saving an aircraft in the air

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.

Far from a major maintenance headache, the components that you refer to were
static items that didn't wear out any more than the capsule's, or any other
ejection system's, rocket motor. I'm not sure what information led you to this
understanding. Can you cite some sources?





Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.

Any F-111 maintainers here? It has been my understanding that the egress
sysrem
on the plane and its 600+ pryotechnics charges were major maintenance
headaches.

Far from a major maintenance headache, the components that you refer to were
static items that didn't wear out any more than the capsule's, or any other
ejection system's, rocket motor. I'm not sure what information led you to
this
understanding. Can you cite some sources?


Sure. I was an F-4 maintenance officer at RAF Lakenheath UK in the 70s until
the F-111Fs repalced the F-4Ds. We (the Lakenheath maintenenace staff) had
numerous dialogs with the F-111E (IIRC) guys at Upper Heyford not far away.
They showed us the major system maintenance manhour drives and the capsule
pyros were right near the top. All the pyros were time change items and many
required pulling a lot of hardware to access and change. Not a problem on a
low hour plane but as the plane accumulated hours the time change requirements
increased.

"SteveM8597" wrote in message
...
Any F-111 maintainers here? It has been my understanding that
the egress
sysrem
on the plane and its 600+ pryotechnics charges were major
maintenance
headaches.

Far from a major maintenance headache, the components that you
refer to were
static items that didn't wear out any more than the capsule's, or
any other
ejection system's, rocket motor. I'm not sure what information led
you to
this
understanding. Can you cite some sources?


Sure. I was an F-4 maintenance officer at RAF Lakenheath UK in the
70s until
the F-111Fs repalced the F-4Ds. We (the Lakenheath maintenenace
staff) had
numerous dialogs with the F-111E (IIRC) guys at Upper Heyford not
far away.
They showed us the major system maintenance manhour drives and the
capsule
pyros were right near the top. All the pyros were time change
items and many
required pulling a lot of hardware to access and change. Not a
problem on a
low hour plane but as the plane accumulated hours the time change
requirements
increased.

Presumably in modern aircraft with digital data buses most of the
wiring harnesses would be replaced by the bus thus substantially
reducing the number of charges.

Here's more on the plane that "bailed out" the other day, from
Aero-News email newsletter this morning:

************************************************** ******************

"Minutes after departure, I started experiencing instrument
failures, one after another. No warning. No smoke. No clues. Just
gauges going out one after another."

As the first gauge failed, Jeff told Center he wanted to turn
back. Center immediately gave him vectors for the return, but
thereafter the perceived succession of failures made the
turn-around seem fairly iffy.

Ippoliti was stunned. Not only were gauges failing, but they
were failing in systems that didn't appear to be related. In a
matter of seconds, just hundreds of feet from the ground and untold
obstacles obscured by IMC, he really didn't know what to trust.
This couldn't be good.

With an unknown number of hazards looming, he informed ATC
that he was clearly in trouble. And after some initial hope of
heading back, the SR22 pilot realized that turning back to the
airport was something he wasn't sure he could do with his gauges
continuing to fail in "rapid succession."

"I told center I couldn't turn back... that I was going to pull
the chute." Jeff then told ANN that one of the few responses he
remembered from that moment on was center responding, "you're going
to pull what?"

From there, Ippoliti's activities were quick and assured. "I'd
thought about this... but I never expected to have to do it." Jeff
pulled the power back, killed the engine and reached up for the BRS
CAPS handle... and pulled.

Despite all his trepidation, Jeff noted that the pull went well,
"No problem with that, it pulled easily."

BANG!

The chute OPENED. Ippoliti then described feeling a
little 'G' as the plane slowed, swung around a bit, and then things
calmed down remarkably fast.

"From there it was almost a non-event. The ELT went off right
away and prevented me from understanding Center because it was so
loud, and the pilot door came off as the chute fired... but the
ride down lasted only seconds as I came down on some trees and
just... stopped."

Ippoliti was alive and had landed in a local park. The aircraft
was not only intact, but surprisingly suffered limited damage... "a
lot less than what might have been," he noted. He doesn't have much
to say about the landing impact, as the trees apparently absorbed
most of the energy, and turned history's third emergency CAPS
landing into a "relative non-event."


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org