Lightning Ejection.

[forget]

The classic photograph of the Lightning ejection, everyone’s seen it, but is it real? I know the aircraft did crash as seen; I know the pilot ejected very low - but the photograph? :confused::confused:

Put it on its side and does it look right? How come the pilot has apparently got ahead of the aircraft, which still had ‘approach’ power on. I’m seriously baffled. Any clues to make it really real.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/0112lightning_skydive.jpg

[Pontius Navigator]

IIRC its true.

To my eye it appears that the aircraft is nearer the camera than the pilot.

Rather than descending in a true vertical it looks as if it is diving the its port side.

[forget]

Hmm. Given the position of the drogue you could time almost exactly how long the pilot has been without aircraft.

[Archimedes]

It's absolutely real, as far as can be ascertained.

Event was on 13 Sept 1962, photo in the Daily Mirror of 9 October (the photographer, instead of making a quick buck selling it to the tabloids, gave to the BOI first before the photos made it into the public domain). One assumes that the BOI didn't tinker with it, and while the Mirror may have attempted to enhance it within the limitations of the technology of the day, no-one has yet admitted any trickery (unlike the photo of the Victor with 35 bombs leaving the aircraft in a remarkably short release sequence that still appears in books today billed as being 100% genuine...)


(The details of the accident: The pilot, George Aird had just parted company with the aircraft after things went slightly pear-shaped on approach to Hatfield.

He went through the roof of one of the greenhouses in the background, and ended up with a broken leg.

To be terribly spotterish (thanks to Martin Bowman's book on the Lightning), the photographer was a Mr Jim Meads, and he was showing his sons (Paul and Barry if you're interested, which you weren't...) how his camera worked when a rather more interesting photo opportunity than the bloke on the tractor presented itself...)

Edited because I pressed submit instead of preview.... :uhoh:

[om15]

The pilot was Mr George Aird, his descent was broken by a greenhouse resulting in injuries to his legs.
Captain Aird later flew HS748s with Emerald cargo operations.
Best regards,
om15

[spekesoftly]

How come the pilot has apparently got ahead of the aircraft, which still had ‘approach’ power on.According to a report I have read, about ten seconds from touch down at Hatfield, the aircraft pitched nose up out of control* and the pilot ejected only 150ft from the ground. If the Lightning therefore climbed before its near vertical dive, it would explain why the pilot is lower than the aircraft at the time the photograph was taken.


* The subsequent accident investigation found that a flash fire in the engine bay had weakened a V-screw jack actuating the tail plane, causing it to fail.

[Magnersdrinker]

Is it me or the picture but the tailfin looks slightly out of shape ? maybe the canopy struck it on ejection !!

[forget]

............about ten seconds from touch down the aircraft pitched nose up out of control* and the pilot ejected only 150ft from the ground. If the Lightning therefore climbed before its near vertical dive, it would explain why the pilot is lower than the aircraft at the time the photograph was taken.

If all this happened - why is the drogue chute where it is? :confused:

[Archimedes]

Magners - it's the picture. In the pic in the Bowman book (which is of the page of the Mirror the story appeared on), the tail is exactly how you'd expect it to look, and appears undamaged.

[K.Whyjelly]

Believe George Aird flew for a while out of Woodvale (poss AEF ) before going civvie

[soddim]

The position of the pilot relative to the aircraft in the photo does not tell the story of where and at what attitude the aircraft was when the pilot departed from it.

[GeeRam]

Believe George Aird flew for a while out of Woodvale (poss AEF ) before going civvie

I know as a DH test pilot (when this photograph was taken) George had logged a lot of Mosquito hours and back in the mid-1980's he had the distinction of making the east-west UK-USA trans-altlantic delivery flights of both the Mosquito bought by the USAF Museum and a few years later the ex-Strathallan Mossie bought by Kermit Weeks.

[forget]

The position of the pilot relative to the aircraft in the photo does not tell the story of where and at what attitude the aircraft was when the pilot departed from it.

The drogue and main chute state will tell, almost to a split second, how long he's been out of the aircraft. So how does this work ........ (assuming it's right!)

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/SEAT.jpg

[kokpit]

The back-end looks slightly 'deformed' to the shape that I would have expected, could that possibly be the canopy by the port rear fuselage?

[Green Flash]

Could the 'deformation' near the port rear fuselage be as a result of the engine bay fire? (burnt out or detached panel??) Or could it even be a failed port tailplane?

[forget]

Follow this through and tell me where the aircraft was at point 1. :confused:

(Same Mk seat, I think.)

Pull handle… a sear is withdrawn from the ejection gun breech firing unit, initiating a one second delay, during which time the canopy is jettisoned. After the 1 second delay (bang!) the ejection gun cartridges are fired. The ejection seat ascends the gun guide rails; seat removes sears from the Drogue Gun and Time Release Unit, starting a time delay in both units. As the seat clears the aircraft the 0.5 second delay in the Drogue Gun runs out, firing the Drogue Gun Bullet, which extracts the drogues to slow and stabilise the seat. 0.75 seconds later (below 5,000M), the time delay in the Time Release Unit runs out allowing the drogues to extract the main chute and also release the seat harness locks to allow man/seat separation. Thus the minimum time from the initiation of ejection to man/seat separation is 2.25 seconds

[spanners123]

Green Flash
Could the 'deformation' near the port rear fuselage be as a result of the engine bay fire? (burnt out or detached panel??) Or could it even be a failed port tailplane?

I think it's the airbrakes.

[4mastacker]

If Green Flash is referring to the 'shape' under the wing, surely that is the wheel bay door.

[spanners123]

the 'shape' under the wing is the belly tank, which was smaller on the earlier lightnings.
I could be wrong tho ;)

[Warmtoast]

Press cutting from 14 Sept 1962

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/HatfieldLightningEjection.jpg


And intriguingly on the same page another piece of RAF history.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/Ten-TonFlyer.jpg

[Green Flash]

Who was the first RAF girl to go supersonic solo then?

[soddim]

forget-What you cannot determine from this one photo is what the aircraft did between the pilot pulling the handle and the picture being taken. It would surprise me if the aircraft attitude had not changed in that time, albeit short. For the pilot or the seat to 'get ahead' of the aircraft there must have been a change in aircraft attitude after the seat parted company with the jet.

[forget]

What you cannot determine from this one photo is what the aircraft did between the pilot pulling the handle and the picture being taken.

Don't disagree. But it certainly didn't go skywards. Interesting that no one's (yet) ridiculed the idea of a '60s photoshop job. :hmm:

[soddim]

Agree - it didn't climb but suppose it was inverted and rotating nose down into the vertical dive you see in the photo. Maybe the ejection occurred with a vertical vector component and that would result in the geometry you see. All conjecture, of course, but in my experience quite probable.

A single picture does not tell the full story.

[ShyTorque]

Who was the first RAF girl to go supersonic solo then?

Helen D, by any chance?
I know she piloted the first all female fast jet crew (one of my ex-studes).

[Eric T Cartman]

I can't add much to what has been said about the photo but I did see the Lightning crash. At the time I was a 14 year old pupil at Hatfield Tech Grammar school ( now the University of Hertfordshire) and we were in our weekly Thursday afternoon Art lesson. I vaguely recall seeing a flash which caught my eye - could have been sunlight, the engine fire or the ejection ? - followed by a pall of smoke from behind the trees at the airfield, which was about 1 1/4 miles away. We went past the crash site on the way home to St.Albans later but there wasn't much left to see.
The market garden greenhouses were in the runway 06 undershoot and I also think I saw the tail of something sticking up out of them at another time, the aircraft having run off the end of runway 24. It must have been between late 1959 & November 1964, when I left school. It may have been a Buccaneer -can anyone confirm or deny ?

[GeeRam]

Green Flash
Could the 'deformation' near the port rear fuselage be as a result of the engine bay fire? (burnt out or detached panel??) Or could it even be a failed port tailplane?

I think it's the airbrakes.

Looking at the better resolution photograph in the book, there doesn't appear to be any fin or fuselage deformation, and the air-brakes do appear to be 'out', although there does seem an odd dark shape immediately above the open air-brake?

[aviate1138]

In this age of conspiracy theory I wonder how in 1962 most of the daily papers had the same photo within 24 hours or so? Could it just be the photo was an original, one exposure item?

No retouching, just a still photographer being in the right place at the right time. Had it been a moving image we could have probably watched the entire sequence.

Nobody has yet suggested a radio controlled model either have they?

I also think I can see a UFO in the background, behind the hedge and a member of MI6 with a Ray Gun/Flash device.

:rolleyes:

[forget]

Archmedes. Event was on 13 Sept 1962, photo in the Daily Mirror of 9 October (the photographer, instead of making a quick buck selling it to the tabloids, gave to the BOI first before the photos made it into the public domain).

aviate 1138. In this age of conspiracy theory I wonder how in 1962 most of the daily papers had the same photo within 24 hours or so?

:eek: Problem solved. Seems that aviate1138 was there! On the spot! Font of all knowledge. :rolleyes:

[forget]

Hmmm. Which one 'looks' right? :confused:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/light2.jpg

[Double Zero]

I agree the doubters are right to question, but speaking as an ex-aviation photographer my opinion is that the pilot etc are a fair bit further away from the camera than the aircraft - he's not ahead of it !

Shot of a lifetime though, - on the other hand one didn't need Photoshop to do the Turin Shroud either -

what ? Banging at the door ! No-one expects the inquisition ! Well, vaguely the same outfit...

I reckon it's real, but there was an occasion I was wrong.

[ARINC]

Is that a Massey Ferguson ?

[forget]

That’s not just any Massey Ferguson. That belongs to the Conspirators. :uhoh:

Note the registration number – XAR 658.

XA 658 was an RAF Mk V Javelin.
XR 658 was an RAF Jet Provost T4.

Coincidence. I think not! :suspect:

[aviate1138]

Forget
Apply Occam's Razor. What was to be gained by altering the picture??????
The relevant pic is really low res and distorted compared to some versions available.
http://www.strangedangers.com/content/item/7392.html
Look at the rudder/fin for a start. :rolleyes:

[Double Zero]

It's not a Massey Ferguson, it's a Lightning - though knowing Wart On I can understand the confusion.

[normally right blank]

Why alter the picture? := The parachute didn't open (fully?). The pilot crashed through the greenhouse. No, you didn't get 6 frames a second with cameras then. Why not acknowledge a good - and lucky - shot. P.S. Looks like a Fordson Dexta to me.

[SRAM]

Looks like a Fordson Major to me and what made him look round, I can't hear a damn thing when mine's at full chat!

[english_electric]

I just wanted to add my bit. I normally only read this forum and would'nt normally dream of posting on here as I am simply not qualified to do so, so my apologies if I have overstepped the mark.

According to the book 'Testing Times' by Don Middleton, it says that George Aird got a double reheat fire warning but believed that it may be spurious, deciding to try and make it to Hatfield. Quite close to touchdown, he experienced a sudden and uncommanded pitch up (believed to be the flying surface actuator shearing off due to the intense heat), moved the stick and found that it appeared disconnected. He immediately ejected.

Maybe it explain the unusual positioning of him and the seat in the picture if he initiated the ejection sequence during the pitch up?

This was also a pre-production Lightning

[forget]

......so my apologies if I have overstepped the mark.

What. :confused: Sounds to me that you could be full of useful information. Welcome.:ok:

[Nige321]

This is a high res scan from an original print - signed by George Aird and the photographer Jim Meads - it's big...
Does anyone know exactly where the Lightning ended up??
I'm led to believe that Jim Meads and his wife were the first on the scene at the Carno Jag/Cessna accident...:uhoh:
N
http://www.concept-models.com/Light2.jpg

[Wader2]

Is that a 'spot the ball' question?

PS, bl:mad:dy good scan. Amazing to see the pilot like that.

[Nige321]

Looking very closely I believe that the seat is upright, pointing top left, perhaps with its back to the camera.

George Aird is upside down, facing the camera with his legs still in the 'seated' position. I assume his hands may still be gripping the handle.

N

[Wader2]

I go with the pilot. You can make out his left hand and white glove.

[radicalrabit]

Shortly after two trainers collided in Yorkshire in the 70's when one aircraft hit a tractor in the fields below, an advert appeared in the local rag that went something like "wanted farm hand with quick reactions"

[olimeads]

Hi
If you need any more infomation or the full story of the event well . . .
i am here with the photographer, the photographers son and me the photographers grandson.
Both my dad and grandad were there and can vividly remember the event so, just ask and i will go find him watching the tv and ask.
regards oli

[harrogate]

Only just seen this thread.

WOW! Nice tractor.

[olimeads]

also you may remember this thread
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=97449&page=3
it is about the crash involving a jaguar hitting a cessna taking photos.
This was over jim meads home and him and his wife were the first there and both helped them with their injuries.

[forget]

Wey Hey :D A result. Well done for posting olimeads. Just tell me it isn't 'retouched' and I'll believe you. :ok:

[olimeads]

It is 100% real.
we are going through a photo album full of the newspapers and magazines featuring the photo from all over the world from as far away as texas and austrailia.

[Racing Snake]

Who was the guy that did a mini display at his mothers birthday party in Doncaster .The year must have been about 1975 and the Lightening and pilot were based at Binbrook at the time. I saw the whole thing nd was pretty impressed

[Bumble B]

This is my first post and being from Norfolk, misread the thread's title and thought it was an ad for those purple pills !!! Actually, this my second attempt at a reply as I somehow goofed up a long response to another thread and can't find it in the ether now. Lost forever - like my youth !
Didn't need purple tablets then - you lucky girls.

[droschke7]

which one looks right? the one on the right obviously

[ArthurR]

The photo was on the front cover of Air Clues in the 60's. What I wanted to ask though, does anybody have a photograph of a Lightning taking off in full re-heat at night, showing showing the rings of fire slightly behind it. Saw that a few times when I was in Saudi, but wouldn't take a camera into work with me, after two of our guys got arrested doing a compass swing, Saudi guards thought they where taking Photo's. :ugh:

[aviate1138]

Turning the picture until Mr Aird looks the right way up - he appears to be facing the camera to my eyes. A left glove [dimly] seems to be visible. His chute must have opened a fair way as landing with a fully open chute onto a greenhouse is likely to have broken one's legs anyway!


http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k35/beejaviate/Martin_Baker_mk4BSC.jpg


http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k35/beejaviate/EELightningEjectorSeat.jpg
That chute must have Just opened!

[olimeads]

hi
me again, i have been shown an unpublished photo that followed this one of the smoke and flames raising from the next field.
i spoke to my dad and all he remembers was a defining bang and running for the gate of the field.
The camera was a glass plate single shot camera and here is a pic.
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9892/jimmeadspq3.th.jpg (http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jimmeadspq3.jpg)

The Jag/Cessna crash was an illegal aerial photographer flying and taking photos in a very busy RAF route as there house is white and between two valleys. the Jag hit and the cessna pilot was killed insistently in the jet engines, the two pilots ejected and were minerley injured.
i have been shown again a lot of unpublished images of this crash also, my grand mother was the first to help as she was an ex nurse.

[Geezers of Nazareth]

It's strange how things seem to be connected ...

Last week I was in Germany. Whilst in Munich I visited the Deutsches Museum to take some photo's. There is a section dealing with aircraft escape systems, and it has the nose of a German F-104G Starfighter with the seat 'mid-extraction' to illustrate how it all works. On the wall next to the aircraft is a huge (probably about 6ft square!) copy of the photo.

You can walk right up to it and examine it closely. It is a bit blurred, but still an amazing picture to look at close-up.

[dakkg651]

Olimeads.

Just a gentle correction.

The front seater in the Jag collision also lost his life.

Dak

[JP1]

I am not sure the article regarding the first British woman to fly supersonic is correct. That achievement goes to Diana Barnato-Walker.

The Royal Air Force - History Section (http://www.raf.mod.uk/history_old/dianabw.html)

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history_old/images/dbw25.jpg

[effortless]

Diana Barnato-Walker A wonderful pilot as were all the women who flew with the ATA. They were also shamefully treated. My Pa was very rude to Lettice Curtis. He later admitted that he was miffed that they all had more types under their belts than he could ever possibly get.

[aviate1138]

Very often the first sight of a brand new mark of whatever aircraft being delivered to a front line squadron including all the really 'Hot Ships' would have been one flown by one of those extraordinary set of girl/lady/female pilots.

In a way it is a shame that they couldn't actually fly combat missions because if they were anything like their Russian equivalents they would have been 'Aces'.

The "Nachthexen" the Luftwaffe called them. The Night Witches. Flying antiquated aircraft they sometimes did 18 sorties a night! I guess the front was only a few miles away!

Marina Raskova and the Soviet Women Pilots of World War II (http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/soviet_women_pilots.html)

I like to think that Diana Barnato-Walker, Lettice Curtis, Anne Welch, Amy Johnson et al would have been just as good as the amazing "Nachthexen".

Having flown with one of them, I have no doubt. :)

[effortless]

Before the old misery died the old man told us a story about being wxed in at Lossie only to see the ATA women taking off and landing at will, without instrument training or R/T.:eek: It got right up the chaps' noses.