Originally Posted by
Brian 48nav
My apologies if this has been discussed before; Halfway through reading 'Empire of the Clouds' (See 'good military read' thread) and after the description of the tragic crash at Heathrow, the author refers to an incident in New Zealand(pg 155).
Vulcan XH 498 broke an u/c leg on landing,went round and during the circuit the rear crew replaced the pins in the pilots' ejector seats on the 'we're all in this together' and 'you ain't going anywhere without us' mode of operating.
Is this an apocryphal tale? If not were there any other occasions when this happened, and did some rear crews agree beforehand that this would be their MO?
The idea that the captain would exit the aircraft leaving the rear crew to their fate was an awful way to operate and must have been complete anathema to former WW2 bomber crews, where the convention was that the pilot stayed with his stricken aircraft until, hopefully, the other crew members had escaped.
As a Herc nav I quietly thanked my good fortune that I had not been posted to what appeared to be death traps.
There is film of this on the tube of you.