On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:30:52 GMT, "Diamond Jim"
wrote:


"Bob" wrote in message
roups.com...
............ My theory, and I never tried it, was if all else failed in a
flat spin, have the back seater eject and maybe the reaction to the
seat firing would lower the nose a hair. You just never told the RIO
what your plan was. In Navy planes, he could eject me but I couldn't
eject him. A serious design fault IMHO. Actually there was a way to
eject the rear seat from the front but it wasn't widely advertised.


Bad form to return to the ship without your backseater. How would you ever
get someone else to fly with you?

Strange policy those Navy guys got! The USAF Phantom was set up so
that the back seater could eject himself only, and if the front seater
initiated ejection it would be a dual sequenced ejection. After around
1970, they installed a "command-selector valve" in the R/C/P that
allowed the backseater to choose single or dual ejection.

Default position was single back seat ejection. Crew coordination
briefing during preflight required briefing the WSO on what the A/C
wanted done with the rotating handle.

My guidance was always to leave the handle alone unless I
specifically, in a very rare situation tell you to rotate it. If the
back-seater lost confidence he was free to leave whenever he wanted,
but I damn sure didn't want to suddenly find myself hanging from a
parachute when I was about to recover the jet.

Corollary was that if I ever found out that he rotated the selector
valve without my instruction I would kill him.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com