An Interesting Failure Analysis - Ejection Seat Failure
- Thread starter Marc
- Start date
J
JaySturgeon
Amazing
And I thought I had a tough day at the office......right!
And I thought I had a tough day at the office......right!
Claes Gefvenberg
Admin
Wow.... The investigation was very interesting, but the actual... can I call it "mishap"? Good Grief... That was one very interesting piece of reading...
/Claes
/Claes
N
nancy chen
Hoo!
It is very interesting!
It is very interesting!
E
energy
Respectable
As one who spent some time in the rear seat with a parachute strapped to my behind, (and carrier landings), I can appreciate dealing with a situation that suddenly got ugly. Never had the occasion to bail out, my worst nightmare, but you would do it. Our chances were 50/50 that after we went over the side, we would crawl low enough to the bottom of the fuselage (hand holds for that purpose) to escape torque prop wash that will pick you off and air mail you into the horizontal stabilizer, tail or worse yet, a pitot tube used to measure air speed. Like a kabob. If you deployed your chute in that zone, very good possibility you would become a tow target. The Navy pilots I've met are like machines. They do what instincts and training make them do. I respected every single on of them I flew with. Very good relationship to have considering that they have your life, too, in their very capable hands.
Not wishing to derail the thread, I have to add something for our Marine and Army veterans. None of this really compares to being "On Point".
Claes Gefvenberg said:
As one who spent some time in the rear seat with a parachute strapped to my behind, (and carrier landings), I can appreciate dealing with a situation that suddenly got ugly. Never had the occasion to bail out, my worst nightmare, but you would do it. Our chances were 50/50 that after we went over the side, we would crawl low enough to the bottom of the fuselage (hand holds for that purpose) to escape torque prop wash that will pick you off and air mail you into the horizontal stabilizer, tail or worse yet, a pitot tube used to measure air speed. Like a kabob. If you deployed your chute in that zone, very good possibility you would become a tow target. The Navy pilots I've met are like machines. They do what instincts and training make them do. I respected every single on of them I flew with. Very good relationship to have considering that they have your life, too, in their very capable hands.
Not wishing to derail the thread, I have to add something for our Marine and Army veterans. None of this really compares to being "On Point".
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R
Randy Stewart
I think the comparison is valid. I'm not a fighter pilot, but I have walked point before. The instincts, senses, quick thinking, and training must be very similar. With the main thing being, you don't learn it from a book!
D
db
Too late
I was on point once during a night training exercise. I heard the bolt of an M-60 go forward. It was probably the loudest and coldest sound I had ever heard. I knew that had this been real, I would just have been..........
G
Greg B
I saw this story on the history chanel, or similar, a few years ago. It terrified me. I spent many years in the main ejection seat workshop in the Royal Australian Navy. We performed major services on mainly Martin Baker seats (different model - similar principle) and the seats for A4 Skyhawks. This guy was lucky he was not in a Hawk seat as they have a ballistic spreader in the main chute. This spreader is basically an explosive encased by bolts attached to each drogue line of the main chute. The explosive goes off and the main is immediately spread to its maximum diameter thus initiating drag. It was designed to aid zero/zero ejections ie no forward speed and no altitude (ground ejections). They also had an explosive system next to the pilots left ear which after all harnesses were separated it would fire rotating the pilot forward and the seat backward thus tipping him out of the seat. This was so if a pilot was unconcious he would not land in his hard metal seat. So if this guy had a spreader it would have deployed , not only shooting bolts all over the place but fully inflating his chute he would also have been tiped out of his seat (or the attempt would have been made). I doubt if either would have survived. I am lucky that everyone using my seats has survived albiet with a few broken limbs or compressed spines but they are still alive. 
Greg B
Greg B
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