Originally Posted by
Mozella
Most of my military flying was done in M.B. seats. I've never ejected but plenty of my squadron mates have. In one case a gent who's J-57 was shooting craps in the landing pattern, tried both the primary and secondary ejection handles (face curtain and between the knees handle) but was unable to initiate the ejection sequence; the handles simply wouldn't move. So, after running out of ideas, he went back to flying the aircraft and the old P&W engine kept on chugging long enough to get him on the ground without further drama. Turns out the Martin Baker seat wasn't properly maintained and the forces required to pull the handle(s) were way out of spec. Other aviators have reported difficulty with the Martin Baker ejection handles and a common complaint is that the force required was higher than expected.
After looking at the video it appears that the Snowbird pilot made the decision to zoom and eject for whatever reason. It would seem natural to want to maximize the altitude based on the rather limited capability of the Weber seat. A the top of his climb he stopped flying the Tutor and started the ejection sequence. I'm wondering if, for some reason he (like my squadron mate) could have had some difficulty with the ejection. A delay of only a few seconds concentrating on the ejection with nobody flying the airplane could easily result in a stall/spin situation especially after using up every bit of the available kinetic energy in the zoom climb.
By the time he managed to eject, even though the delay was short, it was too late. This is pure speculation of course, but it makes a lot more sense to me than stories about avoiding populated areas, doing low speed barrel rolls to "show off" and some of the other guesses about the timing of the ejection.
I'm not familiar with the Weber seat, so perhaps some Tutor pilot might chime in with any sea-stories about how difficult it might be to pull the handle(s) and/or if anyone has reported unusual effort required to fire the seat or other factors which might cause a two or three second delay in ejecting after the decision to take the nylon let-down has been made.
Great post and a plausible scenario.
Re your last sentence, yes. About 6 months ago, a Tutor preparing for an air show in Atlanta lost power and the pilot ejected. He was ok, but he reported "...problems in the ejection sequence".
https://www.skiesmag.com/news/initia...atlanta-crash/