Good to see the seat works as advertised (or works as unadvertised as he would have had some downwards vector below MSEH).
My two cents worth on a couple of posts above:
The checklist turning up on the shore (can't use the word "beach" because it is in the UK
) on the right page must be purely chance. I think if the driver knew something was wrong and he had enough time to pull out the checklist then he would have knocked off the display earlier. In any case, it seemed to happen so fast that there didn't appear time to spit out the bold face actions let alone re-check them from the book.
As for following the jet into the drink, Hotinfo, the flight manual for the GR7 probably doesn't have much reliable advice on ditching, but it would have some good figures on ejection parameters. An uncontrolled landing is, by its nature, not something where one can know what the outcome would be. There was a good chance, in this case, that the jet could have been inverted in the water with the pilot unconcious or concious with the canopy stuck etc. The ejection 'D' is hammered into military pilots on ejection seat aircraft from day one. It is a case of "If I am below such and such a height and this or that happens I will eject". The idea is to not let you think too long about it as those few seconds of think time usually mean the difference between a successful ejection and a "non-successful" one. It's basically a case of "Ooh, something's gone wrong, I am below my pre-briefed height, let's step out". Hope that answers your question
