Originally Posted by
Easy Street
On Tornados there were essentially 3 levels of preparedness:
1) Carry out the ‘Abandoning’ drill from the checklist. This culminated in a call of ‘EJECT EJECT EJECT’ with the teaching...
Reasonably certain LOMCEVAK can remember the Tornado procedures, save for flying FJ types with 2 seats but no trainer option, 2 seats that may or may not have a trainer option in the back, pure single-seat only, normally single-seat but with 2-seat version all in a mix with different seating arrangements, different users, nations and languages. Plenty opportunity for confusion.
I used to think that the urgency and tone was a major part of an ejection call, until a crew on a dark night in a Tornado over the water that went something like this:
[Background of lots of front-rear-front comms and FRC shuffling by rear seat pilot as CWP lights danced around faster than ever experienced in the sim...]
Front seat:
"... [calm voice] ... oh and I have no control, err no... no control... we eject... yes..."
Rear seat: Looks up briefly from paper-and-thumb frenzy
"... [quizzical tone]...err.. you're kidding me..."
Cue big bang and blinding flash of rockets in front of him, followed by a bigger and more painful bang with head/face/palm/FRC/thigh all trying to occupy the same space.