Canberra hours

[longer ron]

Originally Posted by Sldm

Peter , longer Ron and Paul, thank you so much for remembering my father John Dennis’s tragic accident nearly 50 years ago . I am so pleased The navigator ejected successfully . It sounds like it was hard to get out of an ejection (from older type of ejection seats ) without some sort of injury if you did manage to get out of the Canberra- which sounds very tricky

Incidentally John was the same age my son is now, really just a boy .

if anyone knew him personally I would really welcome a contact

Hi Sldm
Welcome to the forum and with a really nicely written post.
Yes the early ejection seats had a fairly powerful explosive cartridge (main gun cart) to clear the seat from the aircraft which could cause spinal and other injuries,the later rocket seats had a smaller main gun cart just to move the seat a few feet and then the rocket pack would fire and clear the seat well away from the aircraft.

regards LR

[Wander00]

BB standardised me once, back in the 60s

[Wander00]

But I definitely flew it to Wroughton in about 66, and was told that was its last flight. Might possibly have been made serviceable for a last flight to St Athan. Anyone got the aircraft log book?

[Old_Slartibartfast]

Originally Posted by longer ron

The ejection sequence on Canberras was fairly 'slow' in that upon initiating ejection both the navigators hatch and the pilots canopy were jettisoned (using explosive bolts) and only then could the seat 'fire' out of the aircraft,the canberra (being a first generation jet) had older type ejection seats which did not have rocket packs,therefore any ejections had to be inside the seat limits (ie above a certain height/speed and less than a certain descent rate).

I made a very serious error whilst flying in the left hand rear seat in WT308 (what would normally be the nav seat, but the two B(I)6's we had had been modified for trials work, I was just a flight test observer). After shutting down I went to put the pins back in to find that the hatch wasn't armed. I'd flown the whole sortie with the explosive bolts disabled . . .

The seat rating was, I think, 400/400, i.e. 400ft minimum height AGL, 400kts minimum IAS. I can't remember a descent rate limit, but this was a long time ago, when WT308 and WT309 were still at Farnborough.

[reynoldsno1]

Does the B57 count as a Canberra 'variant'?

[57mm]

Works for me, a Canberra is a Canberra.