The first time flyer in a Navy tactical aircraft will receive a stern admonition from the qualified pilot he goes up with: Don’t touch anything, especially anything painted yellow and black. Cockpit controls that yellow typically jettison something – drop tanks, emergency weapons release, hydraulic flight controls (in favor of manual back-ups). Controls painted yellow with black stripes jettison critical items such as the canopy or even, in the case of the ejection seat handle, the aircraft itself.
A few years ago, back when dinosaurs the F-14 Tomcat darkened graced the skies, a squadron CO thought it would be a good and proper thing to take the commander of his strike group’s air defense cruiser on a flight at Fallon. Show “Whiskey” what it looked like from the air, rather than across the pixellated screen of his Aegis weapons system. A short flight for the blackshoe captain, as it turned out: Once airborne and on their way to the air combat range, the nose gunner rolled the beast inverted for to do a negative g check. Now, the negative g check prior to actual air combat maneuvering is a good thing to do, for if anything is adrift in the cockpit – Skilcraft government pens, wrenches, yesterday’s lunch – has been left in the darker recesses of the contraption, it will float up in a controlled fashion for to be secured rather than at an awkward moment such as pushing over to a guns finish in a flat scissors with the adversary 1000 feet in front of you.
As useful as the negative g pushover can be, it definitionally results in, well: Negative g. A phenomenon almost entirely alien to the cruiser commanding officer fraternity. If your man isn’t buckled in nice and tight – and in some aircraft, even if he is – then he’ll float loose in his straps in what could be a disconcerting way to the uninitiated. So much so that a disconcerted captain might temporarily forget his preflight admonishment, reach down between his legs and pull on something to get him back in his chair.
Which, in this particular case, worked quite well, since the captain pulled the ejection handle, causing the leg and thigh restraints to retract, the canopy to jettison, the rocket motor to fire and hisself to be catapulted into th’insubstantial air, chair and all. No great harm done, apart from the appalling repair costs and the ever-lasting embarrassment all the way around – the Tomcat driver wisely set up the ejection sequencer to ensure that a rear seat ejection would not automatically cause both seats to fire after the programmed delay. With the top down and the back seat gone, the pilot had the solitude (if not the silence) with which to get a search and rescue effort organized for the now aerially suspended cruiser CO and his story straight for the mishap board.
In aviation, as in sport, anything done once can be done again:
As the plane rolled into another stomach-churning manoeuvre, the passenger was probably wishing that he was somewhere else.
Then, just like that, he was.
The man, a civilian joyriding with his air force pilot friend, accidentally grabbed the eject lever while trying to brace himself.
He was instantly fired through the aircraft’s perspex canopy and blasted 320ft (100m) into the sky by the rocket-powered chair.
He then floated down to the ground with a parachute that opened automatically.
Experts said he was lucky to escape unharmed from the bizarre accident last week in South Africa.
I gather that the pilot, a member of South Africa’s Silver Falcon flight demonstration team, may have some ’splaining to do.
Appropos of the Tomcat incident, I witnessed a “somewhat” similar incident at Wheelus in Tripoli years ago in F-4s. We were mixing it up in ACT and one of our guys somehow positioned his bird in an “un-natural” position such that he “temporarily” began to fall out of the sky in what is technically known as “departure from controlled flight.” (Heh) Well, being made of the stern stuff of fighter jocks everywhere, he stayed with the ac fighting it all the way down rather than look bad. His back-seater, a man of the “o yea of little faith” variety (and probably superior judgment in the text-book case way of measuring things) had other ideas about 7/10ths of the way down and elected to terminate the ride. Our intrepid Air-Craft Commander (with emphasis on “Commander”) somehow “willed/”commanded”/”skillfully
) Needless to say, our pair of intrepid birdmen never crewed together again. Something about mutual confidence and/or judgment and/or faith and/or—well many things…(fill in the blank)
employed the controls” in time to recover at what looked to be for all the world (even tho we knew t’were
physically impossible) like 6 inches AGL in a cloud of the Libyan deserts’ finest dust, and motor on down the way a piece before climbing back up to RTB. Was an interesting trip back, viewing said pilots’ bird with the rear canopy missing and the rail projecting up high above the cockpit line as it did. Many pictures in-flight were taken en route back and much hilarity round the bar (much later-the debrief was not so pleasant I was told
I think I would have punched out too. Sometimes faith is a nice thing to have, but the saw about “old and bold” jumps to mind in time like that.
When were you at Wheelus? My father was detailed on TDY to Wheelus in July 1967, but got stopped at Torrejon. He was going to help close the place and I can’t remember why they stopped him at Madrid. He was back home at the end of the week.
QM/
I guess your Dad was stopped because they decided to pay old King Indis more money so NATO outfits in Europe w. all the shi**y wx could continue to use the good wx for bomb & gun–he was, I understand holding us up for ransom in base access re-negotiations at the time. Our Wing rotated in and out of there with each Squadron going down every 90 days (2flts for 2wks, then remaining two for 2nd 2 wk stint) out of the UK for conventional Bomb and Gun practice due to the terrible European wx (for nukes we used ranges in Scotland as everything was a radar event good wx or bad.)
Our Squadron had the “privilege” of being there during the overthrow of old King Idris by Khadafy in Sept of ‘69. T’was on a Sat nite. The minor miracle was getting everyone recalled to base who was shacked up in Tripoli in the days before cell phones. (Had to send out scouts
) We all lept out around 0230 headed back home. (no alcohol 12 hrs bottle to throttle waived–no questions asked 
The big kids wanted those birds OUT! (before Khadafy got any ideas) I still have my BOQ room key w. attached Holiday Inn-like plastic ID w. APO #, etc., as a souviner.
After that we were nomads for rest of my tour until I left at end of 71, using ranges variously at Torrejon outside Madrid, in Sardinia at Decimano, and at Incirlik, Turkey
where we did double duty by also rotating to cover the nuke alert duty at Incirlik previously held by the 401st TFW who had rotated out of Torrejon but were then stood down to transition from F-100s to F-16s.
You are probably right about paying off the good king. June ‘67 is when the Israelis kicked some serious Ayrab tail, and I don’t think the good king was happy we were on the Israeli side. I was 3 months short of 13 then and may not be remembering quite right.
I was not aware there were still Dogs around when the 16 came out. We used to see F-100s around where we lived near Kaiserslautern when my father was at Ramstein (1967). I had thought the 100s were gone from the active inventory when the 16 came out.
QM/
Naw, there were lots of them around both in active duty inventory and ANG units. Had several ANG 100C Wings in South Vietnam–were sent over after Tet. Besides the “Hungries” in the 401stTFW @ Torrejon we also had ‘em in the 79th TFS sitting right across the runway from us at RAF Woodbridge–were reflexed down from the 100C equipped 20th TFW at RAF Weathersfield up near RAF Mildenhall near Cambridge in East Anglia. They shared our little Quonset-hut O-Club with us until my final year there when they re-equipped with 111s and were withdrawn and replaced at Woody by an Air-Sea rescue AARS C-130/Super Jolly unit that reflexed 1/2 the squadron at a time for 30 days up to Keflavick in Iceland to sit rescue alert.
I read something yesterday that indicated the pilot broke rules about having non-pilots in the plane. I’m guessing that his career with the SA Falcons is over.
Damn lucky for the passenger that he wasn’t seriously injured, or worse.
Image of the convertible Tomcat here…
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0014_F-14_Convertible/01.jpg
and here:
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0014_F-14_Convertible/02.jpg
Gee, no rail, what sort of system does/did the F-14 have? The old Phantom had a seat rail that upon ejection extended/telescoped about at least 4′ in length above canopy line as the MB seat traveled/was guided up.
‘I’VE LOST MY RIO’ by Lt. Geoff Vickers: http://tiny.cc/JwPRU
Gad! Referring to the F-14 as a “dinosaur” makes me feel old. Tailspin and I were among the first civilians to see one in person. We made a point of going to Pax River for their show every year. There she was. Same reason we saw one of the first Hornets. (I know, all of this and $2.50 gets me a cup of coffee)
Don’t feel too bad. The 18 is getting long in the tooth these days, and it will be the dinosaur soon enough. You’ll be able to welcome Lex to dinosaurdom soon enough.
Which leads to another question – at what age does one become a codger? I know “Old Codger” is older than I am, I just don’t know the age one becomes a “young codger.”
Reminds me of a docent at the Midway Museum who told me about a plane he flew in the 60s on a check ride after some kind of cockpit pressure problem. Wasn’t fixed. Blew the canopy off over the Pacific a great distance from land and knocked him unconscious for several seconds. He flew a couple hundred miles back to base with no radio contact because the screaming wind made it impossible to hear. The ejection curtain was apparently on the edge of activating and he spent the entire time sure he was going to eject because every time he tried to reach and fix it the wind nearly took his arm off.
Reminds me of what happpened with Ted Williams in 1952 -
Ted Williams, former Boston Red Sox slugger, flew a Marine F9F-5 Panther jet fighter plane, while taking a refresher course in Sept. 1952.
Williams, a Marine captain, crash-landed his burning Panther jet fighter bomber, February 16, 1953, at a forward base in Korea after participating in a 200 plane strike in North Korea.
When Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Williams why he didn’t eject from his burning plane, Williams told him about a metal bow stretched across the canopy, a barrier he figured his long frame would never clear: “And I looked at my knees and I knew that I was going to break both my knees if I ejected and never play baseball again,’” Williams said.
McCain said he surmized that Williams would rather have died in mid-air than risk never playing baseball ever again……
“dinosaurs” “darkened the skies” Sounds like sour grapes Captain. Sir…might this fine Naval Aviator be speaking about you around 97?
Check @ about 7:24 With all due respect of course
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4419370
I second that… Hornet drivers only prematurely eject when they are afraid to land on the boat at night…
Not me. Never got gunned by a Tomcat. And it really was a beautiful bird.
With the pipper on
I’m sure you had plenty of gun camera footage so you could admire the lines of the Tomcat.
McCain ejected from an A-4, an airplane with a right snug cockpit. I think some of his injuries may have come from that.
I do wonder what becomes of the seats after the pilots separate. Did anyone ever put in a claim for a seat having crashed down through his roof?
Inducing negative G is also a good way for the neophyte to trigger an active back-brief critique of his lunch. I won’t elaborate on how I know. BTW, VX, Wheelus ‘59. I may have just been out of diapers but I remember a lot of it. The old man’s quarters were right on the Med and our back yard ended at the Med Sea.