Originally Posted by
RetiredBA/BY
I disagree. If his plan was to zoom climb and then eject he would NOT have rolled towards 80 degrees of bank at the apex of his climb. He would have ejected wings level in a climb. My real world experience as a QFI, clearly tells me he was trying a turnback to the airfield/runway of departure, pulled too hard at low IAS and stalled and spun. Its all very clearly there on the video, or I would not comment or speculate..
If the Weber seat is 0/60 its a very capable seat and an ejection during a zoom climb is clearly within its performance envelope..
A low level ejection with a high ROD was clearly not possible, as is the case with many seats.
Again, from experience, I can tell you when its time to pull the handle you pull it with all your strength, hard !
Wow dude, You would think someone with your experience would avoid making such a massive assumption/generalization. Facts first my friend. I did a tour instructing on Tutors and turnbacks were not taught nor were they encouraged while I was there, neither were they taught on 2 other aircraft types I was a QFI on in the RCAF. I personally never planned on turning back to a reciprocal while I was flying those jets and I was fortunate to never have been in that position. I dont know what the Snowbird trg syllabus is. I'm not convinced he was turning back and personally I would prefer he get to tell his story to the investigators vice everyone engaging in speculation. I've been involved in enough accident investigations on fighters and trainers over the year to know that even when things are on tape, the reality can be very different than what it appears to be. There have been cases in the CT114 where pilots have lost control because of seat/strap issues in the past. So yeah, there is some stuff on tape but we really don't know what was going on in that cockpit. Various people have put out various theories that may or may not be true. The only thing I am willing to say for sure is that with the amount of time these team members spend in the low level environment, there is really no good reason for them not to have a better seat. We are talking about an escape system where you are out of the envelope in the final turn and in my mind, considering the results of many CT114 ejections, it really is a shame to watch someone else die because of it.