Typhhon Display
I won't comment on the background to this incident, though by all accounts it was a bit hairy. However, as an erstwhile display pilot (1970 vintage!!) I will make some informed comment on the likelihood or otherwise of someone in a similar position ejecting.
Displaying any aircraft at low level entails a risk. Every display pilot knows which manoeuvres in his display put him closest to the limits and he will have thought of the likely pointers that all is not going to plan and will have his escape routes pre-programmed. That is not to say that mistakes or errors of judgement will not occur. I can think of 2 such incidents in the 3 seasons I did (others might have witnessed more!) and in neither case did the thought of pulling the handle enter my head.
I ocassionally flew practice displays with 'rookie' back seaters who - mad fools that they were - wanted to 'experience it'. Part of my briefing to them concerned ejection. I admitted that I really didn't know what I'd do if I screwed up, whether I'd try to correct the pigs, or accept the inevitable and try to save my skin. However, if they felt they were about to die, then they should not think twice, they were just to pull the bottom handle and go.
Incidentally, on the 2 occasions I did get into a spot of bother, the back-seater (my regular one, as it happens) didn't think about ejecting either!
Last edited by grobace; 17th Jul 2005 at 11:21.