Greetings and Happy new year to one and all!

I am the happy(proud) owner of

www.ejectorseats.co.uk (http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk)

and would like to ask for the following:
Any ejection seat related stories (non ejection stories also)
Seat anecdotes (any ex bombheads or ragpackers out there?)
seat rumours.
photos etc
Did you do 10hr sorties strapped to a Mk 3 in a Vulcan or Victor? What was it like?
Was the underwater ejection system totally removed from early Buccs?
Has anyone ever landed and found the pins still in place?
What training did you do prior to a new type of seat been flown?
Anyone ever seen an actual ejection? describe please?
In fact any e seat related stuff whatsoever PLEASE!

ID will be kept secret if required and this is just for adding to the website for a new year update.

many thanks in anticipation

Sub 1000 ejectee from a Mk 4 seat at low level - a little shorter for the experience! Enjoyed the 1000 dinner at the Dorchester in about 1966? Spent about 11 hours strapped in - Marham to Travis with a big refuel over Goose - copilot decided that he wanted a pee but having stood up and made the necessary dress arrangements, couldnt do it after all and waited until we landed, 5 hours later! Always had a piss on the grass at the last minute and never used the p-tube ever!

Slightly off topic but any truth in the rumour that the P-tube would on occasions be "diverted" (in the Vulcan)?

We had a Nav/Plotter who was so far behind the rest of the crew on a basic Wildenrath - Scampton transit that he hadn't had time for a pre-flight pee. So at top of climb, he duly unstrapped, unzipped and took aim. I waited until the AEO tipped me off that he'd reached the point of no return, then clicked the autopilot out and gently pushed...... He, the pee tube and its intended contents rose gracefully off the floor and he began to scrabble frantically to avoid dousing the AEO, Nav Radar and Crew Chief.....

Jim, have you got the in-cockpit video from that recent Thunderbirds ejection? If not I'll mail it to you - PM me with your email address.

Thanks Beagle - You may just know the answer to another quandry from very many years ago. In the hanger at Scampton was a Vulcan up on jacks with what looked like grass stains on the extreme leading edge/underside of the port wing tip. A simple question as to what it was was met with silence. Often wondered.

Never heard of that before! It sounds as though someone was very, very lucky...

I doubt whether it would have been a take-off or landing incident - some very low flying, perhaps?

Mind you I did hear tell that tyre marks were once found on the VASI boxes at Scampton after a Vulcan had gone around in very poor weather.

Back to 'bang seats', there was once a thing called the 'short rig' or somesuch. We visited Finningley (long before it became a navigator farm) and the Vulcan OCU gave us a demo. One of our number was strapped into the short rig bang seat and the pins removed. The instructor told him to pull the handle, the next thing was a bang from a .22 blank to simulate the canopy firing. Then the sequence continued - it ended with the seat shooting about a foot up the short ramp to which it was attached under the effect of compressed air! The look on the victim's face was one of total shock - I'm sure he thought that he was about to go through the ceiling!

The sheepskin seat covers and more particularly the arm rests made the Vulcan seat far more comfortable on long flights than the JP or Hunter T7 seats of similar design - and infinitely more so thatn that bondage-fetishists delight, the Mk 2 or Mk 3 fitted to the single seat Hunter! Rocket seats were even better, because they didn't need such a firm, non-compressive seat cushion as the earlier 'gunpowder' seats. The Hawk seat was a truly excellent and very comfortable design, compared to earlier seats. But the simple safety lever in the Folland seat fitted to the Gnat was much safer than all those wretched pins in early MB seats!

Fortunately I never had the cause to need a MB (or Folland) let-down!

Many thanks for the responses so far.
I'm sure that there must be some stories out there!! Keep 'em coming please .
Thanks Damienb..please check your PM's.

I understand that the mobile training rig was in use until quite recently.

Working Hard

I know of at least one Vulcan which had its port wingtip in the grass. This followed a very heavy arrival at Coningsby where bits of the landing gear parted company following which the aircraft became airborne again and was recovered in markedly second-hand condition I think to Waddington

I was a student demonstrator of the moble rig at Finningley at Air Shows in the 70s. If I remember correctly it went about 6 to 8 ft up. Must remember to mention that at my pre release medical (just in case I start to suffer back problems)

The rig I was referring to was much smaller - only about 18" or so of vertical movement. It ran off compressed air (or was it nitrogen?) - not the infamous travelling back injury machine!

There was a"proper" rig in the 60's - almost as dangerous as the real thing!

That rig was still being used at Luffenham until at least the early 80s.

I know of one guy who knackered his neck prior to Linton to such an extent he lost his flying cat and had to become a ginger beer.

I had a minor neck ache after using the rig but "ignored" it. Years later when I actually did bang-out the docs were most intriqued looking at my X-rays at what appeared to be an old, albeit minor, compression fracture to one of my neck vertibrae. Could not have come from anywhere else.

Be quite neat if MB listed all the bang seat records (dates, ac, names, etc) on their web site. Or maybe that's a job for you Jim G!

In a recent conflict I had the misfortune, along with many others, to have been strapped to one of our newer seats for up to 8 hours every other day. As a tall chap it abso-chuffing-lutely killed my arse bones! Cycling shorts just didn't seem to do the trick! How guys coped when all this was just fields I don't know.

JimGriff, the Lowestoft Harrier crash is probably the best documented recent ejection...loads of angles, I guess it's available online. [Edit: just seen your website, you've already got it!] Haven't seen the Thunderbirds crash though.

What's the endurance of a Canberra? Don't envy them much. :}

Back to peeing, how do guys do it when in a goon suit? Beats the hell out of me unless you've got a high pressure extended model.

Back to peeing, how do guys do it when in a goon suit? Beats the hell out of me unless you've got a high pressure extended model.

Only one guy I knew EVER did on the Lightning (he was Irish!!:p - hi Eric if you are still around). Most of us baulked at unrolling the pee-tube on the suit which was just behind a live ejection seat bottom handle, especially over a cold North sea at night! I mean - who would want to punch out with it waving in the wind.................:p

The 'other' option was quite comforting for about 2-3 minutes....................

I will never forgive the Victor tanker crew who called me alongside after 5 hrs airborne from a midnight scramble to wave full bottles of orange juice at me:eek:

BTW - what reserve should I put on Ebay for one used MB seat (with 'provenance - ie it was mine!)? Only joking - it means too much to me.

The "Martin Baker Patented Ejection Seat Trainer" was a 49' tower with seat attatched which was towed by a "Standard Bedford or Crossley 4 wheeled Tractor Unit".
It had a vertical height of 47' with a 20 degree angle of dangle.
According to the manual I have in front of me it used a "standard primary ejection gun cartridge" which gave a "stroke of at least 41 inches" .
That would give you a pretty firm kick in the pants!
I remember seeing one at Lynton in the early 80's and was told that it was in regular use for ab initio FJ pilot (read JP) pilot training.

I would love to hear from those of you who have "banged out" even if you do not think you have a tale to tell.

I have the records for the first 300 ejections and am slowly compiling the rest. I greives me to say it but MB are quite silent when you ask for details on most things. But hey! Cant complain, they do help in other ways and I like to think that the website is looked upon with interest by them.

I had the "pleasure" of using the Ejection Seat Trainer whilst doing Av Med at North Luffenham prior to my JP course in mid 85. Although there was a real good kick in the pants, the scariest part was swaying in the breeze 30' up the rail before they wound the seat back down.

Chris Kebab.......

Care to e mail me with yours ejection story?

See you do not allow PM so my e mail is

[email protected]

Many thanks

Jim

Canberra T17, RAF Wyton, 2 Hangar, Canberra Servicing Flight

I was present in 1982 (poss 1983) when a young armourer got muddled up on a seat removal and fired the thing. It gave him a glancing blow, breaking his arm and jaw on the way through the canopy, hitting the main girder in the hangar roof (Or it would have gone through the roof) I kept a bit of the smashed canopy and its still in my shed.

Loudest noise I've heard in my life - I thought the Russians were coming.


Cue more stories about accidental seat firings....

Wasn't somebody killed and a number of bystanders injured in Singapore last year,when the Ejector Seat in a F16 was accidently fired inside a Hanger, I think it was a F16.

Not sure if this is the right forum, but a tale of ejections nonetheless. Mid 70's I was bumbling around 8 Sqn Shacks as a nav. Another chum on the sqn with me had a truly remarkable story.

Previously he had been posted to Sea Vixens as an exchange looker and was on HMS Eagle. One day in the Moray Firth he was in the coal-hole of the venerable machine, waiting to catapult off the deck. Just as the thing throws him and his driver forward and the point of no return is in his rear-view mirror, the noisy things behind him stop making a noise and things look distinctly dicey. The Vixen rolls to port, he ejects but sadly his pilot does not survive. Scooped out of the drink, taken to hospital for check-ups, it transpired he had inadvertently bounced across the sea and in the process crushed a few vertebrae. "No flying for 6 months for you, Sunshine, go off to Yeovilton and help the lads out there"

6 months to the day after his involuntary departure courtesy of MB, he gets togged up for his famil flight. No catapults at Yeovilton, just loads of concrete and bags of time to get the noisy things up to required speed for safe transition from ground to air - no problem. Pairs take-off, No 1 in fine form, No 2, my chum, suddenly hears a familair silence from behind him, both engines withdraw their labour and he is faced with a rapid egress at about 1000', still within the boundary of the airfield. The crash wagons had been alerted and the two intrepid chaps used their SARBES to assist the red machines in locating them. Meanwhile No 1 is orbiting the two canopies and yelling over Tower frequency, "No, not that way you stupid driver, the NEXT hedge etc, etc....."

Must have made an interesting entry in the logbook. 2 consecutive take-offs, but no associated landings!

The passage of time might well have blurred my memory, but if anyone can substantiate these events, I'd appreciate it. The guy was called Geoff Xxxxx, I think and he was subsequently not allowed to fly ejector seats again. I remember visiting his quarters and seeing a wedding picture of his where the groom was taller than the bride, which wasn't how it was when I knew him

If he is till around and is reading this my apologies for bringing it up, but it has stuck in my memory all this time.

:ok:

One of the few photos I have from my time as a junior officer is of my head between my knees as the Ejection Seat Training Rig at N Luffenham (autumn '82) went through about 15" of travel. As Reichman stated, it did seem very perilous swaying about at the top whilst waiting to be winched down!

Not an unpleasant experience but the acceleration was phenomenal...

Stik

Could still feel the effects of the trainer 2 months later. I'm not suprised it's no longer in use.

johnfairr,

The Geoff in question was on 10 Sqn a few years ago. He related the stories to me.

IIRC the first was caused by the aircraft over rotating after launch. The second was an engine fire or fuel leak (can't remember which) which ended up with the aircraft exploding just after the crew had ejected. Geoff landed in a pub car park and was somewhat "merry" by the time the SAR helo came to pick him up.

Reichman,

Many thanks for the confirmation, good to know the grey cells are still working after all those years. Must have been a hairy couple of rides for him and no wonder he flew more sedate aeroplanes afterwards. I think that in the late 60s and early 70s we were losing more Sea Vixens than the Luftwaffe were losing 104s. They knew the Starfighter as the widowmaker, but not an inkling of that for the Sea Vixen from Fleet Streets' finest. Not quite the same these days.... :yuk:

Wow! 4 responses in a day. Thanks for that chaps.

I recently heard of a rear gunner on a B52 whos intercom cable came adrift. On replugging said cable he heard something akin to "....the've lost it and were going in..."which apparently had nothing to do with the aircraft they were flying in. So he ejected.

No worries with that, but he did it a second time in almost similar circumstances...Hmm.

Anyone know of any other inadvertant ejections.
This is an old story but verified:

Date: Late 1950's

Place: RAF Odiham, England.

Webmaster's note: There might be just a huge amount of Urban Myth about this one!



Javelin taxiing out for take-off.

One hunter on take-off, one on finals, one on down-wind for finals.
Javelin engine fire (not unusual) but unseen by crew.
Air Traffic Controller (novice, in panic) calls 'you are on fire' or words to that effect.
Three Hunter pilots eject un-necessarily and Javelin crew taxi on oblivious until it becomes obvious, too late, that the panic applies to them, then luckily scrabble out unhurt, unfortunately the RAF are four aircraft down.





THIS STORY WAS FEATURED ON THE SITE FOR SOME 3 YEARS. THEN OUT OF THE BLUE, THE WEBMASTER RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING BY E MAIL:



On your site you have the story of a Javelin catching fire, followed by a loose Air Traffic call, followed by some Hunter jocks parting company with their machines which promptly reverted to kit form!

There is an entry relating to this in Colin Cumming’s book “To fly no more” – RAF accidents 1954-1958. In it he notes that, on 25th May 1957 at RAF Horsham St Faith, Javelin Mk4 XA732, when taxiing, had a fuel tank attachment fail causing the tank to drag on the ground. As the Javelin’s favourite habit was catching fire, this one also kept to the script and wrote itself off; thus the ATC call.

Two Hunter Mk4 aircraft of 74 Squadron reacted to the ATC call; both aircraft were written off but no one died. XE661 abandoned take off, overshot the runway and went through a hedge into a field. XE662 was in the circuit and the pilot tried to set it down pronto but made a mess of it (probably not helped by the undoubted Chinese Writing in his underpants!). He bounced hard, the seat fired (injuring his arm) and the Hunter (now without its driver) finished its career demolishing the wall of an airmans’ block.

Two Gnats (XR992 and XR995) were lost on 16th December 1969 due to an ATC call “your on fire”. Cumming’s book notes them to be CFS aircraft but my memory says Red Arrows; both units were at Kemble. All four crew survived.

Wasn't that Gnat accident the reason for ALWAYS pre-fixing numbers with formation callsigns? No "You're on fire" being confused with "Four, on fire" etc.

A Vixen CO confirmed to me in about 1966 that the Vixen loss rate was indeed worse than the F104 rate. But I had a super trip as a CCF Cpl in the coal-hole of a Vixen - only the RN could pull such strings, the RAF wouldn't even give me a Chipmunk AEF trip!

I understand that Pusser banned the use of the words "Oh $hit" in the air after some Vixen looker confused them with the command "Eject!".......?

Indeed Beags, here is the story:

A navy mate described a case of mis-communication. Allegedly a Sea Vixen mate was involved in some fishy fun with his jet when something didn't go as he'd intended. "Oh $hit" quoth he. Wherupon there was a load bang from the coal hole and he was astonished to see his looker (for all our non Royal Navy fans = Observer) disappearing upwards courtesy of Martin Baker! Equally perplexed was the observer, as he saw one of HM's Vixens pootling happily along with just the awkward sight of a bang seat rod poking up into the slipstream! There was a wonderful cartoon which showed the looker suspended under his parachute musing "$hit - I thought he said 'Eject'! No he didn't - he said 'Oh $hit'. OH $HIT!"

Tony Draper,
The incident you refer to was the Malaysian or Thai AF's. I believe it was a Hawk ejection seat, and the maintainer was demoing the use of the "live" seat to an audience inside the hangar.

Back in the early 90's there was a student banged out of a PC9 in Saudi. (KFAA 22nd Sqn)
The local students were not known to strap in very tightly...probably as a function of their affection for loose flowing gowns for clothing.

This was an early trip in the lads training and the IP (yes I know he was really a QFI :yuk: ) decided to show his bloggs a roll and pull through as a means of rapidly losing height.

Said IP rolls...
hmmm a tad too fast ..
oh well a little negative G will solve that:eek:
Bloggs thinks he is about to fall out of his seat and grabs the nearest HANDLE to hang on to :}

Result

Bloggs floating down
IP now recovering PC9 from UA with front seat rail sticking up through the shattered canopy and vibrating like bejesus.
(Command ejection was turned OFF)

The funniest sight was after landing the canopy wouldn't open as it had this great pole sticking thru it. Bring on one very large sledge hammer to pound the seat pole back to it's rightful place and allow a very shaken IP to exit.

Anyone got any more info on the Strikemaster in the 80's where the student had an engine failure, went to eject but didn't have the strength (what happened to adrenalin??) to pull the handle.He crash landed in the desert with the handle flopping in his lap and walked away! Inshallah indeed :oh:

BEagle is correct. However, the needles ejection really resulted from the confusion of having both the Red Pelicans (JPs) and the Red Arrows on the same frequency!

A classic for those that haven't seen it before...

http://www.hangout.no/foto/0112lightning_skydive.jpg


"This photo shows the final seconds of Lightning F1 XG332, which crashed while on approach to Hatfield on 13th September 1962."

Full gen here...

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113616&perpage=15&highlight=lightning%20tractor&pagenumber=1

LXGB

http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/phantom%20eject.jpg

Actual ejection from a Phantom over Yuma, New Mexico, 1974.

LXGB,

Any idea what happened to the guy in the tractor ?

Perhaps he just turned around and drove straight to Sketchleys....?! :E :uhoh:

I understand that Pusser banned the use of the words "Oh $hit" in the air after some Vixen looker confused them with the command "Eject!".......?

ISTR from Martin Bowman's book on the Lightning that something similar happened at the OCU with one of the T models (but no ejection) - a reheat failure on take-off, followed by a mis-hearing of said expletive led to deployment of the braking 'chute.

[IIRC, the fact that the aircraft was taking off with flaps down (deemed unecessary by the OCU but imposed from on high) meant that the re-heat failure ensured that the nose wheel wouldn't lift anyway]

Hi Paracab,
Dunno, hope it didn't put him off his furrow though! :)

LXGB

Archi - the flaps were always down (needed!) for take-off, the problem was that No 1 burner (top) lit fully, but No2 nozzle opened fully but did not light and stayed fully open which equalled around 40% less cold thrust on No2, resulting nose-down pitch prevented rotation and the resulting attempt on the world land-speed record removed the barrier and frightened British Rail, as I recall. Two great characters invloved, one I know is sadly now deceased, the other who was my conversion QFI I have no trace of. I airtested the aircraft SEVERAL months later.

A bit of a mixed thread here I'm afraid---some seat related aspects though.
In 71 / 72--I think-- a Sea Vixen landed at Valley with about 4 ft of the upper surface of the RH mainplane peeled up--looked like it had been attacked with a chainsaw and how the thing remained airborne was a miracle. I understood that it had hit something very solid on Eagle---but never found out what. Anybody shed any light at all please?.
As for seats, I understand the boys in ASF at Bruggen, about the same time, maybe a couple of years later, also sent a seat skywards from an F-4--leaving a nice dent in the girders en-route !...
With regard to live ejections--and this story could be another "tale"--I understand the Nav who ejected from a Bruggen F-4 around ( around 1975 ) landed near to the Roermond to Elmpt road---and flagged down the first BFG ( as was ) vehicle. This was being driven by a grunts wife who glibly informed said Nav that "she was going shopping at Rhine D !"--and left him there !. The story was going round at the time and seemed to have a basis of fact. The a/c in question had an uncontained No1 engine failure and crashed near Maasbree--in land that was duly classified by the Dutch as "prime agricultural land"--whereas primeval swamp would have been more accurate!.

On the subject of inadvertent ejections...I seem to remember a Tornado GR1 in the mid-late 80s (reasonably shiny in those days) flying around Germany (I think). It was early days in the assessment of the real effects of HIRTAs on the flight control software. The Nav was heads-in looking at the radar (no surprises there) when the pilot saw an A-10 Thunderbolt in rather close proximity. He immediately manoeuvered violently to avoid the said 'Hog' and issued a loud expletive...the Nav immediately thought that they had had an uncommanded flying control input caused by the close proximity of a HIRTA and banged them both out....ouch!!

Anyone remember the full details?

Recall the day that an ex Lightning mate, inadvertantly pulled the manual separation handle in his Tornado F3.

Shot the bolt (quite literally) thru the canopy taking the drogue with it. It also fires the strap cutters, so he lifted and was about to do the 300kt tail hug when he was able to jam his legs under the front and hold himself in the mighty fin. Finally recovered the ac and landed safely, with sore legs and a bruised ego. Navigator had little choice but to follow, as chute and chords blocked his ejection path.

Hawk version of same seat has ejection handle, man sep interlock, never quite understood why the tornado didn't.

P.S. Anybody who has heard the pilots version will know that infact he didn't pull the handle but was the victim of a once in a lifetime technical malfunction that caused the handle to rise at the same time as he pulled the emergency oxygen handle which by chance was the same colour but on the other side of the seat (but then again he always claimed that his granny flew the TSR2 and his dad was the first tiger moth pilot to orbit the moon).

:uhoh:

Touche Roland,

Was that before or after he was a guards officer whose charger threw him in front of the queen, banishing him to a lesser force......

:rolleyes:

Same chap, I believe, who burst a tyre at CFS on a JP3, trying to stop on a 10,000 ft runway at Scamton!...adopt the c/s 'Boots'.

Good programme on the National Geographic Channel last night featuring the Russian K36 bang seat which saved the guys who collided at Fairford. Some good videoclips - plus good pieces to camera from John Farley and Martin Stoner. No journalistic bull$hit, just the straight facts.

Krystal,

I was planeguard alongside Eagle when the Vixen incident occured, grandstand seat ;) Late afternoon recoveries, the Vixen had been low level (we were off Wales, somewhere) and had a fairly grotty vision of life, with salt spray over the windscreen. Recovery course was almost directly into the setting sun, so no surprise when the line up went pear shaped just before coming over the round down:( During the bolter, the stbd wing tip took out bits of two Buccs and another Vixen, parked in Fly 2 and Fly 1.

Having got back airborne (just....), a divert to Valley with the wingtip shaved down to an inch or two of the outboard aileron hinge followed. About as close as we got to being needed on planeguard!

Johnfairr,

The Vixen ditching was Friday 13th, another verse to the Sea Vixen song:- Bruce ? was the pilot. IIRC, not a lack of noise, but classic Sea Vixen over rotate off the bow cat, with some nifty boat handling to avoid running over the wreck :sad:

Even further off topic, apologies, but anyone know where Stumpy Stoner is now?

Now flies out of Kemble I believe.:D

A Canberra seat fired in a hanger at Llanbedr hitting the hanger roof and literally disarming a civilian fitter.

Ta gonadz :D

BOAC,
Stumpy Stoner now flies (as I do) with FRADU on the Hawk at Culdrose

JimGriff,
You wanted detail on ejections. I've watched 3 (4 if you count my own). Two were fatal unfortunately, as they were outside seat limits (Stu Pearse from a Gnat at Valley and Frank Whitehouse from the Lightning over-rotation at Tengah) but Gordon Moulds' ejection from a Phantom was, thankfully, succecssful.

My own was from a Hunter F6, XF443, on 3 Aug 67 on my third night solo on type from Chivenor. The engine seized and I reached High Key in the Chivenor overhead only to go straight into cloud. Knowing that I was the proverbial brick (rate of descent in excess of 2500'/min) I turned a little tighter hoping to come out at or around low key but eventually found myself through the RW centreline and poorly placed! The ejection was v late (approx 300ft) and I landed in trees. Undeneath the next tree was an Army cook and his girlfriend enjoying themselves and he literally ran up to me pulling his trousers up! Thankfully I did myself no damage and was flying again 5 days later.

Thanks for that Dave. We have spoken I think. (Are you at Kemble?)
I have enjoyed seeing the 2 seat hunter in the Dovey loop a few times. Keep it up!
:ok:

Oops! Just seen you not at Kemble but at FRADU. Any chance of a jolly?:rolleyes:

Wasnt there in the early 1990's a couple of guys getting ejected out of RNZAF A-4's. I recall that one was over the Firth of Tames and that the pilot was severly injured. Can anyone confim this as I was only 5 or 6 at the time.

There were 4 ejections from RNZAF A4's, one downwind at Ohakea and the pilot suffered a broken leg, one near Castlepoint, one near Marton, and one in Australia. The last three without injury.

The only one that I can remember over the Firth of Thames was a RAAF F111, but that was a lot earlier than 1990 and IIRC the crew were unharmed.

Henry

The F-111C ejection near NZ was via a Crew Module - rocket propelled. It went into the sea supported by floatation bags but took aboard some water which could be pumped out by the bilge pump. Bilge pump is operated by moving the stick fore and aft.

Then there was that spectacular ejection from a terminal F16 at Mountain Home in the USA recently. One of the USAF's Blue Angel aerobatic team.

Fi6 would have been pulling 9g or at 27 degrees alpha, whichever comes first, when the seat rocket fired.

If the rocket gives the seat about a 12g acceleration and the start point was 9g then what does the pilot feel as the seat departs.? Careful it's not what you may think at first!!

Herp...

You have a good memory! The incident with the GR1 was indeed in the early 80's if my memory serves me right 83 possibly 84. The a/c was I beleive one of XV's fins and indeed it did suffer the fate which you describe. (The local rumour was that the nav was playing space invaders on the com 64 looked up saw A10 and Roberts your Mothers brother!)

The a/c first struck a hill heading towards somewhere interesting and on impact with the hill, (belly first, then the a/c started to disintegrate over a distance of three miles) the shock caused the collapse of several pre fab houses on the top of the hill. Luckilly, all occupants of the houses were out apart from one local who was walking towards his front door, key in hand, when the house collapsed infront of him!

Another great MB opperation for the crew. :ok:

(and a cracking little pub just a short way from the crash site. The landladies daughter was even more delicious than the food and drink!):O :O

Thanks Dave. Nice to hear from you. Say Hi to Stumps from the right-hand side.

he literally ran up to me pulling his trousers up! Thankfully I did myself no damage

..and the cook!? Let's hope he didn't need 5 days.:D

what does the pilot feel as the seat departs.?

Bloody elated, I'd think.:)

OOps I didn't touch a thing!!

Then there was youg Tom Stoney RAAF converting to a Meteor 8 before going Mig hunting just minding his own business out of Iwakuni, Japan circa 1951.

Suddenly his Meteor is well below and aimlessly circling looking for its pilot. Fortunately never did find him again.

Any other examples of this?

I seem to remember a certain FC floating down into the Bristol Channel following his seat, which I believe was never found and for which there is, apparently, a reward offered by MB! I know some people doubt his story, but I have him tell it over lunch, and his version of events completely changed my perspective.

Don't think it's ever been proved either way, hence the MB reward!

Caterpillar Club

Almost worthy as a new thread.

Survivors by parachute qualify for membership of that exclusive club - "The Caterpillar Club" - and are issued with a highly prized little grub.
Spotted a WW2 RAAF Vet wearing two grubs recently at a Battle of Britain commemoration function.

Does anyone know

The origin of the club and is it still active?
Why a caterpillar?
Are there members with more than two?
Is the club worldwide?
Is a certificate of qualification issued?
How many caterpillars issued to date?
Is there a value placed on the caterpillars by medal collectors?

As a member, I can (shamefully) only answer No 2 - the 'silk' connection

Milt,

Not sure I can answer all your points, but from personal experience, the recipient used to get the caterpillar from The Irving Parachute Company (as was).

My father had to rapidly exit from his Spitfire Mk V in 1942 just over the Channel/Brighton area, due to presence of cannon shells and bullets from some dastardly sausage-eaters' Me 109. Said items caused the venerable Spit to start burning and thus landing back at Biggin was a non-starter. He landed in the back of some old ladys garden and was greeted by the occupant with the question, "Good morning, would you like a cup of tea?" A Canadian Army doctor was passing and offered to take him back to a Police Station. During the journey he was force-fed whisky by the doc to "calm the nerves, fellah".

He was flying the next day and subsequently received his caterpillar from Irvings. It was inscribed on the reverse (stomach?) with the date of the incident, and as his aircraft had been burning, the eyes of the grub were red.

He wore a tie for most of his life afterwards and every tie has distinctive holes where the pin was affixed. I don't know how many ties were ruined that way, but it was a small price to pay for having a father....

As an aside to the story, his brother, ex-RAF and RN, not aircrew, but with an abiding passion for aviation, was at an air display a few years back, standing in the crowd rubber-necking. A Spitfire made its heart-warming appearance, to a collective sigh from the on-lookers. Chap next to my uncle mutters something about what a wonderful sight, etc and a conversation ensues. It transpired that the guy was an aviation historian and spent his time digging up ploughed fields looking for bits of WWII crashes and the last one he had found was the engine of my fathers' Spit in a field behind Brighton. Two people stand in absolute amazement at the capriciousness of fate.......

:ok:

For further Info see:

http://www.caterpillarclub.org/irvin/irvin.htm

According to this web page, there were over 80,000 members in the 1950's.

Leslie Irvin, founder in 1922 of this, the most exclusive club in the world, decided there should be no social premises, no entrance fee and no subscription. The only class of membership would be "life", the only privilege "its continued enjoyment". Membership would be limited to those who had saved their lives in an emergency with a parachute of Irvin design. The gold caterpillar badge has the name and rank of the recipient engraved on the under side—and over 93,000 members proudly wear it.
All who qualify are cordially invited to apply for membership.

The eyes are ruby. This does not denote that the abandoned aircraft was on fire. They were all the same.
The "Carepillar" is actually a Silk Worm. Silk = Parachute.
The Club is still active.
If you parachute and land in the sea, lake, river etc and have to use your dingy you also qualify for the Goldfish Club.

Keep the stories coming. Again there is a need to collect these as they will not be retrievable in the future.

The following story was witnessed and verified to the author and was apparently reported in "Airclues" the RAF flight Safety magazine.


Date: Early 1960's

Place: RAF Wattisham, England.



A rather chubby instrument fitter wearing a winter 'cold weather' anorak was working in the cockpit (delving in the space behind the instrument panel) of a Hawker Hunter. The canopy had been removed for servicing. Suddenly he heard the click of a seat sear being removed and a clockwork mechanism (main gun firing mechanism?) running. The seat ejected and went through the hanger roof amongst a clatter of dropped tools and strange toilet like smells.

The techies were surprised to hear a muted "Get me out of here!" coming from the smoking Hunter.

The fitter had wriggled into the space in front of the seat, under the instrument panel and was now firmly wedged into the very small space.

The duty crash crew had to be called to cut him out and in so doing totalled the aircraft.

Subsequent tests showed that there was no way that the fitter could get himself into the space available....but he did!

Anyone ever hear of that story?

Seats fitted to most current RAF aircraft contain parachutes made by GQ, and so recent ejectees do not qualify for the Irvine caterpillar club. GQ run an equivalent "GQ Gold" club, membership of which entitles you to wear a GQ "winged parachute" gold pin - a bit gaudy compared to the caterpillar if you ask me, but it has your name and the date of your ejection engraved on the back.

I was on a SAR pre-selection course at Valley a few years back. We were just about to coast out and my instructor was going on about spotting smoke to help you find the wind.

At that point a HUGE cloud of black smoke comes down the side of the Wessex followed by a paracute. All hell breaks loose as ATC inform us of a Hawk crash, 1 pob.

We land on about 10 seconds after the ejectee hits the ground and we run over to offer assistance.

My Instructor "Hello mate - what's your name?"
Pilot: "I'm Lucky"
Instuctor: "I know that you're F£$%ing lucky mate, but what's your name?"
Pilot:" You no understand - my name Umlukee"

Irvin and GQ are now the same firm. GQ having bought Irvin some years ago.
Still making Parachutes. They are now based in South Wales.
The Catepillar club is still going.

Re. the Hunter fitter incident and the ability of people to fit into/through impossibly small areas - yes it can happen.
Back in the 50's, a Hastings crashed at an 'up-country' strip in Aden. It caught fire and, with fuel tanks containing AvGas, was a good place not to be! The co-pilot was a gentleman of rather substantial girth and, despite this and a broken ankle, left the aircraft via the DV window. For the significance of this, one needs to find a Hastings and check the measurements of said DV window ......... quite impossible!!

I was told today that the yellow "bar" above the visor on the Mk 3a helmets was a gravity bar that lowered the visor (if it was up ) on ejection.

Anyone confirm this? Or was it just a device for pulling down and raising the visor as needed?

Both. Could be used manually to lower the visor, or, on ejection the bar automatically dropped the visor.

By the way, just seen your reply ref the "GQ" club. Does this mean that the pin on my DJ and the certificate on my wall are figments of my imagination? I wish the 6 months on crutches had been. Or should I have held out for a caterpillar? I

Jim,

Timelord is dead right but note that the bar only lowered it - I seem to recall there was a small lever on the side that was used to raise it back up.

Have you managed to collect any of those square suitcases that were issued with them at the time to keep them in? I think most ended up in guys lofts!

High Speed Ejection

Does Tony Svennson still hold the record for the highest indicated air speed ejection when he departed from a Mirage III supersonic at around 10,000 ft in a near vertical spiral dive close by Avalon, Australia..circa 1965.

Flight test instrumentation had him at 850 Kts CAS.

Leg retraints were inadequate and he only just survived massive leg/thigh trauma.

Recovered enough to fly again and do some tutoring at ETPS.

Where are you now Tony?

Chris K,

The yellow bar on the Mk2 helmet lowered and raised the visor, either manually or in an ejection. The small metal "weighted" arm came down with 'G', and locked the visor down.

The Mk3 was the helicopter helmet, and the visor was on a central track: no yellow bar.

My square box is in the storeroom: along with the Mk2 inside it ;)

Long time ago but ..........

I thought that the visor could be lowered and raised by the yellow bar. The visor would also snap down under 'g' (and possibly also by the action of the seat blind, on ejection?) - whereupon the visor was locked down, and could only then be released by a lever on the side of the helmet.

Ah, JE beat me to it!

Happy memories of silicon? fluid dripping down your ear when one of the seals (frequently!) split, and a bollo£king if you were caught carrying your helmet by its chinstrap!

The Mk3 was the helicopter helmet, and the visor was on a central track: no yellow bar.

Not strictly true. There were 3 types of Mk3 - A, B and C. The 3A and 3B both had a single visor on a a central track (with no yellow bar as you say) - the A was used with a boom mike for helicopters whereas the B had side hooks for use with an oxy mask by FJ chaps.

The 3C had side hooks and twin visors hinged at the sides, i.e. instead of a central track.

An anorak of an post I'll admit, but there you go :D

Krystal, the F-4 incident of 1975 you referred to is probably this one, the only catastrophe that I actually almost witnessed:

I was strapping into a Phantom and was horrified to see one of our squadron aircraft just airborne, heading west towards Holland, with the biggest, brightest flame I have ever seen trailing it. I was certain that things were terminal but didn't have the courage to express my convictions firmly (picture the BoI: 'So, Flt Lt Zoom, why did you instruct the crew to leave a perfectly serviceable, expensive aircraft?' You know the feeling.) so I tried to warn the crew on the radio in a not-particularly-positive manner that the aircraft was on fire. They didn't hear me anyway and continued out over Holland, trying to establish whether or not the fire warnings were spurious. Eventually, they lost control of the aircraft and the pilot instructed the nav to go, which he did safely. However, with the rear canopy gone, suction kept the pilot's canopy firmly in place and the pilot began to think that he was doomed. Eventually, after a considerable loss of height, a change of pitch or similar altered the aerodynamics and the canopy and seat worked properly in a low and slow ejection.

The nav landed in a field and wasted no time in gathering up his belongings and following a Dutch farmer to his farm for a couple of swift Jenevers before phoning base. I can't vouch for the Army wife bit. Meanwhile, the pilot landed in a different field, where he proceeded to inflate his dinghy, fire his flares, send out SOSs, etc.......surrounded by a large and admiring crowd of Dutch school kids from the school that the aircraft had just missed. At the BoI, the pilot was commended for his post-prang actions whereas the nav.....wasn't!

The Dutch villagers honoured the squadron by presenting us with an oil painting of the fireball (!), and we struck up a good relationship with the village until the squadron disbanded at the end of the year.

The Phantoms were modified with explosive canopy bolts to prevent this happening again (forgotten the detail) but, not relevant to this incident, the aircraft never got the command ejection system that it should have had from Day 1.

I saw the pilot on telly a few years back flying for a budget airline. If he is reading this, perhaps he would like to correct the errors/myths/libel.

Zoom.
Many thanks for the memory jog :ok: Please see your PM's

K n C

The Mk 16 E fitted to the JSF is rumoured to have an auto eject function in the hover mode. If the donkey stops, out you go. No make your mind up time.

What do you think of this dev??

Milt,

I read a story a while ago about some Russian blurk who held the record for both the highest and fastest ejection. Memory serves me very poorly but I believe the story was thus: Foxbat at M2.6 and 62,000 feet with a mechanical disintegration of one engine. Subsequent yaw produced roll-yaw coupling and the airframe began to tumble and disintegrate. Said Russkie, fortunately clad in space suit punches out successfully and remarks that he spent over 10 minutes in the seat while the seat descended on its drogue 'chute before auto-separation occurred!

What a ride.

Feel free to correct my recollections, anybody who knows the story better.

Jimgriff,

When I used to fly the SHAR we did a simple calculation to see how much time you had before your seat was out of limits following a total thrust loss in a 75 ft hover. From detecting the problem, recognising its severity, deciding to eject and getting the handle pulled to its extremity you had 1.1 seconds.

Would John Farley Care to come in on the last post re the SHAR?

John You must have done some intricate calculations re this in your time?

Hopefully John will. But in the meantime you can work it out yourself, using Newton's equations of motion (it won't just apply to a SHAR, but to any body hovering at 75 ft):

Type 10H seat is zero-zero but altitude must be at least 10% RoD for a successful escape. Assume thrust goes from hover thrust to zero in an zero time. Assume aircraft falls at 9.81m/s/s i.e no atmospheric drag taken into account to counter the a/c and mother earth's attraction for each other.

You should get the same answer.

Of course, in reality no engine's thrust goes from hover thrust to zero in zero time, even if the engine explodes. And of course, the aircraft will fall at a slightly slower acceleration due to atmospheric drag.

I reckon those two factors should buy you a good 0.1 seconds.

Regards,

Nozzles

Morning chaps

Thank you jmgriff for your PM as I had not kept up with this topic.

For me there are two sides to these recent issues, the numbers game that nozzles has been addressing plus what you have going on in your head while you are hovering.

I know of nothing that makes me question any of nozzles calcs. I don’t recall hearing about 10% of RoD before but that is probably because I am out of date - it certainly sounds a reasonable point.

The problem with trying to work out the numbers is the four major variables around at the moment the seat fires:

Height
RoD
Attitude of the seat rails
The IAS into which the seat emerges

The flight path of the seat both before and during man seat separation is bound to be affected by the IAS, as well as the way the chute deploys and inflates after MSS.

As nozzles also pointed out the rate of thrust decay is pretty important too.

I had a sort of hunch that come the dying whine (or big bang) in the hover then it would be nice to know what trim change this would invoke on the aircraft due to front vs rear nozzle thrust decay rates and any torque changes. So I took a nice light jet back in 68 time and did a series of VTOs from the Dunsfold pit (to make the go as good as possible – it was always better without ground effect), then as it shot up through 150 or so feet I chopped the throttle back by ever increasing amounts on successive VTOs before quickly restoring it to max. I think I got down to about 80% on the last one. Doing this there was always a nose down and right wing down trim change. Nothing violent but that was the clear trend that developed. Nose down seemed good to me ‘cos that would put the seat rails closer to the vertical. Pity about the right wing down. Mind you by reducing throttle I was only simulating the dying whine case. A fan trying to seize or the HP spool ditto could clearly induce different effects.

Now back to ones head. In my time I admit to being a bit fatalistic about hover regime ejection. Not that I was fatalistic about any other flying matters – far from it. It seemed to me the seats fitted (and we had several in different early aircraft) were clearly getting better from the P1127 onwards and this was nice to know but I realised that it was not much use trying to predict whether one should eject or ride it down from a hover (both have been done successfully) as on the day one would doubtless do what seemed best at the time.

Indeed after doing the clearance of the then new yaw autostab failure cases which involved flying in jet borne circles at 30 to 50 kts and below 100 feet in the middle of the airfield, arming the failure box and then waiting for the yaw hard over to happen following a random delay between 1 to 9 secs, then stamping on the rudder etc, I was taken to task by Barrie Tonkinson (another Dunsfold tp) about ejection issues.

Barrie asked me whether I was primed to eject during this yaw stab stuff. I looked puzzled and said “you what?” or similar because the subject had never crossed my mind. My head was full of what I had to do and I had not considered failure on my part. The subsequent conversation made me feel that I would probably still be in the aeroplane when it hit during a handling related event as I would be too busy trying to recover the particular situation.

In other words I reckoned that because ejection was not something I routinely considered I would probably not recognise a sudden need to eject before it was too late. I was later proved wrong in this when as a passenger in the back of a two seater going off a skijump the nose rotated up and the right wing went down. I instantly thought ‘punch out’. My next thought was to look down at the controls and see if they were in the right position. They were not, so I put them where they should have been and the thing shook itself like a shaggy dog and flew away.

Nice talking to you

Regards

JF

John Farley

Can you relate the circumstances of Bill Bedford's Harrier ejection?

I was tempted to leave him behind once when I accompanied him in a dual Hunter during the sorting out of rudder buzz, which was awfully close to flutter, during supersonic pull outs. Four heavy feet were not enough to prevent it happening.

Change of mass balance in rudder system was the cure.

Milt

Bill ejected from a P1127, not a Harrier. On 16 Dec 601 he was flying XP836 conventionally when the front left nozzle detached. Hugh Merewether flying chase checked the RHS side and could see nothing wrong. Because of vibration Bill decided to divert to Yeovilton. When he put flaps down he could not control the lateral trim change resulting from the nozzle asymmetry so he ejected. As ever with hindsight, if Hugh had looked at both sides or Bill had pulled the flaps back in all would have been well. But there you go easy for me to say now.

I know what you mean about rudder buzz in the T7. I always reckoned it sounded like a Bren gun being fired down by your feet. Your experience pre-dated mine. By my time the fix was not a mass balance change but the ‘standard’ way of changing the rudder aerodynamics by adding a little spoiler to the trailing edge on susceptible aircraft. Overnight job for the nightshift.

Regards

John

http://img47.photobucket.com/albums/v145/johnfarley/Rudder_buzz_fix.jpg

John Farley

Hunter 7 rudder buzz.

Thanks John for your post.

Have had residual concern over the continuing airworthiness of XJ 615's tail since I spotted it in a magazine a few years ago still in flying condition.

XJ 615 was the test aircraft for rudder buzz. If you know who has it now I think it would be prudent to advise that the fin/rudder be carefully inspected.

Perhaps I am still a bit twitchy over my survival of a main spar failure in a Valiant - XB 215 - second prototype.

Now back to ejection seats and ejections.

Did you know about Tony Svenson's (16 ETPS) ejection from the Mirage III at 850 Kts CAS?

The Mk 16 E fitted to the JSF is rumoured to have an auto eject function in the hover mode. If the donkey stops, out you go. No make your mind up time. I'm rarely for these "auto" things, but in VSTOL jet, suspect a good idea here.

A GR3 was lost at Witt early 90s after an HP blade failure in the hover. The ensuing rapid decay (instant?) of RPM, and the detached blade removing Hyd systems etc. made the "brick" calculation above pretty accurate. The pilot did survive, but very seriously injured, and heroic efforts by fire and medics to extract him.

From that date, whenever I approached the hover, I'd remind myself that at the first sign of Eng Failure, I'd have to be "out". Problem was if you tried to make any diagnosis, it would probably be your last thought! On the other hand, a loud noise, or warning etc could well be spurious or unrelated - not helped in the GR7 by all warnings being the same colour (no red v yellow warnings). No RPM or JPT "gauge" either - all digits, so hard to make a "snapshot" assessment. Fortunately never came to it...

So for JSF, if a reliable system detecting a substantial loss of thrust, whilst in the hover regime can be developed, a good thing. A few IFs though to tackle <G> or the inevitable headlines about £50M serviceable aircraft lost due malfunctioning auto eject thingy...

Following JF and NOD's posts, I hope the 'auto-eject' function has an attitude input of some sort!

I remember clearly (2 weeks before my MB tie) the unfortunate young Harrier pilot who had an uncontrollable roll control excursion in the hover at 50'. He ejected quickly but not before the roll angle was such to negate the vertical rise of the seat. The point being NOT that he could have survived staying aboard, but that the a/c attitude MIGHT be wrong for the moment of an 'auto' ejection and it possibly could be improved? In his case, of course, this auto function would not have been relevant since there was no engine problem.

We all tried the same failure in the sim subsequently, and found that the 'older and more experienced' you were, the later one ejected, trying to 'sort it out'. IMHO there is a definite argument for a correctly programmed auto function in the hover.

This may be senility creeping in, but I do seem to recall many years ago that developement was made on a gyro stablised seat that could survive (including occupant) a 100ft agl totally inverted initiation. I have a dim recollection of seeing the test rig on "Tomorrows World". Have my brain cells fried or was this ever developed further. It may have been tested for an A10 application? Anybody shed any light on this?

a 100ft agl totally inverted initiation Maybe - assuming nil RoD and good IAS (see JFs post above).

If you now add in high RoD and nil IAS (VSTOL aircraft with Eng Fail) and a different kettle of fish <G>

The JSF automatic ejection seat will not be a first - the Yak 38 (Harrier-ski) in service with the Soviet Navy had such a seat. It was the same seat as a Mig-29 with a control system that in hover mode auto-ejected the pilot if rate of descent/attitude exceeded pre-set limits. I believe it saved the life of 30-40 pilots, some from situations where a human being could not have reacted fast enough - one of them during the first live ski-jump trials aboard the Kiev.

Sorry Worf - you popped up while I was typing! But here is my bit anyway.

The Russian Forger fleet had an auto eject system that their mates told me had a 100% success rate at low speed and about 30 saves (some two seaters). Because in the hover the front was held up by two lift engines and the back by the vectored thrust main donk they had no option but to fire the seats on auto if the pitch attitude varied by 5 deg from that in the hover. By the time they got to the Freehand the seats were better and they allowed a 10 deg pitch change before boom. IIRC the roll figures were 10 and 20 for the two types. I would suggest the F-35 STOVL variant involves similar issues.

There is little doubt in my mind that the Russian seats are remarkable. Very heavy – I believe as much as 2-2.5 times MB seats- but remarkable devices. I can think of 7 airshow saves where other seats might not have hacked it. Anatoly at Paris in 89 being the first. Their seats have been multi mode for a long time and are cleared for high IAS and supersonic use - which has to be where a lot of the weight was needed.

Milt. I know of his case, but that is all. He was a lucky man and I think still the highest IAS MB escape.

It's ironic that F35 will be using a solution so similar (vectored thrust aft and lift fan forrard) to the one the Russians came up with for Forger...

Thread creep again....but

I think we have to recognise that the Forger layout was chosen as a stepping stone to the Freehand primarily to give service experience of the config necessary for a supersonic vertical lander.

They knew it would never compete performance wise with the Harrier but they had their sights set on the future.

The Harrier was a truly subsonic aircraft. The concept of a single engine at the CG was not the best one (to put it mildly) if the engine was a supersonic one and so taking in a modest mass flow but giving it a huge V.

The subsonic Pegasus was perfect to get VSTOL launched with the simplest possible config. It allowed the aircraft to have a good operating site flexibility just because it takes in a huge mass flow and gives it a modest V which is kinder on the airframe when it is washed by the efflux.

The F-35 has the best of both worlds hot and fast at the back (but out of the way of the intakes and airframe) With plenty of cold and slow at the front to block the hot stuff moving forward into the intakes. Which is doubtless why it won…...?

The AES for the Forger was supposedly part of the whole "concept" that Yakovlev "sold" to the Soviet Navy, who weren't keen on the three-engined layout. I had dinner with a senior Soviet TP who'd been banged-out courtesy of this system and had the video to prove it. There is (or was, certainly it was in the example I sat in) a cockpit switch to let you "arm" the system. After the usual Pilots/Heirarchy battles when the jet entered service it eventually became practice to make sure it was armed, as opposed to the making damn sure of the opposite. I'm given to understand that it took a few tragedies for this to become accepted.

As far as I know, Kiev never had a bow ramp and Forgers never did ski-jumps, although they'd STO after a fashion. The STO in the Freestyle (Freehand was the Forger's experimental predecessor) was, or could be, semi-auto - it did the nozzly/LE-power thing at a point in the TO roll when it felt it was ready, based on the accel.

Well spotted - the 141 anyway!

I should be put down really.....

NoHoverStop - you are right, Kiev didnt have a ski jump - what I meant was STO off the ship. They only attempted to do this in the last year or so of the Forger's service, otherwise all landings and takeoffs were strictly vertical.

I read the experiences of a Forger pilot (in International Air Power Review) and he describes in detail the landing procedure - even the simplest landing had a mind numbing number of steps!

The Forger actually had an analog equivalent of a modern digital flight computer, which the pilot had to shift from mode-to-mode manually! No computee no flyee!

They even attempted to use this thing in Afghanistan - limited combat abilities even in the best of circumstances, what made them think they could fly it in the high density attitude of Kabul?
There is a picture of a Forger taking off and shutting down the Kabul airport for days on end due to the dust it raised!

John - its gives me great pleasure to think I was thinking the same thing as you at the very same moment! Ahh - touched by greatness :-)

Soviet/Russian engineering - it works, it's not at all pretty. Or it explodes
Italian engineering - it's pretty, it doesn't work
German engineering - it works perfectly, it costs its weight in platinum
US Engineering - it works except when it doesn't, it's not that pretty but somehow we all end up using it
British engineering - it works, it's pretty, it's cancelled

Steamchicken

I wish I had thought of that.

JF

Staemchicken...
British: Make the best ejection seats in the world and the world uses them. They are even fitted into Chinese a/c now!

Vertical seeking seats were experimented on by the Americans and they did work. However, the high lateral forces produced in the "flip" from inverted to upright would have ripped a human head off!!:ugh:

BOAC,

The unfortunate pilot suffering the uncontrollable roll in the Harrier was Nigel Storah. He ejected into the football pitch at Gutersloh and didn't survive the impact. He was previously a "creamie" QFI at Linton. I recall the event vividly as it occurred just as I drove through the main gate to begin my tour on the station. I had hoped to have a bier or two with him to celebrate our lucky escape from a JP icing incident about 3 years previously.

One horrible wet night in 1978, February 6th according to my logbook, Nigel and I were flying back from Waddington towards Linton. We had transitted to Waddo and unsuccessfully tried to break cloud for night circuits there, due to bad weather at Linton.

Our Mk3A (XN494) got very badly iced up and slowed down more and more until it could eventually only make about 130 knots IAS. As we briefly cleared cloud, against a dulled moon we saw that the wings were covered in thick, rough textured white ice - I distinctly recall thinking the tip tank on the port wing looked like a huge cauliflower. The engine was giving a maximum of 90% rpm, probably not a lot of thrust. The handling became quite waffly and we agreed that if it stalled I would eject immediately on his command and he would follow. We were going through the pre-ejection checklist, checking pins stowed, leg restrainers correctly attached, harness tight and locked etc, when we found a bit of clear air between layers of cloud. The engine gradually picked up to 95% and we made it back for a straight in PAR at Linton. Nigel flew the approach, meanwhile I remember confirming I could find the seat bottom handle at least a couple of times and going through the parachute drill in my mind. We taxied back in and as we stood by the aircraft, in heavy rain, long slabs of melting ice slid off each wing onto the dispersal. To this day I have never been so pleased to be back on the ground.