Eject from a CT-156 Harvard II ???
 

Loose an airplane because of a gear malfunction? :rolleyes:

As reported on avweb.com:

Pilots Eject From Canadian Military Trainer

A Royal Canadian Air Force instructor pilot and a student ejected safely from a CT-156 Harvard II training aircraft near their base at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, after the landing gear malfunctioned Friday. The aircraft, which is the Canadian version of the Beechcraft Texan II used for primary flight training by the U.S. Air Force, was on a routine training flight when the fault occurred. Another aircraft was sent up to do a visual inspection and the decision was made to abandon the aircraft rather than risk a landing with unsafe gear.

The instructor, who had been training pilots for about a year, and the student, who was on his or her 10th flight, punched out in an uninhabited area about two miles from the base and were reported to have walked away. They were met by rescue personnel and taken to the base medical facilities for assessment. It was the first hull loss for the Harvard II since the RCAF began training pilots in them in 2000, although one was damaged in an accidental ground ejection about five years ago. "This is actually a very good outcome," RCAF spokesman Capt. Thomas Edelson said. "Both people got out of the plane. You can buy more planes, but you can't buy more people." The RCAF doesn't actually own the aircraft. They are supplied and maintained by Bombardier under a contract to the RCAF but the instructors are military personnel.

Depends on the aircraft type and what the emergency drills say. Landing with, say, one main gear down and the rest up is not usually good. The RN lost a Sea Fury a few years back near Prestwick because the gear could not be got fully down and the pilot followed the drills and bailed out.

So no need to roll your eyes....

avionimc
 

So what exactly is your experience of flying in these type of aircraft? I probably know a lot more about the details of the accident than you and I'm not about to cast aspersions on a public website. Therefore may I politely suggest that you wind your neck in and keep your thoughts to yourself?!
BV:rolleyes::=

IIRC - something about the PC9 which makes wheels up dicey. Oxy bottle under the seat?

Maybe the Harvard II has the same setup.

Well said BV.

Agreed, well put, BV.

...and what, precisely, is the point you are trying to make avionimc?

Transexual?

I suspect avionimc's silence speaks volumes...

-RP

Well maybe somebody who does fly or maintain this type can explain exactly why the decision was made to abandon?

On the face of it, it does seem surprising. Most small aircraft that are landed wheels up for one reason or another are economically reparable. Many aircraft have been landed wheels up without injury to occupants, and I can't think of any examples of crew being injured in an intentional wheels up landing.

On the other hand, lots of people get injured and even killed ejecting, the aircraft is a guaranteed write-off, and there is always the possibility of injury to third party persons on the ground.

Moreover, if you look around on google earth at the areas of sparsely populated terrain within 2 miles of the airbase, it is not exactly the sort of terrain I would choose for a DZ - lots of swamps and lakes to drown in.

I'd imagine they must have been a compelling reason not to attempt a full-flaps wheels up landing, with minima fuel in the tanks, and the fuel cocks off just before touchdown, on that nice long runway with a nice layer of foam, with fire crews following them down the runway. Moreover, the CT-156 has zero-zero ejection seats, so even if it went tits up on the roll out, they would have a safer parachute landing on a nice big airfield than out in that terrain.

Presumably they decided that an attempted wheel(s) up landing would have resulted in a definite fatal crash? Was one main wheel stuck down, and the other stuck up?

News Article | Royal Canadian Air Force | News Article | Controlled ejection at 15 Wing Moose Jaw

Not sure that anyone can explain until all the facts are known.

Note the last 3 words in the link:

Another flipped over on it's back at Sywell in 2001, killing the pilot. Not an u/c failure per se, but the point is, flipping over on landing may not be survivable.

Can't speak for the type in question but on some military aircraft types the checklist advice following partial gear extension was to abandon, rather than attempt a belly/forced landing.

Again can't speak for the specifics here but we used to warned of the dangers in relying on the seat following a "forced" landing, especially if there was gear damage and most especially if you've gone off piste or there was a in danger of doing so....the logic was that the seat might be damaged in the course of the forced landing, especially if things got rough and there was structural deformation. The worries were it subsequently might not operate, or might fire accidentally, or might not function properly even if it did fire.

I'd imagine the decision to abandon would been made after discussion with those on the ground, would not have been taken lightly, and care would have been taken as to where the aircraft eventually ended up.

That link from Wholigan states that the abandoned aircraft crashed around 3 miles south of the airfield - if you scout around that area on google earth it cannot really be described as "sparsely inhabited" - there are plenty of farms, hamlets, a golf course and even a small airstrip.