View Full Version : BANG! And passenger was gone
talk_shy_tall_knight
2nd Nov 2009, 09:53
The civilian passenger was expecting the ride of a lifetime when he strapped himself into the back seat of a South African Air Force Silver Falcons aircraft.....
BANG! And passenger was gone - Times LIVE (http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article174661.ece)
Professor Plum
2nd Nov 2009, 11:26
.....and he wasn't dissappointed!!
I guess he'll also get a tie as a momento, which I'd imagine he wasn't expecting
Gainesy
2nd Nov 2009, 12:00
Well, he/she isn't the first by a long chalk and I doubt they'll be the last.
Just wondering how the tie will be knotted and if it'll be thrown over a handy branch first?
Sgt.Slabber
2nd Nov 2009, 13:13
It's a good job the Command Eject Lever was not set to "REAR".
Sgt S,
Don't you mean 'BOTH'? When flying a Pax, the CE Lever was always set to REAR so that the pilot could still land what was left of the jet, in case something similar happened.
Sgt.Slabber
2nd Nov 2009, 21:03
Thanks 60024, perhaps I should have written: It's a good job the Command Eject Lever was set such that an inadvertant initiation of an ejection sequence by a pax in the rear seat did not also eject the occupant of the front seat... or something like that. :ok:
We didn't have Command Ejection on the JP5, it was everyone for him/herself!
Wonder if the pax will remember pulling the handle or not? Never happened before, or has it.............
West Coast
2nd Nov 2009, 21:59
Balloon boy in Colorado aint got nuttin on this guy.
Gainesy
3rd Nov 2009, 09:37
Same old, pax apparently used the SPH as an "instinctive" grab handle during aeros, according to SAAF mates.
Buster Hyman
3rd Nov 2009, 10:28
Pity there's no CVR... PAX "So, what does this handle Doooooooooooooooooo......" ;)
Madbob
3rd Nov 2009, 10:40
It's happened loads of times. One I remember was at Wattisham in about 1982/3. A Hawk (100 Sqn or were they still Canberras then?) took up a Fighter Controller from Neatishead for a bit of DACT with the resident 56 Sqn.
FC said afterwards that he never touched anything and couldn't explain why he decided to make an unplanned exit over the southern North Sea! Meanwhile said Hawk landed back with a "pole" poking out of the rear cockpit.....
Another well-documented example was a "cabriolet" F14 that was written up in the USN's "Approach" magazine with some rather spectacular air-to-air pictures. With such a big canopy completely missing the cockpit must have been extremely draughty....
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z271/notreallythabo/f14cabriolet.jpg
A picture tells a 1,000 words....
When flying with a non-aircrew pax don't bank more than about 130 degrees and avoid negative g.....instinctively they make a grap for the yellow & black "handle".
MB
Gainesy
3rd Nov 2009, 11:48
a Fighter Controller from Neatishead
Known as Wedge, ORAC and BEags have the tale between them.
Some RN Obs left his driver in a Vixen after mis-hearing him and I think also somone got out and swam from a Canberra off Lincs severalteen years back.
Then there are the "genuine" ones where the back seater thought it really was time to go and with very good reason-- like the Reds Hawk twanging HT lines some years ago.
BEagle
3rd Nov 2009, 13:13
Gainesy, yes, I was one of the F4 aircrew down at the ORP making rude gestures when the Hawk landed with a pole sticking out of the back where the seat had been....
Felt rather guilty when I saw the state of the jet later - canopy perspex had taken large chunks out of some rather important bits. I think it was a TWU jet - 'Tatty Ton' were flying Canberras back then.
As for the 'Vixen incident, there was an excellent cartoon in one of the RNs excellent magazines at the time. It showed a Vixen steaming happily along, with an empty coal-hole and the perplexed Looker on the end of a parachute...
"I thought he said 'Eject'"
"No he didn't, he said 'Oh sh*t'"
"OH SH*T!!"
Was said expletive not banned therafter in FAA fixed wing aircraft?
Gainesy
3rd Nov 2009, 13:42
No, but Lookers were.:)
Eejit must be high on the list of dodgy words.:uhoh:
Bit like humming "I can sing a rainbow" in a Herc on the run in.:E
The B Word
3rd Nov 2009, 19:08
FC said afterwards that he never touched anything and couldn't explain why he decided to make an unplanned exit over the southern North Sea! Meanwhile said Hawk landed back with a "pole" poking out of the rear cockpit.....
...I always believed it was the Bristol Channel as the Hawk was from Chivenor?
By the way, Wedge is still in. I saw him very recently.
The B Word
Cows getting bigger
3rd Nov 2009, 19:12
There was also the F4 nav in Germany who thought that they had/were about to hit a Canberra.
Flight_Idle
3rd Nov 2009, 21:51
A similar thing happened in a middle eastern country when the student accidentally pulled the handle on a PC9 aircraft, the canopy looked like a cracked egshell after it had been successfully landed by the instructor.
MAINJAFAD
5th Nov 2009, 22:55
Happened to a F-15E out of Lakenheath back in the mid 1990's over mid Wales, though in this case the pilot had called Eject, Eject after a bird strike. Both crew pulled the handles, WSO's seat fired, the pilot's seat didn't. He managed to recover the aircraft and land at Valley. Two Hawk's landed with one less person on board than they took off with during April 1983. One was the Red Arrow which hit HV cables (groundcrew in the back thought the aircraft was a goner and banged out) and the other one was Wedge (both happened within 5 days of each other).
" I always believed it was the Bristol Channel as the Hawk was from Chivenor?"
Nope was definitely over the North Sea and it definitely landed at Wattisham, 'cos I was there, standing out on the airfield when it landed. It transpires I was obviously not a million miles from BEagle...if only I had known :ooh:
There was an 'incident' on a certain aerobatic team a few decades back. Let's call the front 'X' and the rear 'Y'.
Following annual major overhaul, X took Gnat airframe up to airtest as per normal with 'backseater' Y. Following upper airwork, the plot was then to check the rigging etc by throwing it around, pulling to buffet to check for any 'nasty' tendency. So, a few thousand feet over Gloucestershire, X pulls hard at the top of a loop, well into buffet (as you do), whereupon 'nasty' airframe decides to try out a 'Porteous loop' all on its own. With his usual consumate skill and panache, X neatly recovers the airframe to a semblance of a normal loop, but is interrupted by a large blast of air as the canopy departs, and a bang from behind as Y decides it is time to go, 'cos Sir has obviously lost it and we are about to die. Oh how we larfed:)
Tester_76
6th Nov 2009, 19:11
There are a number of photos at Warton of a Tornado minus canopy. Flown deliberately due to concerns that if the Nav banged out but the pilot didn't (navs are chickens apparently) the pilot wouldn't be able to fly the plane due to the airflow etc. KH showed it was possible, although he didn't recommend sticking your arm outside the cockpit.....
Then there was young Tom Stoney out of Iwakuni, Japan, in a Meteor 8 1951.
BANG - surprise, surprise and damn as the Meteor makes several passes at him as he floats down into the Inland Sea.
fallmonk
7th Nov 2009, 13:45
Another one for the post !
SU 35???????
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/fallmonk/Crazy_Russian_Su_35_Pilot_Ejects_Mo.jpg
Gainesy
7th Nov 2009, 14:07
I think the Su-27 was doing a trial, as per Tester's Tornado ditty.
Spoilsport! I thought it was flying 'missing man' formation!!
PS Do I have enough !!! in my post?
Gainesy
7th Nov 2009, 14:18
a certain aerobatic team
Of the dozens on Gnats...:):)
I knose youse a Sussex man soz I didn't want to make it TOO hard for you!!
Gainesy
7th Nov 2009, 15:47
Nope, Yorkshireman in exile.:)
Aye, 'appen.
Even more reason...........:)
GreenKnight121
7th Nov 2009, 19:22
The fuselage just aft of the cockpit seems awfully smudged, compared to the rest of the paint... I do believe a seat recently left from the aft location and its rocket exhaust smoked the paint there.
Whether this was planned or unplanned is the only question in my mind.
Sqwark2000
7th Nov 2009, 23:16
Read an article where a instructor banged out of a TA-4 Skyhawk in the states, late 60's, when the NZ boys were doing conversion.
had a bird strike which entered through the rear half of the canopy hitting instructor in face, knocking out comms and temp full blindness (perm lost 1 eye from memory). Not fully aware of the situation up front, the instructor assumed the worst and away he went.... leaving the surprised and now solo student up front to bring it home. Rescue found the ejectee in a field, all set up in his liferaft.
matkat
7th Nov 2009, 23:23
Also happened with a Bucc in Norway or Denmark the nav on this occasion was a certain SW anyone remember the details?
Ewan Whosearmy
8th Nov 2009, 11:41
The Su-35 photo posted above is a well-known fake.
trap one
8th Nov 2009, 14:24
The Wedge sortie was in the area known as the Wash ATA to those of an ATC bent and Neats Area 3 to those AD's out there.
The person in question landed feet dry on the coast not too far from Sherringham.
There is a substantal reward still on offer from MB, because it was never proved if the handle was pulled or not.
hoodie
8th Nov 2009, 20:13
The Su-35 photo posted above is a well-known fake.
Actually, not quite (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/07/crazy-ivans-or-what-russian-su.html). (The comments at this link are also instructive).
It did fly without a canopy or rear seat, but there was no in-flight ejection. This photo is the fake:
http://apture.s3.amazonaws.com/00000122ad33bf521982c868004300c0002e001c.Sukhoi%20ejection%2 0in%20flight.jpg
It was done for a movie, would you believe? Called "Mirror Wars (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337678/)", apparently. The ejection seems to have been done on the ground (not clear if it was from a flyable airframe) and then faked for the film.
Madbob
9th Nov 2009, 08:59
Hoodie
Just looking at the angle of the stabilisor/all-flying tailplane (call it what you want) the flying pic has got to be a fake and must have been taken on the ground with the hydraulics "at rest". The negative G at that angle in flight would be pretty extreme :yuk: otherwise.
Just my 2p worth.
MB
hoodie
9th Nov 2009, 09:20
Yep, Madbob. That'll be why I said:
This photo is the fake
:}
Fortissimo
9th Nov 2009, 09:44
Trap One, I'm not sure you are right with the 'feet dry' piece. I was airborne on the same Ex that day and listened to the whole thing going off on Guard. ISRT the Hawk driver reporting pax in his chute, followed by description of him entering the water and disappearing: "he's gone" (or words to that effect), then "There he is again...!". Still, it was a long time ago and memories are funny things. You could always ask the Wedge, he still wears uniform and might be working somewhere near Northwood....