BT

Showing my age of course.

When I ejected (in days of yore) the timer fuse started and burned
down and hit the explosive charge that blew the seat belt apart and
also fired the "butt snapper" which threw me out of the seat. I had
the Zero Lanyard connected to 'D' ring and upon separation from seat
it pulled the 'D' ring and released the Drogue chute which started
canopy out of the pack. The drogue chute pulled the whole canopy out
ending up with no slack in the chute lines and then the drogue chute
pulled the bag off the canopy and it opened. Very smooth opening and
no crack the whip with physical damage to pilot.

Read your comments about the Aces seats. The F-18 uses Martin Baker
(NACES) seats. Not sure how chute is set up in the F-18??? I'll bet a
million that he did not hit the ground still in the seat and only get
a few scrapes and bruises. If he did, he used all 9 lives in one
episode.

I wonder if he sent in and got his Caterpillar Certificate and pin. I
did. They still give out even though the chutes are not made of silk
any more. This started giving out in 1922 by the way and original pins
were gold.

In 1950 there were over 50K registered in Caterpillar Club who had
saved their lives by using a chute (per Internet).

Tomorrow we spring forward and get more daylight to work with in the
afternoon/evening )

Big John
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` `````````````````````

BTIZ" wrote:

Big John, if the seat is the F18 is the ACES II Style that I used in the
B-1, then it is not a "back pack" style chute, the parachute is packed in
the head rest and ballistically deployed as part of the ejection sequence,
when it goes.. and inflates.. you get man seat separation.

Actually the ACESII seat works in 3 modes depending on where you are in the
ejection envelope.

BT

"Big John" wrote in message
.. .
Nathon

One news report you listed said that pilot did not separate from seat
and landed in it and ended up with a few scrapes and bruises. Wrong.
Wrong. Wrong. Chute won't open until after you separate from seat as
you are sitting against it in a back pack and you are strapped in the
seat with shoulder and lap belts. Until you separate from seat the
chute won't/can't open.

One picture showed the left rudder and up along the port side of the
fuselage and most of the port wing. There was no obvious damage to the
wing or rudder from a ground impact if bird had rolled as summarized
by reporter????

Again, as Casey said. Lots of Monday morning quarterbacks and report
will never be released so we will never know unless someone in the Sq
talks to his bed mate or a friend )

Big John


On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 21:11:46 GMT, Nathan Gilliatt
wrote:

In article ,
Big John wrote:

They don't normally report the cause of an accident unless it causes
some civilian damage which this one didn't.

No damage, but a close call. The plane ended up about 250 feet from a
passenger terminal, having passed near passenger jets on the ramp along
the way. The newspaper had a diagram that showed the airplane beginning
along runway 23L, the pilot ejecting as he passed taxiway charlie, and
the plane skidding across taxiway alpha and a corner of the terminal A
ramp before ending up past the end of the ramp. Kind of a busy area.
Most GA traffic uses that side of the airport, too.

It's a little higher profile than the typical military mishap. Not too
many airline passengers get to watch unmanned tactical jets
roll/bounce/tumble (whatever it in fact did) by as they wait for
departure. I guess we'll see if that leads the Navy to release any
information from the investigation.

Here are a couple more local media links:

Jet crashes at RDU (Saturday 3/27)
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/sto...-3071734c.html

Cause of crash at RDU unclear (Sunday 3/28)
http://www.newsandobserver.com/front...-3073838c.html

- Nathan