John W.

A-6 tribal folklore during the early 1970s dictated that one NEVER blew the canopy prior to ejection, for the very reasons you cite.

Better to get Plexiglas cuts than...
--
Mike Kanze

"It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker."

- Anonymous

"John Weiss" jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet wrote in message ...
"John Carrier" wrote...
One of the peculiarities of the A-6 was its lack of a command ejection system.
There was some kind of reverse (perverse) logic in the community that had
sufficient following to keep it that way (IIRC) for the life of the aircraft.

Part of it had to do with the lack of automatic canopy sequencing. You could go
through the canopy or after the canopy, but not while it was in transit (because
of the forward bow). If one Crewmember hit the canopy jettison while the other
pulled the ejection handle, it was bad news for at least one of them -- both if
the canopy got hung up on the first seat...

IIRC, command ejection was part of the A-6F proposal.