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What a ride

Hooooooo! That's a nice story. Glad the civvy is alright. Imagine explaining THAT one to your buddies. Even better, imagine explaining that one to your superior!

Wow.
 
CodyValkyrie said:
Hooooooo! That's a nice story. Glad the civvy is alright. Imagine explaining THAT one to your buddies. Even better, imagine explaining that one to your superior! Wow.
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Yea, that Pilot's in hot water for sure. It may put a real damper on his flying career right now as well. The Canopy alone is probably somewhere in the area of $25,000 to $35,000, then you add the cost of an entirely new aft seat system, not to mention the work that will have to be done to repair the damage done by the rocket when it fired. It might be cheaper to make that one a static trainer, lol.
 
I came close to purposely ejecting from a T-2C Buckeye once. I flew cross country from Pax River to Rickenbacker AFB. The wing transfer fuel valve froze, and the pilot had called in an emergency. The base deployed the crash trucks, etc...... Fortunately the valve started transferring fuel upon our approach, but my hand was never far from that handle.

NC
 
Someone forgot his pre-flight instructions. Someone's got some splainin to do!!!

It is uncommon for civi's to be allowed into a military aircraft like that, but it happens. When it does, at least for the US, they make sure to tell them NOT to pull the big yellow handle.
 
Gibbage said:
. . . . .It is uncommon for civi's to be allowed into a military aircraft like that, but it happens. When it does, at least for the US, they make sure to tell them NOT to pull the big yellow handle.
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It was not as uncommon as you might think really. Whenever dignitaries (political or otherwise) made a visit to the base, they were offered a backseat ride in one of our "D" models. Needless to say, not everyone took the challenge and it's not like it happened every day, but it does happen. Now the case of the civilian mentioned in that article. . .very different story as it would appear he got in under the radar. The story could have had a much different ending had he not survived or if that aircraft had crashed killing both of them. They would have been hard pressed to account for the extra body and heads would have rolled, even more than they will with this incident.

In the late 80's, while we still had our "E" model F-4's, we were doing an ORE (Operational Readiness Exercise) on one of our Reserve weekend drills. The Saturday portion went smoothly and we looked forward to Sunday and the completion so we could all head back home. We knew that we would be doing the Chem Warfare portion early Sunday morning and that we would be under "Black" (full chem gear/w masks) for about 3 hours while we showed proficiency under those conditions. There was an F-16 unit there from another base to serve as Aggressors to our Phantoms and they were to stage a mock attack on the base and then we would go to full chem gear and start the last part of the exercise.

At around 8:30 Sunday morning we heard the first wave of F-16's strike low over the base (very low and fast). We hit the deck and started donning the gloves and mask. Before everyone could even get that done, our chief ran into the staging area (an open hangar) and yelled that we had just lost one "Real Time". One of the F-16's had crashed about 200yds from our position and in a direct line with a full wing of Phantoms parked on the ramp. There was nothing left of the Falcon, save some debris floating out of the sky, a small part of the vertical stab that stuck into the top of the fire dept roof and the nose gear that was found 300yds from the crash site laying under one of our Phantoms.

The pilot of that F-16 had picked up a buddy of his (a Naval Aviator) at a neighboring base and then flew back in time to make the initial pass over us. As he broke hard over the base to make his pass the passenger in the aft seat was thrown against the stick pushing it over hard and in an instant they were gone. One of the guys from my shop was on the line when it happened and he said as he looked up at the aircraft they were no higher than the lights on the ramp (which means they were probably higher than that actually since he was laying on the ramp).

That day we lost two fine pilots, a multimillion dollar aircraft and the careers of quite a few high ranking officers at their home base were over before the last pieces of the aircraft were picked up and cataloged. The pilot, his passenger and the cockpit portion of the Falcon were never recovered. They simply covered up the hole it left.

That's an example of what can happen and I can relate other examples where sanctioned "Incentive rides" went bad. Those guys in the Pilatus are very, very lucky.
 
We had an A-10 pilot at Eielson plow in on a night exercise. He got completely disoriented and thought he was losing altitude, so pulled hard back on the stick.... he was actually upside down and plowed directly into the ground. When he realized what he was doing, he ejected. Unfortunately, he was too low to the ground. He ejected horizontally through the woods. They found a seat the the soup which was the remains of the pilot. Anything can happen. Thankfully the civvi is alright.
 
VCN-1 said:
It can happen to anyone.
VCN-1
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Yep, it will work as advertised, lol.

Slightly off-topic, but if you want to read an amazing story, look up the name Brian Udell. He was an F-15 pilot assigned to an F-15 Squadron on the east coast. He's the only airman ever to survive an ejection above mach. His crippled aircraft was passing 800kts when he and his backseater ejected. I had a PBS documentary about him that I always showed newbies going through Egress training. Amazing story!
 
falcon409 said:
Yep, it will work as advertised, lol.

Slightly off-topic, but if you want to read an amazing story, look up the name Brian Udell. He was an F-15 pilot assigned to an F-15 Squadron on the east coast. He's the only airman ever to survive an ejection above mach. His crippled aircraft was passing 800kts when he and his backseater ejected. I had a PBS documentary about him that I always showed newbies going through Egress training. Amazing story!
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I've seen a program about Brian Udell and have read his story in a few magazines. He was extremely lucky to survive having almost been torn apart during the high speed ejection.

Edit: another inadvertent ejection (partial) involved Keith Gallagher... http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_seat/
 
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