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Model Forum / General / Models / November 2007Front Line First?
Here's an interesting story... http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBr and=EDPOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED14%20Nov%202007%2017%3A57%3A17%3A513 RAF Tornado jet incident over Norfolk 14 November 2007 17:57 Police, ambulance and military are dealing with a major incident which involved a Tornado aircraft from RAF Marham this afternoon. The MOD is refusing to release any details of the incident at this stage, but have said the Tornado has landed safely and that no other aircraft has been involved. The crew flying the aircraft were from BAE Systems, who are contracted to service RAF Tornados. There is speculation that the incident may involve the navigator ejecting from the aircraft while flying over Norfolk. However at this stage no information has been released. Three ambulances were sent to Bunkers Hill in Egmere,Walsingham, just before 4pm. A number of police response vehicles have also been dispatched to the area along with the police helicopter and senior police officers. Limited information is being released to the media at this stage and all calls are being directed to the MOD. A spokeswoman for the MOD, said: "We are looking into reports of an incident involving a Tornado aircraft being flown by a BAE Systems crew during an air test in the Norfolk area. "The Tornado has landed safely at RAF Marham where it is based. No other aircraft was involved in the incident." BAE Systems also issued the following statement: "BAE Systems can confirm that an incident has been reported at RAF Marham involving a Tornado aircraft which was being flown by a BAE Systems crew. The aircraft has since landed at RAF Marham. No further details are available at this stage."  SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. beeb and sky say the plane was upside down when he ejected > Here's an interesting story... http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBr and=EDPOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED14%20Nov%202007%2017%3A57%3A17%3A513 > RAF Tornado jet incident over Norfolk > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > aircraft which was being flown by a BAE Systems crew. The aircraft has since > landed at RAF Marham. No further details are available at this stage." > beeb and sky say the plane was upside down when he ejected That's usual for an air test. The RAF has a policy called "Front Line First", whereby as many assets as possible are supposed to be given to those operating on the front line. Other units are becoming civilianised because it costs less to contract various things out (such as flying training and deep maintenance). RAF Marham is very much a front line unit - in fact it is the premier strike unit of the RAF. If civilianisation has penetrated the RAF so far that maintainance on front line units is being carried out by civilian contractors, then the RAF is in deep trouble! SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. > beeb and sky say the plane was upside down when he ejected The BBC has just confirmed that the nav did not survive the incident. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. > Three ambulances were sent to Bunkers Hill in Egmere,Walsingham, just before > 4pm. > Two person crew aircraft....aircraft lands safely...._three_ ambulances called...something doesn't line up here. "Where's the navigator?" "Over there...and there...and there also, I think..." =-O Pat >> Three ambulances were sent to Bunkers Hill in Egmere,Walsingham, >> just before 4pm. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > "Where's the navigator?" > "Over there...and there...and there also, I think..." =-O It happens. :-( There is also the possibility of injuries on the ground either from the ejection seat or from members of the search team falling into holes. In 1983 I was part of the search team looking for the pilot of the first Tornado that the RAF lost. The aircraft crashed very near to where this latest incident took place. The search team was deployed over a boggy and marshy area and there were dozens of injuries caused by people falling down holes, tripping over tree branches and falling into water. The pilot was eventually found in the hole with the wreckage of the jet. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. There was an earlier report that the seat had been found, so at least the seat separation bit worked... I dare say it'll all come out in the wash - eventually... I'm over at Honington tomorrow, so I'll see if there's any "scuttle"... Chris >>> Three ambulances were sent to Bunkers Hill in Egmere,Walsingham, >>> just before 4pm. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > down holes, tripping over tree branches and falling into water. The pilot > was eventually found in the hole with the wreckage of the jet. > There was an earlier report that the seat had been found, so at least > the seat separation bit worked... > > I dare say it'll all come out in the wash Oooh no... far too many jets parked in there! SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. Looks like the seat "fell out" and the poor guy struck the tail... >> There was an earlier report that the seat had been found, so at least >> the seat separation bit worked... >> >> I dare say it'll all come out in the wash > > Oooh no... far too many jets parked in there! > Looks like the seat "fell out" and the poor guy struck the tail... > While possibly not wearing a parachute: http://tinyurl.com/2rmxhl Which seems a very strange thing to do on a test flight. If it was a ejection seat malfunction, that would be a very rare thing indeed for a Martin-Baker seat. Pat >> Looks like the seat "fell out" and the poor guy struck the tail... > > While possibly not wearing a parachute: http://tinyurl.com/2rmxhl > Which seems a very strange thing to do on a test flight. > If it was a ejection seat malfunction, that would be a very rare thing > indeed for a Martin-Baker seat. What happens if I pull this haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........ (kim) > What happens if I pull this haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........ > I have this horrible image of the back-seater thinking he's falling out of his seat as they go inverted, so he grabs onto something to brace himself, like that pair of rings between his legs. If he actually wasn't wearing a parachute, someone is going to have a lot of explaining to do. Pat >> What happens if I pull this haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........ > > I have this horrible image of the back-seater thinking he's falling > out of his seat as they go inverted, so he grabs onto something to > brace himself, like that pair of rings between his legs. There is at least once precedent for that sort of thing. On 8 November 1984, Tornado GR1 ZA603/N of 617 Sqn was engaged in a training sortie from RAF Marham in England over the North German plain. At one point the pilot made a head-down course correction. When he went head-up, he realised that he was on a collision course with an A-10 which was desperately trying to avoid him. The Tornado pilot pulled even harder and managed to evade the A-10. Unfortunately the sudden increased G convinced the navigator (who was also head down at the time) that the pilot had lost control of the aircraft. The navigator ejected and as the Command Ejection switch was set to "Both" at the time, the pilot was also forcibly ejected from a perfectly serviceable aircraft. This accident led to a change in RAF engineering policy in that the Command Ejection switch was permanently lockwired into the "Pilot" position. This allowed the pilot to initiate a command ejection but ensured that the nav could never again cause such an accident. I believe that the Tornado GR4 no longer has such a switch and that the command ejection sequence is now hardwired. Haveing worked on ejection seats in the RAF, I have a number of other ejection stories if anyone is interested and if they are not off-topic here. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. > Haveing worked on ejection seats in the RAF, I have a number of other > ejection stories if anyone is interested and if they are not off-topic here. > Did they ever figure out what led to the fatal pilot ejection on the Harrier while it was in straight and level flight and continued out to sea on autopilot? Pat >> Haveing worked on ejection seats in the RAF, I have a number of other >> ejection stories if anyone is interested and if they are not [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Harrier while it was in straight and level flight and continued out to > sea on autopilot? Yes. The seat had drogue linkage that was exposed. The aircraft that was involved had an non-standard On Board Oxygen Generation System fit that involved some piping intruding into the cockpit. As the pilot motored the seat to its lowest position, the intrusive OBOGS piping fouled the drogue linkage, causing the drogue system to initiate. The drogue gun fired the drogue weight upwards through the canopy which also by design dragged the drogue chute with it. Once in the airstream, the drogue chute fully deployed and dragged the pilot from the seat and through the canopy. The shock of the extraction severed the harness points allowing the pilot's body to be dragged out. Thankfully the pilot was probably killed by the initial shock. As the pilot had previously engaged the autopilot, the aircraft quite happily continued on its way to the west. Although the accident was attributable to a non-standard modification in a pre-production Harrier GR5, it lead to a modification in the Harrier seat whereby the drogue linkage is now wholly enclosed. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. >>> Haveing worked on ejection seats in the RAF, I have a number of >>> other ejection stories if anyone is interested and if they are not [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > in a pre-production Harrier GR5, it lead to a modification in the > Harrier seat whereby the drogue linkage is now wholly enclosed. I've just looked back on my records and this is the note that I made at the time. Harrier GR5. ZD325 ff - no record Aircraft lost 22-10-87 on fifth test flight from Dunsfold. On a routine test flight carrying out OBOGS trials, radio and radar contact was lost whilst aircraft was at 30,000 ft and travelling west. A USAF C-141 was vectored onto the aircraft's track and reported that ZD325 was intact with the canopy frame and seat in position, but no pilot was present. One hour later, ZD325 crashed into the Atlantic at 59°19'N, 23°53'W. The pilot's body was found two days later, approx 5 miles from Boscombe Down. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. > I've just looked back on my records and this is the note that I made at the > time. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > body was found two days later, approx 5 miles from Boscombe Down. > Thanks for that info; I remember at the time it was quite the mystery. The Soviets had a somewhat similar incident with a Yak-36M (Yak-38 Forger).Yakolev test pilot Vladilen Khomiakov was test flying one of the aircraft on March 4th, 1976, from Saratov airfield near Moscow; he had taken off vertically, and was beginning to transition into horizontal flight, when at 49 seconds after lift-off, the automatic ejection seat fired for no apparent reason, blowing him out of the aircraft. As he floated down under his chute onto the frozen Volga river he got to watch the Yak, still happily flying with its front lift engines functioning well and its rear lift nozzles at a sixty degree angle, leave the vicinity. Eventually one lift engine quit, but by then it was going fast enough to get lift from its wings, and kept right on flying, heading towards Moscow. Moscow Air Defense had a fit, when they were told it was heading their way. Engine torque or something started to make it bank enough that it flew in a big circle, and climbed up to a maximum altitude of 26,000 ft while flying at around 350 knots as the fuel burned off and lightened it, finally slowing to 121 knots in the thin upper air, stalling, and descending onto a collective farm where it came down almost intact in a belly flop with the main engine still functioning. It caught fire on impact, but a trusty Soviet tractor driver pushed snow onto it and extinguished the flames. It had flown for 18 minutes in a unmanned state. :-) Pat > The drogue gun fired the drogue weight upwards through the canopy which also > by design dragged the drogue chute with it. Once in the airstream, the [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > whereby the drogue linkage is now wholly enclosed. > So they think he went in pretty much in one piece in that case? I know they speculated he went straight back into the vertical fin as the chute wrapped around it. They had a really strange ejection seat failure mode on the U-2. In ground tests the ejection seat would shatter the canopy on firing. But first a pilot reported trying to eject and ending up hanging under his chute semiconscious without remembering the ejection itself, and later a pilot was found dead in the wreckage of his U-2 with the seat activated but still in the aircraft. It turned out that the plastic canopy got stronger at very low temperatures, and the ejection seat would slam up into it and bounce right back down into the cockpit again. In the case of the pilot who couldn't remember the ejection, it had slammed him into it with enough force to knock him out, and dislodged the aft canopy from the aircraft - as the aircraft began to fall, he either crawled or simply fell out as his seat straps automatically detached after the seat firing. Pat > Haveing worked on ejection seats in the RAF, I have a number of other > ejection stories if anyone is interested and if they are not > off-topic here. Do any of these stories "end with hugs and puppies" or do they chiefly concern recovering human entrails from the branches of nearby trees as related to me by Fl Sgt Jack Hulme back in the 1960's? (kim) > Do any of these stories "end with hugs and puppies" or do they chiefly > concern recovering human entrails from the branches of nearby trees as > related to me by Fl Sgt Jack Hulme back in the 1960's? > They're been some amazingly lucky ejections over the years; one guy punched out of a navy plane while it was submerged; the guy in the U-2 I mentioned fell out of the plane while knocked out, and maybe the all time capper is the pilot of the M-12 "Blackbird" who had the D-21 drone the two man crew just launched (the launch officer drowned after not inflating his neck collar after landing at sea, possibly due to being injured during the plane falling apart) dive clean through the aircraft right after release, and never even ejected... he suddenly found himself flying through near vacuum at around 83,000 feet and Mach 3 as the plane fell apart around him in his seat without ejecting, and got to look back on something that looked to him like tinsel and chaff that was the remains of the Blackbird disintegrating...as he soared fifty miles or so downrange in a matter of seconds before descending ballisticly into the thick part of the atmosphere again. (That's still the all-time record for surviving leaving a aircraft in both the altitude and speed categories) Then, of course, there was the MiG-29 ejection during the Paris Airshow in 1989, which was the damnedest thing people had ever seen; ejecting while going straight down at around 200 mph and around 300 feet up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL1FblthxQ0&feature=related End result? He sprained his ankle. :-D That ejection seat got the best press imaginable after that incident. I don't know if we ever did it, but we were seriously considering buying it in a modified version from the Russians and sticking it in the F-22 and F-35. Pat >> Do any of these stories "end with hugs and puppies" or do they chiefly >> concern recovering human entrails from the branches of nearby trees as [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > >Pat everytime i see that, i think that's one lucky commie. and it wasn't ripped off tech, correct? weren't they home grown? someone also told me englend did buy some for trials. >> Do any of these stories "end with hugs and puppies" That was actually a famous line from a TV show that Enzo is fond of quoting but the joke was apparently was lost on him? :o) (kim) >> Looks like the seat "fell out" and the poor guy struck the tail... > > While possibly not wearing a parachute: http://tinyurl.com/2rmxhl > Which seems a very strange thing to do on a test flight. > If it was a ejection seat malfunction, that would be a very rare thing > indeed for a Martin-Baker seat. There *is* a way for the seat to fall out like that. The locking device which holds the seat in position is little more than a spring-loaded ball bearing which fits into a cannelure around the top of the ejection gun. Under normal circumstances the spring pressure is enough to hold the seat in position during inverted flight, and even during hi-G maneuvering. A normal ejection sequence will overcome the spring pressure and allow the seat to move up the rail. When the seat undergoes maintenance, the device is overcome by use of a large handwheel which employs a screw thread to withdraw the locking device. The handwheel is large and - by design - very noticeable (it is either a natural bright metallic green or is painted red). Theoretically it is possible for the handwheel to be left in place before an aircraft is cleared for flight, but only if it is missed on at least two seperate sets of vital checks and a further two sets of independant checks, carried out by technicians of different trades. For such an occurrence to happen, it would require a *MAJOR* breach of maintenance procedures and Health & Safety regulations. In fact, I would venture that such a breach is so unlikely that any occurrence would at the very least be criminal negligence. Any tradesman who allowed such a thing to happen should attract a charge of murder and the employer should attract a charge of corporate manslaughter. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. > In fact, I would venture that such a breach is so unlikely that any > occurrence would at the very least be criminal negligence. Any tradesman who > allowed such a thing to happen should attract a charge of murder and the > employer should attract a charge of corporate manslaughter. > If the seat slid down into the rear canopy during inverted flight, would the weight be enough to shatter it and allow the seat to fall out of the aircraft? Or would it starting to move along the track initiate some aspect of the ejection sequence like firing the seat rockets or shattering or jettisoning the canopy? The navigator who who was killed was experienced at doing the test flights according to the latest news, so that should rule out him grabbing the ejection initiation handles by accident: http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/Test-Flight-Death-Tragedy.3494404.jp Pat >> In fact, I would venture that such a breach is so unlikely that any >> occurrence would at the very least be criminal negligence. Any [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > the ejection sequence like firing the seat rockets or shattering or > jettisoning the canopy? Indeed it would. It is unlikely that the main ejection gun would have been initiated, but the drogue gun would certainly have been. The drogue gun fires a weight "upwards" - in the direction of movement of the seat - which ensures that the drogue chute deploys. It is also possible - dependant on the design of the seat - that a static line would have caused the initiation of the rocket pack. If anyone is interested I can give a more involved explanation of the ejection sequence of Martin Baker seats. SignatureEnzo I wear the cheese. It does not wear me. > Indeed it would. It is unlikely that the main ejection gun would have been > initiated, but the drogue gun would certainly have been. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Baker seats. > Now that's interesting...because in the Harrier incident I mentioned, as near as they could figure the drogue chute fired spontaneously through the canopy without jettisoning it, and the pilot may have been fatally pulled through the hole in the canopy by his chute deploying as he was still strapped into the non-ejected seat, basically ripping him apart as the airstream caught it. Pat > > Three ambulances were sent to Bunkers Hill in Egmere,Walsingham, just before > > 4pm. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Pat "That's him all over" - The Wizard of Oz Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr. "Pat started it" |
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