Light aircraft Ejector seat

MikeD said:
he slid out of the harness and fell 8000' to his death.
Click to expand...

Yikes. It's painful to contemplate what that minute of free fall would have felt like. A similar thing happened to an experienced skydiver early in his wing suit training a few years ago. The leg straps were inside the wing suit so it wasn't obvious to everyone that they weren't on correctly. The result was fatal.
 
pressclick said:
Yikes. It's painful to contemplate what that minute of free fall would have felt like. A similar thing happened to an experienced skydiver early in his wing suit training a few years ago. The leg straps were inside the wing suit so it wasn't obvious to everyone that they weren't on correctly. The result was fatal.
Click to expand...

It's known that he had the leg straps on when he strapped in, as the crew chief specifically remembers him clipping them in before climbing up the ladder. What's thought to have happened is that he unbuckled them while in the hot-pit refueling. He'd been on a triple-turn, ie- three flights, with hot-pit refueling between sorties, and was on the last of the three flights. It's thought that he'd unstrapped the leg straps in order to use the relief tube while in hot fueling, a common occurrance. However what you're supposed to do, is take the left-side detached leg strap, and lay it over the throttles on the left console, in order to not forget to re-buckle them......you'd have to grab them when you grabbed the throttles, had you forgotten. The best that can be thought is that he failed to do something, anything, to remind him that he needed to re-buckle the straps. Which wouldn't have been a problem at all had nothing occurred on the flight.....just a "Whoa.....can't ever forget that again". Except this time was the one time it mattered.
 
Without knowing the actual data, I think the AF's maintenance mishaps involving the seat are as numerous as mishaps where the failure of the seat system was a causal factor.
 
I remember getting a real good scare in terms of the seat a couple times. Once, a jet was turned over to me during a hot pit hot seat with the handle still armed. The other was during OEF, normally I would safe the seat to break out the piddle pack, unstrap partially and meet nature's call. Unfortunately, still being out of my habit pattern, I forgot to ever arm it again. Trapped a few hours later that night on the boat, and as I got chained down I went to safe the seat and it was already done :(. From then on, I would remove my kneeboard every time I safed the seat and put it up on the glareshield and would not put it back on until I armed back up as a reminder. Same way I remember that the seat is armed on deck.......I have the HUD repeater up on the left DDI/display if it is, takeoff checklist page if it isn't. Has spared me several times when heading back to the line to troubleshoot, where I might have forgotten to safe it otherwise. I also always check that the seat is safe and the master arm switch is in safe before I get out of the jet each and every time.
 
Here's my scariest ejection seat moment:
Things at the airport that make you go hmmmm....

During the second week of the Iraq war in '03, my back seater was being interviewed out at our jet just prior to starting up. I sat in the front seat while he was talking to the reporter and sitting in the back set.

After the mission -- on which we'd attacked an active SA-2 SAM battery that shot at us and we threat reacted to -- and after landing, I realized that not only had my ejection seat not been armed for the whole mission, but I had also not been strapped in to my parachute harness or my seat belt for the entire sortie.

All because my pre-flight habit patterns had been interrupted by a TV interview.
Click to expand...
 
MikeD said:
In the Hog, we had a "SEAT NOT ARMED" green caution light on the caution/warning panel. Was something similar on your birds too?
Click to expand...

In most Hornets/Super Hornets you have the "check seat" caution if it isn't armed and you have the throttles over like 89% or whatever. In F/A-18 A and B, there is no such caution, to include A+ and A++ (basically renovated original A's). Hence the story, though notably the takeoff checklist (including arming the seat) was no different :) I remember we had a new guy call back on the base freq once in my fleet squadron and said something like "yeah this jet didn't give me the check seat caution" which was funny because the response was "so you didn't do your takeoff checklist then?" lol

Good story Hacker. I might scoff at the idea of prescribed "flows" but it's a real thing. If you throw me off my habit patterns, I'm already behind the jet.
 
Bandit_Driver said:
That and pilots ejecting when they shouldn't have and the plane hitting houses on the ground. There is a reason a lot of the warbird restoration companies disable ejection seats fro non-military or those they feel are not properly trained or responsible for the ejection system.
Click to expand...
I thought insurance companies won't touch an airplane with an ejection seat.
 
///AMG said:
I might scoff at the idea of prescribed "flows" but it's a real thing. If you throw me off my habit patterns, I'm already behind the jet.
Click to expand...

My take-away thereafter was whenever I got thrown off my normal flow, for whatever reason, it was time to just straight whip out the checklist and hit it line-by-line.

It would be an understatement to say that upon discovery of having been dodging SA-2s aimed at me and that I hadn't been attached to either the chute or the airplane, it was time to seriously reconsider whatever techniques had helped me arrive at that situation.
 
knot4u said:
Command decision. Has anyone actually done it?
Click to expand...
I doubt it, but how would you ever know? Command eject is always selected by one or both front seaters with guys in the back. The guys in back pay attention. They'll let you know if pilot and COTAC have both turned off crew (command) eject.

It's tough to ignore the head knockers on the Escapac seats.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top