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

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:34:47 -0600, "John Carrier"
wrote:

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


And, I always brought the equipment home for reuse as well.


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

Hey, Ed, I tried, but when both engines quit at 1500 AGL right over the
runway at 300 KIAs - well, I thought about a 4-lane road half a mile
away at about 50 degrees left but then I thought about running into
cars and killing civilians trying to save an eleven year old F4 so -
when it got to glide speed and we still didn't have a light out we
went. Phil Burbages' first recheckout ride after 5 years pounding a
desk, too. Felt bad - it was a good bird until then and I'd been flying
jets since 1954 - this was 1978. Number of landings = number of
takeoffs minus 1. (engines quit because some AMC mech left a wad of
typhoon tape in #2 fuel cell 15 months earlier and it finally wandered
around and plugged the transfer port to #1 fuel cell. The low-level
float and quantity probe are in cell 2 - and it stayed full as #1 went
dry. Just wasn't our day. I did get a tie and a pin from Martin-Baker
but it cost Uncle Sam 2,236,000 bucks . . .Walt BJ

I've heard of most ejections being described as "pretty violent" - what was
your experience of it?

Painful per sec, or is it over too damn quick to feel much?

CC