C4 Ejector seat program - and Russian aeroplanes

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

There was an excellent program on C4 the other night about the ejector seat fitted to the Mig29. Anyone see it? The program used the mid-air at Fairford, and the low speed, high alpha engine failure at Paris Air Show as examples where this seat saved the pilots in situations that seemed very marginal for a successful bang out. The Paris accident in particular was a miraculous escape; the FJ (Mig 29 again?) was performing a very slow, high power, high alpha flyby and got a birdstrike in one engine. The aeroplane rolled right, beyond the vertical, and dived into the (very close!) ground. The pilot banged out during this roll at a height of (IIRC) about 300 feet – so he went out sideways and pointing slightly earthwards – but survived with a few bruises.

The program gave a brief description of the seat, which uses clockwork timers and knife-blade belt cutters, and is so much better than US seats that the Americans are seriously interested in using it.

I was left with a couple of questions:

1) Is the seat better than Martin Baker’s best?

2) Given its performance at Paris, can it ‘steer’ the rocket thrust to attain a vertical climb even if ejection happens horizontally?

John Farley gave an excellent explanation of fast jet air show formation flying, why the aeroplanes collided, and commented on how advanced are the aerodynamics of the Mig 29 to enable it perform ‘cobra’ manoeuvres at low altitude without ‘departing’ controlled flight – way in advance of any western aeroplane.

And having flown a Yak 52 for a couple of years, I have come to appreciate just how good Russian technology is. I suppose we suffered in the west from decades of propaganda telling us that everything produced in Russia was agricultural, crude, poor quality, and technically inferior to western products. And we saw the cars! – so it seemed it was true! It definitely isn’t true in applications associated with the military, as this seat and JF’s comments on the Mig29 indicate. Russian technology is just different – and very, very good. The Yak is so well thought out. Thoroughly practical, superbly engineered, and, for the money, the best flying experience bar none.

A super program, full of good aviation insight and no ‘gee my wow’ silly false drama. Well done C4 and John Farley.

And any of you who enjoy spirited flying – try some Yakking. But you may not want to go back to the Chipmunk, Stampe, Cap 10 or whatever afterwards ;~)

SSD

[ 13 October 2001: Message edited by: Shaggy Sheep Driver ]

[Negative 'G']

Yeah I've got to agree with all your comments SSD,a truly excellent aviation program for a change,I remember being at Fairford for the Accident..........How time flies ehh.
It still tickles me to this day every time I see the footage of the pilot walking away from the crash site with Bonedome in hand whilst calmly lighting a Fag :D ..........Even Tom Cruise could'nt have played that part better :rolleyes:

Neg G

[John Farley]

SSD

Glad you enjoyed the Going Critical C4 programme and thank you for your compliments.

I would suggest that whether such programmes are accurate, balanced, helpful and so on, is more dependent on the Producers than the cast. In my experience there are plenty of people who know about aviation matters but few Producers who are motivated to do an accurate non-sensationalist job – especially about airshow stuff.

When the young lady who produced the programme, Emma Jessop, first contacted me I feared the worst just because of the subject, but after her call she sent me an email listing all sorts of issues and questions that she wanted to understand and deal with and I became convinced of her good intentions and abilities and so was happy to help. I did not see the programme before it was transmitted but on the night I thought she had done a very competent job.

On a point of nitpicking detail, SSD, I hope I was discussing the merits of the MiG in regard to the tailslide and recovery - not the cobra. Both involve passing through 90 deg of alpha but the tailslide recovery involves only about a quarter of the airspeed used in the cobra. The UB version of the MiG-29 (that they let me fly in 1990) had a much smaller all flying tailplane than the later versions of the MiG-29, which they started taking to airshows in the mid 90s. As such I rather doubt it could have generated the necessary pitch rate for a cobra entry. Certainly that manoeuvre was not part of my trip although I did do a couple of tailslides.

You ask whether the K36 series of seats is better than Martin Baker’s best.
At low speed I suspect the two makes are very much on a par but at high speed I think 10 years ago, there would have been no contest. Today it may be different. The Russians even then included very high IAS in their specifications (Foxbat driven) whereas the Brits and the US did not expect the occupants to be injury free at say 500 kts and above. Even a bit slower perhaps.

For high speed in the past the US either jettisoned the cockpit as a pod (some F-111 variants) or had a seat where the pilot was encapsulated following initiation (XB-70). Both approaches had successes and failures when used in anger.

The US Stencil seat (as used in many Harriers) was driven by best low speed performance, which everyone defines as the time between seat initiation and a fully deployed canopy. You need to talk about well under 2 secs for the best in that regard. Naturally, the opening characteristics of the parachute have a big effect on that total time. Indeed the Stencil seat uses an explosive canopy spreader to ensure that the parachute is open as quickly as possible. If you imagine a high sink rate low level erect attitude ejection (engine failure in a high hover for example) then the gun and rocket could in the worst case just put the pilot back in the hover with little or no airspeed to inflate the chute. A spreader is clearly good news then.

But, the catch with providing excellent low speed rapid sequencing is that things must be slowed down at higher speeds (or not used at all as in the case of the Stencil spreader) to avoid lethal stresses on the occupant – as well as on the chute. So seats had to become multi mode and operate very differently at even moderate speeds. A changeover in the Stencil happens at 220kt, which some experts feel is on the high side to hang on to the fastest possible sequence of the low speed mode. Certainly I never intended to use it between say 190 and 220kt – unless there was just no choice. For example, gliding down to a possible force lob attempt, if it appeared not sensible to stay with the aircraft at 1000ft, then one could pull the nose up from the gliding speed (of about 220kt) and get well inside the low speed seat envelope before ejecting.

The big issues with these wide speed range seats are mode failures and weight (the brilliant K36 is considerably heavier than typical Martin Baker variants) Arm and leg restraint mechanisms as well as other features able to prevent injury at 600kts or higher must be very reliable and robust – and that inevitably involves weight.

Re your second question, I don’t believe vertically seeking mechanisms (through steering the rocket or whatever) are yet in service. They were certainly not fitted to Anatoly Kvotchur’s seat at Paris. There was some evidence in his case that the blast from the explosion of the fuel underneath him did accelerate the opening of his chute as well as providing a transient upward force. But then the good guys have to win every now and then eh?

Sadly, as you may have seen elsewhere on PPRuNe, wingman Alexandre (of lighting the fag fame at Fairford) was killed in the crash of a twin turboprop he was testing last month.

Regards

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Thank you John for this very informative response to my post.
Your point about the ‘Cobra’ is accepted. My mistake – I was confusing it with the tailslide. If I’d known it was going to be such a good program I’d have taped it and would then be able to view it at a more leisurely pace, re-winding where necessary.
We used to get the Mig 29s at the Woodford Show in the 90s, just down the road from me. Quite breathtaking. As well as the usual ‘party tricks’ (I’m not denigrating the pilot’s skill – I can only imagine the levels of training and practice not to mention pure skill that go into such a display), I remember one year when the weather was awful; 8 octas at 500 feet in drizzle. Most acts cancelled. Not the Migs. They did a superb ultra low level ‘flat’ display – I particularly remember one Mig flying a sustained and very noisy 360 between the crowd line and the flight sheds on the far side. I could see a nose and two bright orange afterburner trails emanating from a rapidly moving cloud of the aeroplane’s own making.
I saw in ‘Pilot’ that Alexandre (of lighting the fag fame at Fairford) was killed in the crash of a twin turboprop he was testing last month. Ironic that he flew these demanding military fast jets to the limit yet died in a prosaic turboprop twin. But I suppose it’s true that all aeroplanes bite, and test flying (of which, of course, you have a great deal of experience) is something with dangers beyond even displaying demanding but developed aeroplanes at the edges of their performance envelope.
Your very informative response to my post, John, and other contributions of yours I’ve seen on PPRuNe and on TV, together with your ability to communicate complex stuff to those of us who haven’t sat in those delta wing test aircraft or the Harrier or the many others, makes me hope you have a book on the way. You have a vast knowledge of things aeronautical, and tremendous experience of many aspects of aviation. Much of it is of great historic interest, and I’m sure all of it of of great interest to ‘Total Aviation Persons’ like what I am.
I’ll be first in the bookshop queue when you publish!

Very best regards

SSD

[go with the flow]

Is this show available to order? An address or contact details would be gratefully received if so......
:)

[Vfrpilotpb]

SSD Hi,
I saw the docu as well, and after it I felt suitable chastised, for not long ago I was decrying the Russians for not doing much in the way of life saving for their Military folk, and flyer's, I now know differently, and thought in passing that the K36(was it) was most impressive in its protection of the Pilots vital bits like arms, legs and eye's. Pity was, I only saw half the show!
The narrator was excellent!

[ 16 October 2001: Message edited by: Vfrpilotpb ]

[ShyTorque]

Sorry to have missed the programme and also very sad to hear of the Russian pilot's Alexandre's death, which I was unaware of until this thread.

I too was at Fairford on the day of his mid-air between the 2 Mig 29s. We were there to do a static display with a Puma. As the blazing wreckage of one Mig fell into the aircraft park and the other looked like it was going towards the local village we thought it was another Ramstein in the making! I thought it best to make ourselves available so I responded by speaking to ATC and getting airborne in the Puma from the static display park. It was only after we landed on the far side of the airfield as directed that we realised we had beaten the on-site dedicated SAR Wessex aircraft by a good few minutes. Which embarrassed it's crew because we'd been parked with tip socks on, tail rotor locks in and the engine cowlings open at the time of the incident!

An amusing thing (well we laughed!) happened Alexandre on his return to the hotel.

He shared the lift with a female ATCO who, not knowing who he was, asked him "Had a good day then?"

Alexandre answered, in his heavy Russian accent after drawing deeply on his roll-up cigarette: "Not exactly...."

ShyT

[Daifly]

A nice story about Alexandre!

As John Farley knows I was lucky enough to fly with Alexandre in a MiG-29 two days before his death (which incidentally, I don't recall seeing in Pilot?).

Purely for self indulgence, there's a bit on my website about the flight. All questions of a giggly, adrenaline-rush nature gratefully received. All technical questions directed to Mr Farley please!
www.daves.info (http://www.daves.info)

He was a really nice chap, and throughly enjoyable to fly with. Whilst I wouldn't really agree that twin turboprops are "prosaic" there is no argument at all that all aircraft can, and do, bite. I suppose in some regards it's ironic that despite throwing MiG's around on a daily basis he died in an aircraft which was "less risky".

I agree the programme was very good too - the first bit of non-"sensationalised" aviation programming for a long time.