EJECT!

Thunderbird F-16 cockpit video of ejection at Mountain Home AFB crash.

http://www.razorsedgesoft.com/eject.mpg

Dean Wilkinson wrote:
Thunderbird F-16 cockpit video of ejection at Mountain Home AFB crash.

http://www.razorsedgesoft.com/eject.mpg
WOW!

He was really close to the ground when he bailed out. Is there a minimum
altitude to eject? Doesn't look like it. I guess it is better to nurse
some broken bones then die in the wreckage. Thanks.

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL
Student-IA

Dean Wilkinson wrote:

Thunderbird F-16 cockpit video of ejection at Mountain Home AFB crash.

http://www.razorsedgesoft.com/eject.mpg

In article , Jon Kraus wrote:
He was really close to the ground when he bailed out. Is there a minimum
altitude to eject? Doesn't look like it. I guess it is better to nurse
some broken bones then die in the wreckage. Thanks.

I believe the modern Martin-Baker ejector seats are 'zero zero' capable
(i.e. you can eject at zero feet, zero airspeed) and have been for some
time.

Minor name dropping: the Ronaldsway Aircraft Company, just 5 miles from
where I live, makes these for MB. They have some amazing pictures on
their walls inside the plant. My favorite is the one which (from the
photographer's point of view) must have been the result of serendipity:
a nicely framed (photography wise, not what it's mounted in!) picture of
a man on a tractor, looking around behind him in awe. He's looking
around in awe becase an English Electric Lightning (50s era twin jet
interceptor) is pointing _straight down_, maybe at 300 feet or so, with
the gear down, and the pilot ejecting, his parachute just starting to
open.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

any more background info available?
regards
wolfgang, loww, vie, austria

Actually, the seat in the F-16 is an Aces II, not a Martin Maker. While it
is zero-zero, this does not count for a downward flight vector. As I recall,
the parameters for insuring a good chute are around 2000 feet agl in
controlled flight, and 8-10,000 feet in uncontrolled flight. Also, the most
common cause of fatal accidents is due to delayed ejection.

I have around 60 hours in the back of F-16's as a flight surgeon, and our
recurrent training always emphasized these numbers.

"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
He was really close to the ground when he bailed out. Is there a minimum
altitude to eject? Doesn't look like it. I guess it is better to nurse
some broken bones then die in the wreckage. Thanks.
Most modern seats, are 'zero zero' rated. This means you can eject at zero
feet, and zero mph. However this is degraded when you are descending fast.
What amazes me more, is how low some designs will allow you to eject
inverted!... Some now have an 'any atitude' ejection ability once you are in
excess of a couple of thousand feet. Given the speeds you could be doing,
and the different directions possible, this is really scarey.

Best Wishes

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL
Student-IA

Dean Wilkinson wrote:

Thunderbird F-16 cockpit video of ejection at Mountain Home AFB crash.

http://www.razorsedgesoft.com/eject.mpg

IIRC... the Mig-29 crash at the Paris Airshow, years back, the crew
ejected with the aircraft 90-or-more degrees to the horizon. The seats
blasted down and out initially and flew to a vertically upright
position before releasing the crew.

Jon,

Aircraft with ejection seats have an "ejection envelope" that is
defined by speed, altitude, rate of descent and attitude of the
aircraft. The very first ejection seats had to be fired at something
on the order of 5,000 feet AGL, with no descent rate and a pretty much
level attitude. Some were really odd, such as the initial design of
the F-104, which fired the pilot downward and killed the greatest test
pilot in U.S. history, Ivan Kinchloe (the Society of Experimental Test
Pilots named its top award after him), when he had to eject shortly
after takeoff...he tried to roll inverted before doing so but did not
have the time. The zero/zero seats will allow ejection from an
airplane sitting on the ground (there is a film of an early Martin
Baker seat sitting in an English meadow, a man dressed in top hat and
tails sits down, straps in and pulls the handles...pow...the chute
opens, he lands, rolls, stands up and walks off, minus top hat). The
Russians developed a seat that would turn and go up even if the
aircraft were in an attitude in which the pilot was fired on a
downward trajectory initially, and proved its worth in a stunning
ejection at the Paris Air Show several years back. Even with the best
seat, if the aircraft is low and still descending rapidly, the
ejection may not be a success.

All the best,
Rick

Jon Kraus wrote in message ...
He was really close to the ground when he bailed out. Is there a minimum
altitude to eject? Doesn't look like it. I guess it is better to nurse
some broken bones then die in the wreckage. Thanks.

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL
Student-IA

Dean Wilkinson wrote:

Thunderbird F-16 cockpit video of ejection at Mountain Home AFB crash.

http://www.razorsedgesoft.com/eject.mpg

Hi Wolfgang,

I don't remember correctly. It came on German TV yesterday evening. If I am
right was somewhere in the US on an air show back in November. It was kept
secret by the US government until yesterday, they said in the TV.

Best Regards
Ralf


"Wolfgang K." schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
any more background info available?
regards
wolfgang, loww, vie, austria