Phantom flight

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.

Can't speak for early aircraft, but by the time I transitioned to the F-4,
all Navy jets had a command selector valve. Either the rear seat would go
alone with the pilot commanding both (rear first for obvious reasons), or
either seat could initiate dual ejection. Generally, we flew dual command
to either seat with a qualified RO in the back. Sadly there were a couple
"qualified" RO's I flew with that I'd rather not have entrusted with the
decision. Fortunately, I never had to jettison an aircraft command or no.

R / John