Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
Smyrna did a nice job honoring Kuss and the Blue Angels.
Capt. Jeff Kuss USMC Memorial | Capt. Jeff Kuss USMC Memorial
captjeffkussusmcmemorial.com
2 people safely eject from jet that later crashed during Thunder Over Michigan air show 8/13/2023
- Thread starter fholbert
- Start date
captjeffkussusmcmemorial.com
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
I had a buddy on the team that year. It was tough on them all.Smyrna did a nice job honoring Kuss and the Blue Angels.
Capt. Jeff Kuss USMC Memorial | Capt. Jeff Kuss USMC Memorial
Nihon_Ni
Well-Known Member
Almost everyone flying in an airshow has a choice when things go badly. In my experience, everyone who is dynamically maneuvering in an airshow is wearing a parachute, as well as many who are not dynamically maneuvering.
I don't dynamically maneuver, but I always wear a parachute and I expect to use it under certain circumstances. If the airplane is not controllable (i.e., following a mid air) or there is fire in the cockpit, I'm not riding it in. It's not a hypothetical argument to me; it's part of my preflight brief. I've thought long and hard about it and I'm prepared to live with the consequences of my decision.
Since most performers have a choice, the only thing you're really debating is jumping vs. being propelled out of the cockpit.
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
I'm not talking about ripping a wing off, where there are no choices left to me made. Or as @Lawman so eloquently put it, you are "no longer a voting member of the aircraft directional control committee."
But it all other cases, there made be something to be done right at the end that buys you 6 extra feet, either horizontally or vertically. Long enough, high enough, to just get over the road or miss the building or whatever that makes the difference between killing a 5 year old or not.
ChasenSFO
hen teaser
Ok. That is one way to look at it. But it is a really weird and sadistic way.
"Yeah, I have a dad, but since he has PTSD from an airshow crash, I might as well not have him at all". Said no kid ever.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Dang, we got a missing fighter jet. The pilot ejected...
www.dailymail.co.uk
'If you have any information on the whereabouts of the F-35, please call our Base Defense Operations Center at 843-963-3600,' Joint Base Charleston said in a tweet.
F-35 plane missing after Marine pilot ejected over Charleston
A spokesman for Joint Base Charleston said the pilot was in a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort F-35 when the incident occurred.
'If you have any information on the whereabouts of the F-35, please call our Base Defense Operations Center at 843-963-3600,' Joint Base Charleston said in a tweet.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
i DeMaNd A rEwArD oR i'M cAlLiNg cHiNa fIrSt !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
The suicide later will be so much better. Think of all that extra time they had.
Or maybe he'll just become an alcoholic That'll be a hoot.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Except dad willingly took that risk. The 5 yr old girl didn’t.
CFI A&P
Exploring the world one toilet at a time.
In my experience, when flying aircraft at the edges of the envelope, the brief includes a discussion about an unplanned airborne evacuation in the event of A, B, C, or D and the call for ejection. None of the briefs I have ever given or heard included a conditional phrase of "If A, B, C, or D occurs but I have the chance to hang on for a few more seconds - then we will eject."
If you need out, you need out, regardless of where the aircraft is going after you leave. As MikeD pointed out, the CG and thrust vector will change anyway, so if you did hang out for an extra second because of the Kentucky Windage you calculated before leaving, it won't matter anyway. See Newton's First and Third Laws.
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
The phrase fly it as far into the crash as you can is a phrase for a reason.
Briefed or not.
Lawman
Well-Known Member
The same logic could be applied to any general aviation aircraft conducting spin training.
“Hey guys, give up your chutes. Take it all the way down or do it right, no excuses.”
That’s an absolutely ridiculous standard of application.
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Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
Why isn't every aircraft certified with ejection seats then? If the pilot has no obligation to the general public then why doesn't every aircraft get one? Why don't the pilots of a 737 get to choose whether or not to ride it in if a guy in a jet doesn't have to care about where his machine goes after he leaves?
Lawman
Well-Known Member
Because the performance envelope they exist in, the likelihood of critical malfunction, the redundancy available to the aviator in those circumstances, and the suitability of emergency landing/ditching don’t dictate it.
You’ve got no shortage of people who fly those aircraft types explaining it. They’ve also explained there is no benefit to simply “riding it in,” in a host of situations. Viper Demo •s it’s hydraulics and is now an unpowered dart… well sucks to be that guy, we disabled his seat so he won’t pull the • handle too early. If he slammed into a crowd we can all somehow feel better about that outcome?
Again, why are GA spin pilots allowed to fly with a chute. They knew the risks.
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knot4u
Repeat Offender
I didn't have a chute when I was doing spin training, we'd just clean out all of the crap in back of the mighty 152, head to Malibu and send it. I sometimes wonder what those folks on the beach thought of us seemingly falling out of the sky, recovering, climbing and repeating it over and over. Were we doing it wrong?
Lawman
Well-Known Member
Standard spin training with a CFI negates the CFR (but that doesn’t mean it negates that locations insurance).
It doesn’t negate the CFR if the aircraft goes inverted, etc, ie Aerobatics training. Or if a pilot of say a Super Decathlon wanted to take people on a barn storming ride. Those guys are out there right now, putting airplanes in violent flight envelop positions, ready to leave it when it looks like it isn’t gonna work out.
Obviously since some people can’t/don’t have chutes nobody should.
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knot4u
Repeat Offender
I’ve been up a few times in an S2B. The owner, my friend, would make me empty my pockets and place everything in a locker in his hangar and then fit me with a parachute and brief me everytime about how to use it and how to get out of the airplane. And then we’d head to Malibu and give it a half hearted try to make sure I was fine and then head to the aerobatic box out by what used to be Indian Dunes and get down to it. He was a prominent aerobatic pilot and it was not entirely uncommon to have a little smoke in the cockpit during some of the more “aggressive “ maneuvers. I’m eternally grateful for the time I spent finding out what flying actually is.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Umm. A Cirrus with a chute deployed is not the same thing as a fighter jet leaving a blazing trail of fire as was the case here...
Assuming a chute is deployed within it's envelope, that plane is literally coming down about as peacefully as it could and most likely going to impact an area straight down, vertically, without a fiery horizontal trail.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
And again, if the primary operation IS near a populated area such as an air show, then the pilot should take it to the accident site. Otherwise, don't volunteer for the air show. (And if it's military, air show ops ought to be something they know the ejection option is out and should be a voluntary op).
I'm taking the Airplane! "they bought the ticket, they knew what they signed up for" camp.
The 5 yr old girl didn't.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Smyrna was a G-loc mid demo. It doesn't really matter when it was, or that we make the distinction of what happened, in the context of this conversation. Was pretty tragic, I had friends on the team then too. Have friends on the team now too (one of them was a student of mine a number of years ago). I guess my point in asking that question was mostly to clarify that this wasn't some warbird dude with no training. To be clear, flying your fleet aircraft, but with the ejection seat safed to somehow satisfy some public optic once you are on the team, would be a total non-starter. Like was said, there have been zero US Mil demo team accidents that have resulted in ground fatalities, at least that I am aware of. There have also been, as far as I can tell, zero incidents of ejection seat aircraft pilots successfully "sticking with it to avoid ground fatalities".......this whole idea is a lame myth. It defies physics. There is a reason they survey the demo box, and fly the ground tracks they do. So far, it has been working. Can't speak for the Italians of course.
