Fighter Ejection Atlantic survival times query

[Lossie23]

Hi all,

Some USAF F-16s from Spangdahlem left for a Red Flag at Nellis recently and took the northerly route with tanker support across the N Atlantic. It got me thinking as the thought of ejecting mid-Atlantic in the middle of winter would be awful.
Should the worst happen and a fighter pilot have to eject how long at this time of year would they have to survive in the water (I appreciate it all depends on water temperature but at this time of year I think its fair to say it would be very cold). I know immersion suits are worn over water, but is a small dinghy carried by each pilot they could get into? Each cell of 6 F-16s had a KC-135 and KC-10 but if a pilot had to bang out mid-Atlantic all a tanker could do would be to circle as couldn't drop a liferaft out obviously and if it was mid-Atlantic I imagine it could be hours before a SAR aircraft could get there and drop a raft. As you can see below the routing was not near Iceland so even from there would be a distance. I am aware that most other air forces (often including the USAF) like the RAF take the southerly route via/over Lajes as the water is warmer if someone has to eject.

Also was thinking that in around 30 years of my knowledge can't ever remember a fighter pilot having to eject crossing the N Atlantic, even with single engine types like the F-16, Harrier - just shows how reliable modern engines are. Out of interest when was the last such ejection on a N Atlantic crossing?

G0007/13 - AIRSPACE RESERVATION
TRACK1:FL240FL260 MIMKU MOGLO ETARI 5524N01605W 55N020W 54N030W
FROM 1059Z AT MIMKU TILL 1514Z AT 54N030W
TRACK2:FL240FL260 5524N01605W ETARI
FROM 1130Z AT 5524N01605W TILL 1405Z AT ETARI
TRACK3:FL240FL270 ETARI MOGLO
FROM 1135Z AT ETARI TILL 1411Z AT MOGLO
TRACK4:FL270 MOGLO MIMKU
FROM 1141Z AT MOGLO TILL 1431Z AT MIMKU
FLW SEPARATIONS WILL BE PROVIDED IN OCEANIC AIRSPACE
MNPS 60NMS NONMNPS 120NMS. FL240 - FL270, 06 JAN 10:59 2013 UNTIL 06 JAN 15:14
2013. CREATED: 05 JAN 18:11 2013

Just curious...

[RetiredF4]

I,ve flown the north route in the F-4 a few times.
To tell the truth, my biggest concern on those 6-8 hours was to end up like this guy in the video.

When Nature Calls in a Jet Fighter at 500 knots - YouTube

[sled dog]

With no dingy, probably only a few minutes before hypothermia kicks in. Seem to remember being told that after three minutes in the north Atlantic in the winter, lights out........

[CoffmanStarter]

RF4 ... he should have put out a PAN Call :E

[Lima Juliet]

Get in your dinghy with dry-suit intact - days

Lose your dinghy but dry-suit intact - 3 or 4 hours

Lose dinghy and hole in dry-suit - 20 to 60 minutes depending on BMI of indivdual (higher is better in this situation)

Here is a graph from Transport Canada's website...

http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/images/marinesafety/chapter1-figure3.jpg

The sad thing about the figures in these types of graphs are that they mostly come from Nazi concentration camp experiments by nutcases like Mengele :(

Finally, all the talk about Nimrod (sorry I used the N word!) and LRSAR is that I was pretty convinced that I would either lose my dinghy or rip my goon-suit on ejection (as most Tornado mates did) and I would be long dead before "the mighty hunter" would have got on scene.

LJ:ok:

[BOAC]

I reckon those times are a little optimistic, Leon. We used to reckon North Sea in winter without immersion gloves you had two minutes to get into the dinghy before you lost the use of your hands.

[Easy Street]

First up: the UK military guidance on this is unclassified and is available to read at http://www.maa.mod.uk/linkedfiles/regulation/fly2000seriesprint.pdf. Read RA2130 and its associated annexes. Just don't ask where the data in Annex B comes from!

Basic Survival Time
Wearing an immersion suit with thermal underwear and a knitted 'bunny suit', a pilot immersed in the winter North Atlantic (assuming a sea temperature of zero) would have about 6 hours' survival time.

Dinghies
Each ejector seat would be equipped with a single-seat dinghy. Provided this inflates correctly, and the pilot retains the use of at least one arm, climbing into the dinghy immediately increases survival time. Blowing up the floor and canopy (by mouth) increases it further and getting the water out takes survival time into the 'days' range. The main threats now are rough seas, sea sickness and dehydration. There should be a reverse osmosis pump in a survival pack for such a journey.

If you have a suitably-equipped maritime patrol aircraft you can drop a dinghy pack to the survivors, which would usually contain a multi-seat liferaft, and a pack of supplies including blankets and food. Normal procedure would be to haul the single-seat dinghy into the multi-seat dinghy to prevent loss of body heat in the cavernous space. Even before Nimrod was withdrawn, the practice of providing an airborne MPA escort to trails had ceased. Instead, a Nimrod was on alert at Kinloss for the duration of the trail.If you are the UK, you can use a C130 to push a dinghy pack off the back ramp.

Location Aids
Don't know exact details of US kit. UK aircrew will carry a short-range locator beacon (operating on VHF or UHF guard freqs) but that will be useless in the initial stages of an Atlantic rescue as the SARSAT network no longer detects these signals. Therefore aircrew should be carrying another beacon transmitting on 406 MHz, which has integral GPS and will periodically transmit its position. These are similar to commercially-available rescue beacons (like this (http://www.fastfindplb.com/en/)). The ability of the satellite constellation to receive the signals depends on the ability of the aircrew to hold the beacon or its aerial in a suitable orientation; if you are unable to get into a dinghy then it is unlikely you will be able to hold the beacon in such a way as to get a decent output. A strong output will be detected by the geostationary SARSAT satellites within a few minutes, but a weak output will have to wait for up to 40 minutes to be detected by the low-earth orbit satellites.

Aircrew may be carrying a short-range radio with which they can talk to the tanker or their formation buddies, and possibly relay their position if they can read it from a GPS.

Failing all this, the best hope of being found is for the formation to report the approximate position of ejection and get rescuers into range of the short-range VHF or UHF beacon. Once rescuers are very close, the aircrew will have aids such as flares, smoke, strobe lights and a heliograph to attract attention. Americans will probably have some dye to chuck in the water as well.

Shipping
If you are a pikey nation who does not have an MPA, you can try to plan your routes to be near the main shipping lanes. As you go along the route, you can use your ground mapping radar to see where ships are and mentally note them so that if your engine fails you can try to glide in front of a ship before ejecting! Pickup by a ship is likely to be the best route to survival in these conditions; a well-equipped tanker will have a maritime radio capability to relay positions to any nearby ships. On the main shipping routes there is pretty much a continuous stream of traffic; the Atlantic is not as desolate as you might imagine in those terms. Away from the shipping lanes, well, you could float for years...

[ACW418]

I agree with BOAC. The BFTS course I was on did our dinghy drill out of Bridlington in November 1963. The water was cold but not as cold as it almost certainly is in the N Atlantic. Wearing an old flying suit and a Mae West we were thrown off the Air Sea Rescue Launch at five second intervals with a dinghy. One of our number had the misfortune to have an unserviceable CO2 bottle so could not inflate his dinghy. By the time it took to spot his problem and circle round he was totally incapable of any useful hand movement - probably about 2 or 3 minutes. I was later in the string so watched it all. They gave him a new dinghy and threw him in again and he only just made it into the inflating dinghy. We all warmed up pretty quickly in the correctly inflated dinghies but it does get to your kidney area with the wave motion.
It was not our day as the Whirlwind that was picking us up after an hour or so went U/S and landed on the beach whereupon it snowed so the replacement could not get to us for quite a while. I t feels very lonely 5 miles out to sea on your own in rough weather!

ACW

[Lima Juliet]

I never told you my BMI though did I, BOAC? :ok:

I agree, those figures are probably best case on a good day for a fat boy...

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

My experiences:
Once did the dinghy drill at night in a 10-man dinghy, about sea state 3-4. Rescue chopper got called off on a real shout leaving 3 of us in the 10-man for about 45 mins. One of the worst experiences of my life. Desperately unstable - if you weren't getting seawater in your face, it was another guy's limbs.

Scuba diving instructing in 2 degree water, after leaving the mob, I tried the old gloves. - you have 2 minutes without immersion gloves, about 3 minutes with before your hands have no effective grip.

Delivered a Cessna 152 via the Northern Route. Longest leg was 11 1/4 hours (no autopilot). Take fluids in a wide-necked bottle (e.g. snapple) so you can 'refill' it. Take especial care when selecting subsequent bottles.

[Tankertrashnav]

That graph is very interesting, L-J.

The captain of the Victor tanker which had a mid-air collision with a Buccaneer over the North Sea in March 1975 was plucked unconscious from the sea by the crew of a fishing boat, before being transferred to an SAR helicopter. He was in an immersion suit (but not in his dinghy) and wasn't wearing his bunny suit, which were uncomfortably warm in the Victor. I can't remember the figures, but I know when his temperature was first taken it was so low that the medics were amazed he was still alive. This after less than two hours in the water in an immersion suit. I'm assuming North Sea temperature in March aren't much different from the North Atlantic.

I remember we all started to wear bunny suits under our immersion suits after that.

Blimey Fox, I was getting twitchy half a mile out over St Ives bay in a C152 in the summer! Respect :ok:

[lj101]

Not the North Atlantic but I guess a Canadian reservoir is pretty cold (even in August)

http://www.ukserials.com/pdflosses/maas_19940801_za397.pdf

[RetiredF4]

Lose your dinghy but dry-suit intact - 3 or 4 hours

Problem being, we had no dry suits, but wet suits. To get into the dinghy when the sea was rough was rather sporty. The swimwest, the wet suit, the boots and everything soaked with water needed to be heaved into the dinghy together with the shocked body after an ejection. The hands got cold without feel within the minute.

We as pilots judged the survivability of such a happening as ruther slim.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

TTN - C152 - I'd flown that particular aircraft for many hours before the delivery came up. The engine mechanic was a friend of mine, and ex-USN. I wouldn't have taken it otherwise. Full trip was actually from Arizona to Israel.
None the less, it always starts to sound like it's rough-running as soon as you get out of gliding range of the coast!

The space for all the maps and survival gear was the problem. You don't have the space next to you as that has a 45 gal auxiliary fuel tank with an HF radio strapped on top.

As this thread is making clear, you have to have an immersion suit, LSJ and dinghy, and good gloves. I took my thick diving gloves as I would have had lots of time to put them on.

[glad rag]

When I qualified for my offshore ticket it was all 'ealth and safety, heated pool, etc.

After 6 hours thrashing about, however, with the lights off, the 1.2 m wave machine in full flow along with the sound, strobe and ice blower [yes] I can honestly say that getting into a large liferaft was probably THE most difficult thing I have ever tried. It took a supreme effort.

Getting flung about the Tees the following day was a doddle....Jacobs cradle practice.....

[N2erk]

Similar experiences- dinghy drill in N sea off Grimsby in Jan/Feb, no immersion gloves, lost the use of my hands/fingers before I could reel in my PSP/dinghy- well under 2 minutes. In mild panic managed to pull toggle to inflate dinghy using my wrists pushed together. Can't remember if I regained use of my fingers before endex and we were fished out of the drink. After that I always flew wearing immersion gloves.
10 man dinghy drill in similar time frame was the most miserable and cold I think I've ever been.
Before the Victor/Bucc accident I wore: t shirt, issue gn turtleneck, long john bottoms, 2 pr sox, bunny suit, goon suit. After that accident we all seemed to wear more warm stuff.

[Pontius Navigator]

To your dinghy survival must be added head cover or a canopy.

On one drill our co-pilot was the swimmer rescuing the casualty. He effected the rescue but in turn had to be recovered in to the raft and was useless thereafter.

I was wearing immersion gloves and retained useful manipulation for about 30 minutes.

For transatlantics it was determined that a Nimrod SAR was essential. On one Leopard trail from Colt to Loring the arctic survival legs were about equal with the oceanic legs. That included Scotland, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland to Loring. It was too easy to focus on the wet when the ice was just as bad. For that reason we carried CLE as well. One ASP for the Victor and dinghies for the fighter.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The Canadians insist on arctic survival gear as well as maritime, including a moderately sized axe. I did get some strange looks wandering through East Midlands airport with it, though it came in handy. My relative's car picking me up was about to get ticketed by the usual Obersturmbannfuhrer , but he melted away pretty sharpish when I turned up.

Kulusuk, Greenland had snowdrifts 12 foot high and pack-ice 10 miles offshore in late June that year.

[Bevo]

There are other issues. While flying an F-14 from NAS Oceana in March we launched to our exercise area over the Atlantic. I had a piddle pack so I was ready if nature called. However, I had on thermal underwear, wet suit, flight suit and G-suit. When nature did call I had a hell of a time getting my “implement” out through the layers to complete the piddle pack usage. A difficult thing to admit for a fighter pilot.

[MightyGem]

If you are a pikey nation who does not have an MPA
Guess that'll be us then. :(

[BEagle]

When nature did call I had a hell of a time getting my “implement” out through the layers to complete the piddle pack usage. A difficult thing to admit for a fighter pilot.

No doubt an even more awkward situation for a member of the fair sex....?? Particularly if the autopilot is u/s...:ooh:

[teeteringhead]

I always understood the "Mengele" figures were likely to be pessimistic, as the poor "subjects" were neither fit nor fat .......:(

[Pontius Navigator]

TTH, not a lot of fat on fingers. I suspect that the figures could also have been adjusted for properly fed bodies too.

[Lima Juliet]

not a lot of fat on fingers

You haven't seen my hooves then! :ok:

I've (stupidly) been bathing in South Devon in January in just a pair of speedos. I was in the drink for about 5-10 minutes and then pulled myself out using my hands - my digits weren't the issue, it was the extreme 'ice cream headache' that got me. Sea temp was about 5 degrees. Didn't do much good for my prowess either - now I know why they call Speedos "budgie smugglers"! :eek:

It's not the submersion that gets the digits, it's leaving them out in the sea breeze when they're wet. Try putting your hand in a bucket of cold water to see - the cold takes longer in immersion in my experience.

LJ

[Pontius Navigator]

Can't argue with stupidity.

Our first dip was with a sea temp of 2 and only sissies (they said) wore immersion suits. It was a couple of years later that the VRT officer died of a heart attack and they brought in the, IIRC. 4 degree limit.

Next time we were beholden on the Bonnie Prince doing his pilot training. There was purple airspace over the Sound for almost 3 hours. Those unthinking bastards, experts at practise bleeding never for one moment considered delaying our drills.

Fortunately one of our sqn ldrs had smooth talked them in to letting us use goon suits, just for the experience. :)

[Backwards PLT]

Don't know what the current rules are (not a CSRO) but I can't remember ever doing sea survival without the goon suit - except in Cyprus when the CSRO threatened not to count it as it was "too easy".

Also remember someone doing it for real and he couldn't count it as he wasn't properly supervised by a CSRO!

I do remember a FI trail when we were somewhere south of Ascension when the Nimrod told us the nearest surface contact was about 400nm away (call it 24 hrs if you are lucky) - not a happy thought, but at least the water would only have been cold rather than bloody freezing.

Agree with TTH that those figures were thought to be pessimistic due to condition of the subjects, but noone was prepared to test it.

I can remember at least one Harrier guy who spent >24 hrs in a dinghy just off the FIs in 82. Extra, special fun knowing there was no "normal" SAR.

[Bob Viking]

Believe it or not there are no rules that say the drills must be carried out in goon suits. However, you'll be pleased to know that common sense amongst us CSRO (SEREO) types means that there's no point teaching people how crap it would be without one so we always set sail with a ready supply (don't forget we have to do our drills as well and I hate swimming in cold water). Except, as previously mentioned, in Cyprus but that's mainly because there's no point filling up an extra box with spare suits when the sea is plenty warm enough.
Out of interest I have done an outdoor drill without 'protection' in January and it was every bit as awful as previous posters have alluded to.
BV:eek:

[Herod]

Goon suits? Tha's lucky. I did several drills off Mountbatten in the '60s and '70s, and as I recall the dress of the day was swimming trunks and a pair of khaki overalls. Oh, and the gravel for tea was served cold. ;)

[Pontius Navigator]

I was on a cruise last spring between Madeira and the Caribbean. Just about the mid-point we had a jumper.

He was seen to go and with some brilliant seamanship he was recovered in about one hour - at night in a moderate sea. He was one lucky idiot. He was only wearing underpants although plenty of body fat. The sea temp I guess was near 20 so he would not have lasted too long, few hours at the outside as he had no buoyance aids at all.

[iRaven]

PN

Was it an Easter jumper? :}

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0057/3022/products/img_2931_3_medium.jpg?1293788065

[teeteringhead]

ISTR GASOs mandating goon suits for sea temperatures < + 11.

"Suiting up" was always an excuse to stop for steak and chips at the Valley feeder en route from Odiham to Norn Iron or vice versa. Mmmmm :)

[Herod]

Pontius. I trust the stupid bas*ard spent the rest of the cruise in the brig? Should have been charged for the cost incurred as well. He's probably mouthing off about it down the pub most nights.

[Pontius Navigator]

Herod, I believe he did. His further cruise was very short and left to make his, and his parents, own way home.

It hit the Daily Mail but I saw no follow up. The ship handling was superb with smoke and flame floats and flacon beacons. The ship extended before intercepting its previous course and proceeding dead slow to avoid running him down.