to bang out or not to bang out
 

plane is under control....no flames licking round your bum....but engine is silent. no runway within glide range.

PPL tuition for forced landings.....find a suitable field
but with ex-military hardware underneath you...say a JP5....do you point aircraft somewhere safe, and bang out, or find a long flat surface? does it make any difference if the wind in 40kts at 2,000 feet?

any views out there?

Take a look at the
"SILLY QUESTION OF THE DAY" Thread on flight testing forum.

This subject is discussed in full there.

JP3/5 and Tucano could technically all be force landed without power. The stronger the wind the better due to the reduced groundspeed; could also be a good reason not to jettison the ac and use the parachute. I would prefer to risk a 50-60kt G/S forced landing than a 30-40kts G/S parachute landing IF I had a suitable field. However, not much time at the bottom to revert to the seat if you did pork it up!

If you bang out in a surface wind of 35 knots or more you can expect some major injuries. Try running flat-out into a wall. Then imagine the impact at twice that speed. I'd stay with the jet for as long as possible and look for a flat field, leaving the ejection seat stuff until the limit (10% of the rate of descent) approaches.

Just because you've shut down and can't see any flames, doesn't mean the fire is no longer there. Times like this call for supreme trust in the captions,
captions out - stay until 1/10 RoD,
captions lit - get out quickly!

Hopefully not a factor to consider but if the seat was last properly serviced a long time ago it might be best to continue to use it as a chair.

Certainly on TinCan and Ork I was always told that forced landing was not an option. If you are happy to land in a bumpy field sitting on a live ejection seat that doesn't necessarily have 0/0 performance then all the best to you.... for me I'd rather find a school to avoid and bang out!!!

LC - I fly helicopters now though - shows you what I knew!

To quote 'Whacky Wheeler' on JP Groundschool Cranwell (I wonder where he is now) ...

'If in doubt, there is no doubt - pull the handle!'

Can anyone remember the (libellous) acronym about Bader in one of his exams?

TUCANO OIL Change (of fwd visibility)
 

Whilst talking about the Tucano, if we were, what's the incidence nowadays of the dreaded prop-seal failure and loads of oil all over the canopy? (with zero vis for the front-seater?)

What's the CFS dictum nowadays on what a solo stude should do? Does he have to bang out or can he unstrap, crawl into the rear-seat and land (or do the poison dwarf's solution and become instantly/urgently formation qualified for a wingtip formation landing)?

Just wondering as there were all sorts of silly solutions around ten + years ago from people who shoulda knew better.

UNC

I understood, maybe wrongly, that all ex-mil jets had the seat carts all removed.

Pull black & Yellow, swear, pull again, swear again, look for flat field again

L1A2 it was up to the owner/operator to decide if he wanted to maintain the seat or inert it. Couple of things spring to mind - the bloke who "Fell out of " a JP out of North Weald when his brother (IIRC) turned the jet upside down for the first time after the seats had been serviced and refitted (oops). This in turn begs the question to the non-military trained individuals now flying bang seat equipped aircraft - how much egress/ejection and parachute descent drill training do you consider enough? Us mil and ex-mil folks were regularly exposed to dinghy drills (pool and sea), rapid egress practice, hanging harness, parachute descent drill etc etc. It all (thankfully) became second nature, do it in you sleep sort of thing.

Saying to yourself 'if the engine quits and I don't have a runway in gliding range I'm going to eject (and tell my pax to eject too! - how well prepared is he/she going to be?)' is a well and good but I can assure you its not a smooth ride and its not without its own risks.

Sticking with it and hitting the ground at at best 70mph is not a pleasant ride either, sitting on a UXB, no airbag. Think of what a high speed motorway car crash looks like.

Jim Griff - time to post your link here again!!

Fly safe

Tarnished

Wacky Wheeler? Now thats a flashback.... If you failed an exam the interview was something like: "Any problems?", "No Sir!", "Ah, Any sexual problems?". A fabulous man. I thought ACEDB passed that exam...
The reason we were given in JP5 groundschool was that the seat would fire if there was any distortion of the cockpit floor on landing. The 90kt seat meant that if it fired, you died. Hence eject rather than Force Land.

Dunno, ask the civvie chap who recently deadsticked a Gnat into a muddy field.....!:oh:

IIRC a civvy JP was successfully force landed on some mud flats in an estuary a couple of years ago. N Ireland maybe?

The JP that belly landed didn't have live seats!! So the crew didnt have much of a choice and were very lucky!!IMHO

Live seats in the civvie market.....
The MOD do disarm the seats before sale.
However, there are companies who specialise in servicing and certifying e seats in the civvie market.
The CAA suggest that any swept wing, e seat equipped a/c should have live seats. IMHO any a/c that was equipped with an e seat should have a working e seat installed whoever owns it.

The north weald guy was very lucky to live and it was because of the preflight brief he had that he was able to pull the manual overide handle and loose the seat and deploy the chute although he wasnt "ejected". The seat was found to have a worn toplatch which allowed the seat to slide out and through the canopy when inverted (with passenger attatched) He didnt even have the harness leg loops on properly and was saved only by the release box jamming in his upper clothing and a wider chest than waist.

Civvy jets with bang seats info here

There are plenty of civvie a/c out there with live bang seats. Not just JP's but also more modern East European types....the Duxford L39 tragedy springs to mind with regard to the difference between a (ex?) military pilots response and a non (ex) military pilots response to "unusual" events close to the ground.

Indeed I think you will find 'most' ex-mil jets have live seats. But agree the training and prep of pilots and pax in not what it 'could' be.
Seen to remember someone in a JP5 banging out over the wash only to die of exposure due to lack of correct clothing.

Plus the expected addage of getting YOUR bird back home no-matter what, coz you paid for it. I may be wrong but was this not the case with G-HHUN ( hunter mK.4) going into Dunsfold after the candle had gone out ?.

poor southerner,



Is This The One ?

Tarnished makes a good point with regard the lack of currency reference seat training ,drills,survival etc., which most non mil bang seat travellers would suffer from. However there is evidence that as long as the user knows how to pull the handle, that is all he/she needs to know and that all the other useful information is exactly that...useful but not essential. I know of one accident (Javelins mid air, Far East mid 60's) where the T-bird pax was a locally enlisted airman with very limited seat training who survived the ride with nil physical problems. I'm sure there are many more. I also accept that I never made the "ride" but suffered many hours of seat and associated training and as CSRO inflicted the pain on many others, but do wonder how much was necessary.
Glad to hear that the locals haven't blunted your wit Tarnished. Enjoy the sun.:cool:

Just reread the post from Poor Southerner, and must add that the Military had poor examples of surviveability post ejection despite the extensive training. As an ex CSRO and CFSO I found that difficult to understand at the time, and as a retired old fart now put it down to arrogance rather than ignorance.

And who WAS 'ace db', young ... jayteeto?