SO YOU THINK YOU HAD A BAD DAY!!!!

This is OT, but thought you may get a kick out of this. It is the #6 solo pilot of the USAF Thunderbirds that went in last year out west. He did eject safley and now works in the Pentagon! After he went vertical (Up), he did a split S and didn't have enough air under him for the recovery to level flight. This photo is from the International Councel of Air Shows site in the Saftey forum.

I know what I think, but do you think it's real or not?

Well Kirk,

Of course it's not real. You know why! Call me and I will tell
you why. I don't want to spoil it for others, O.K.! 703-369-6619

Oh come on Jim......indulge us all....

>Well Kirk,
>
>Of course it's not real. You know why! Call me and I will
>tell
>you why. I don't want to spoil it for others, O.K.!
>703-369-6619
>
>Jim Pollock

The plane is inverted. The pilot is ejecting up. Canopy's going up, too. Hmmm. Methinks something's wrong here.

Eject while inverted, pilot find himself human cannon ball ejecting into ground. Ouch much!

The plane is not inverted! The F-16 has the inlet under the radome, so this one is clearly upright.
Steve

I got a good one for you. On 1/6/04 I was riding my motorcycle home after work and had a woman make a left hand turn in front of me. I was going about 60 and had to choose between the front end of her car, a telephone pole and the corner of a building (our motorcycle fab shop).

I picked the front of her car. I just clipped it (allmost made it) and knocked the trim off of the front bumper. No real damage to her car.

I slid down the road for about 50+ feet or so. Got up and started walking toward her. I told her not to go anywhere. I knocked on the door of the fab shop and told one of the welders to call 911 and go outside and watch the woman that hit me.

She started screaming, "Why did you Hit Me"

I popped (dislocated) my right arm out of the socket forward
at the shoulder. Picture Quasimoto in the hunch back. Broke my left wrist in two places. Wore all the hide off of both knees, the pad on my right hand, both arms, my back, etc, etc, etc.

No helmet, never even bumped my head.

My motorcycle is trashed.

I took an ambulance ride (my fourth one) to the ER at about 6 o'clock in the eve and walked out on my own power at 11:30. Putting the ball back in the socket was no fun....
The little plastic brushes that they use to get the gravel out of your skin don't really work that well.

I got a pretty red and white fiberglass cast for the left arm and a nice comfy padded sling for the right arm. (I had to loose the sling, I didn't want to get poop on it, Smiles))

She got a trafic ticket.

My insurance company, GEICO has denied me personnel injury protection (PIP) because my motorcycle does not meet the definition of "motor vehicle". It's a good thing I've got money.
Her insurance will pick up the tab. (I've got good news, GEICO just saved me a bundle on my car insurance) Now you know why, Smiles

I havn't flown my planes so I don't know how the overheads are going to work out but.....The right shoulder is real sore.

With my luck, I'll pull on the refrigerator door to get a beer and my arm will fall off.

Bad Day. Yea, I've had a few.

John "Broken Wings" Jolley

Hmmm. It seems to match the video shot from the ramp area. According to what I read, the pilot was descending from the split S while flying down the runway centerline, made the eject decision, then angled to the left away from the crowd before pulling the handles. There was a photographer in the tower that could have captured the airplane at that position, and allowing for telephoto effect, the image appears logical. What did I miss that makes it a fake?

http://www.king5.com/cgi-bin/bi/video/G2redirect.pl?title=5101714

Bill Groman

>Hmmm. It seems to match the video shot from the ramp area.
>According to what I read, the pilot was descending from the
>split S while flying down the runway centerline, made the
>eject decision, then angled to the left away from the crowd
>before pulling the handles. There was a photographer in the
>tower that could have captured the airplane at that
>position, and allowing for telephoto effect, the image
>appears logical. What did I miss that makes it a fake?
>
>http://www.king5.com/cgi-bin/bi/video/G2redirect.pl?title=5101714

Come on now, I didn't mean to screw up this thread.
It looks like a real ejection to me....

Bill,

You have not missed a thing. At this point, from me that is, it has not been said that it not real. This is the discussion on the Airshows web site and thought you guys might enjoy pointing out what is or is not real about the pic.

I must say though that your observations are very keen and could hold some water.

>This is OT, but thought you may get a kick out of this. It
>is the #6 solo pilot of the USAF Thunderbirds that went in
>last year out west. He did eject safley and now works in the
>Pentagon! After he went vertical (Up), he did a split S and
>didn't have enough air under him for the recovery to level
>flight. This photo is from the International Councel of Air
>Shows site in the Saftey forum.
>
>I know what I think, but do you think it's real or not?
>
>Kirk

I would say that it is real, although I did not see either the airshow nor any tape of it. The F16 appears to be pulling high G load, shown by the condensation on the top of the ship. Since it appears to be level relative to the ground that means it is descending at a high rate. The pilot got out none too soon, from the look of it.

Yes Bill, The plane was pulling max "G" at the time and still coming down at a HIGH rate. I saw the video, Many times, and the pilot ejected a split second before impact.

There's some really great footage of an idiot USMC Lt Col who hit after a unauthorized execution of a "square loop" in a F-18. He hit the runway about 45 deg nose up. The plane had the pitch authority to get the nose up, but the vector analysis didn't add up for him. Must have been hell for the guy, nose pointing up, full afterburner, the ground still screaming up at him with no recourse. He DIDN'T eject, the plane burst into flames but basically didn't break up and he survived with some MAJOR back injuries.

An ejection seat gives you some 300 ft/min rate of climb (so I'm told by the people who taught me such stuff in Aviation Safety Officer School), so if this guy survived, although he was pulling a lot of G's (as shown by the vapors), his rate of decent must have been very low by the time he cleared the a/c. Might have made it, although I certainly can't argue with his decision to eject.

Where did the plane hit? On the r/w hopefully.

Speaking of bad days, got T-boned by a car traveling nearly perpendicular to traffic in 6 lanes of interstate traffic last Monday. Don't know how he got there, I was beside a 18 wheeler who nearly hit me avoiding him, when (after he hit the brakes) I cleared him, the guy who hit me came shooting across his nose out of nowhere (from my vantage point). Good news is that neither I or my son were hurt. My wife's minivan was totaled, not such a bad thing either, hated that vehicle.

Tools

Wow Mike. Night landings are safer than the interstate, especially on I-75 in GA. Now for a big real van to haul PA planes. Right?

And on I-75 in Dayton, too, apparently . . .

I watched several shows with the Square eight thing on it and I don't think Idiot applied, just another offset altimeter at least on the one I watched.

It's a dangerous job and things do go wrong.

Things went wrong with whatsisface and his Turbo Raven too when his prop pitch wouldn't advance, he bottomed out too.

>I watched several shows with the Square eight thing on it
>and I don't think Idiot applied, just another offset
>altimeter at least on the one I watched.

No, Idiot does not apply here, but there was a mistake made, and we all can do that.
>
>It's a dangerous job and things do go wrong.

Yes they do go wrong sometimes and at the worst time also. I have had to deal with a "few butt slamming events" in all the years I have been flying Air Shows. The worst of which was when the cranckshaft exploded on my CAP-21 in the 4th turn of a flat spin during a performance. The prop then left the plane and changed the CG so the plane was tail heavy. ##### I hate to have to do that pilot s@*^, but you deal with it as you train for it. You don't really think, you just do! Down at the KOI a few people watched the video of the event in my motor home while staying out of the wind...Just glad I was there to show it to them....Hmmm?
>
>Things went wrong with whatsisface and his Turbo Raven too
>when his prop pitch wouldn't advance, he bottomed out too.

This would be Wayne Handley. He is now 2 inches shorter after that landing, no joke! At the Air show convention the next year he had the booth next to mine. He showed up in the morning with his wife and a suitcase. He opened the suitcase and took out 2 lifesize cardboard cutout photo's of him and his wife. He put them in his booth with a fishing pole in each one's hand and hung a sign out that read " GONE FISH'N". He then shook my hand and left the building. A real great man and a friend to this day.

Remember, Keep the blue side up!

Kirk

>
>From somewhere near Parkville, Mo.
>William Crane
>AMA 6733

>>I watched several shows with the Square eight thing on it
>>and I don't think Idiot applied, just another offset
>>altimeter at least on the one I watched.
>
>No, Idiot does not apply here, but there was a mistake made,
>and we all can do that.
>>
>>It's a dangerous job and things do go wrong.

Well, the USMC Lt Col didn't put the Hornet in the dirt because of an offest altimeter, he put it in the dirt because he attempted a manuever totally different than he had practiced and that he said he was going to perform. Dorking yourself is one thing, but crashing hardworking taxpayers' airplanes while simutaneously placing them in danger is another. Oh, it had to be a VERY bad day for him, even worse for his family who I imagine were there watching.

Tools

The plane hit outside (far side away from crowd) the runway as the the manditory (FAA)saftey distance from the crowd line for a/c going those speeds is 1500 feet. There are 3 distances depending on the average level speed of the a/c you are flying. (500', 800', 1500') At the time of ejection the chute had just enough time to deploy as he hit the ground. I'd say he was just on the plus side of the assent rate.

Oh, here's another interesting tidbit that didn't seem intuitive to me when I learned it.

In a A-4 Skyhawk (fairly typical older zero zero seat - means you can eject with zero altitude, provided you have zero rate of decent), you could eject UPSIDE DOWN (again with no rate of decent) as low as 400' I think and still get a chute. Pretty cool.

Don't know if they're in the fleet yet, but I know they were working on a seat that would right itself if you ejected in strange attitudes. Really cool.

Tools

>
>Don't know if they're in the fleet yet, but I know they were
>working on a seat that would right itself if you ejected in
>strange attitudes. Really cool.
>
>Tools

Mike,
As I recall, it is/was called a "vertical seeking seat". I saw some ground tests at a test facility (An A2F/A6 cockpit section inverted and mounted on a test structure a few(?) hundred feet above the ground) of the ejection sequence years ago.
Very impressive, it always righted itself long before ground "contact" and went straight up.
Roger

For all those that gave your input as to the picture being real or not. Here is a link to the in cockpit video of the bail out and what lead up to it.

http://avweb.com/newswire/10_05a/briefs/186582-1.html

If you are dial up hit download not open.

For all of you doubters or in doubt, the photo is real. It was taken from the Mountain Home AFB tower as the pilot ejected. He used the wrong MSL altitude on his altimeter to finish the 1/2 Cuban 8, ie, he started1000 feet AGL too low and when he realized it, he went to max Gs for the F-16. That being 9 plus as limited by the fly-by-wire flight control system. As it was, the aircraft had more G available, but the G limiter of the aircraft would not allow the pilot to get it. If it had been an older fighter, like the F-15, he would have had more G available, but I am not saying he would have avoided the ground. He ejected when he saw that the HUD flight path marker showed impact with the ground. He is now working at the Pentagon at a desk job.

A former F-4 fighter pilot,

No need to think very hard what must have gone through his mind at that moment. I'm sure it started with F...

Tim

by any act, error, or omission, I have, intentionally or
unintentionally, displayed any breedist, disciplinist, sexist, racist,
culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, localist, ageist, lookist, ableist,
sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist,
phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist, or other violation of the rules of
political correctness, known or unknown, I am not sorry and I encourage you
to get over it.

I was at Mountain Home AFB when it was a SAC base in the 60's .Cant even remember that there was any way that they could have that many vehicles that close to the runway then. It had a fence line that was patrolled and ran basically the whole flightline.
Dennis

When I was eight years old (1968), a F-4 Phantom flamed out on takeoff from Davis-Montham AFB in Tucson AZ. It crashed one block from my house into a grocery store and alley way. The fireball lighted up the night like it was day light. Pilots got out; however 3 were killed on the ground. One more second of afterburner and it might have been right in my living room.

Enough to make one join the Navy and stay away from those wild USAF types!! So they send you to sea on a bird farm and guess what??

I went to a two week class at Mountain Home when I was on Navy recruiting duty in Idaho in the early 70's and the base was pretty much open. I was surprised. The only things there were the F102's, I assume it all fighters by then. The class was a DOD required for all noncoms, PO's and we were sent to the nearest full military base, no reserve bases or stations. Couple of very funny stoirs to tell on this one, but not on here.

>Oh, here's another interesting tidbit that didn't seem
>intuitive to me when I learned it.
>
>In a A-4 Skyhawk (fairly typical older zero zero seat -
>means you can eject with zero altitude, provided you have
>zero rate of decent), you could eject UPSIDE DOWN (again
>with no rate of decent) as low as 400' I think and still get
>a chute. Pretty cool.
>
>Don't know if they're in the fleet yet, but I know they were
>working on a seat that would right itself if you ejected in
>strange attitudes. Really cool.

The Soviets were rumored to have the best ejection seat design. That mishap with the MiG-29 at a Paris airshow years back when the pilot suffered a compressor stall while performing the unique "cobra" maneuver had the nose pointed up at low level but the aircraft sliding backwards. The pilot ejected horizontally and the chute had just barely opened when he hit the ground. Broke both legs but survived.