice and perform(if necessary) then later it was outlawed.
re- “Engine out, they come down pretty fast.”
Like a Coke Machine.
b2
Glide angle of a crowbar?