Any F-11 maintainers here? It has been my understanding that the egress sysrem
on the plane and its 600+ pryotechnics charges were major maintenance
headaches.

I seem to recall a couple of fatal capsule ejections in SEA but I don't recall
the causes.




Problems would include velocity, attitude,
structual integrity, touchdown (to whit, bad experieces in F-111/B-1A
capsule
touchdowns) and pilot vs automatically actuated.

The USAF has documented one case of the F-111 escape capsule impact
attenuation
bag failing to deploy after ejection. The crew ejected successfully on
October
8, 1982, however as noted, the impact attenuation bags did not deploy and the
the pilot (and Wing Commander) suffered an injured spinal cord. The weapons
system officer was not injured.

During my tenure in the F-111, I personally knew several colleagues who had
ejected. Each and all of them walked away from the capsule after it landed.
The F-111 escape capsule system has the second best "in the envelope" success
rate after the ACES II system.

Either the pilot or the weapons system officer could initiate ejection. No
automatic actuation system existed.