Partial Ejection from A-6 Aircraft

USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier (CVN-72)
Indian Ocean, July 1991
http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_seat/

Частичное катапультирование KA-6D

• Category

  Science & Technology

[William Mims]

It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Fly to a shore field, a flight which would SURELY have killed the BN, or hope the chute risers were securely trapped in the rudder, and return to the ship. They got lucky..God looks after drunks, fools, little kids, and Naval Aviators.

[QuietReckoning]

And he deserved it. Saving a life during a mechanical disaster deserves a medal, no matter what this candyassed video gaming troll has to say.

[TheRetirednavy92]

I love the A-6, best 4 years in the Navy I had.

[Terry Corcoran]

OUCH! Now the mechanical Bull at Gilley's doesn't look so threatening. Ever wonder why the Marine Sergeants are SO nasty to these boys at Pensacola? Here's proof. The Best of the Best....

[Mario Sanchez]

They're all so calm; amazing.

[TheScrumpty]

yes he did one hell of a job dropping his altitude and airspeed down to levels where his BN had a chance of surviving, it was most certainly a job well done.

[William Mims]

I had forgotten they were doing tanker ops. Still a hell of a job getting back down to thicker air.  DEFINITELY know about "eventful" cruises! Got to be part of the target-ex off Taiwan during their Presidential elections back in the mid 90's, when PRC decided to show their displeasure by doing live missile shoots OVER Taiwan. Got a touch hairy there!

[TheScrumpty]

he was also cool headed enough to know that he could not get out, and he had to land the plane if EITHER of them were to survive, someone posted that he deserves a medal for his actions, i agree with that person, even though we knew the dangers we allowed ourselves to be hurdled into on a daily basis, it was still in my opinion an incredible piece of flying. and the rest of the cruise was far from uneventful, we had our share of problems on that cruise.

[TheScrumpty]

the canopy would cut the BN in half, and stop it's travel backward when it hit the BN's seat, which would have put the canopy front frame right above the pilots head when his seat would have fired, so he was stuck, secondly, we were 2,700 miles away from the nearest land when this happened, the carrier was the ONLY place that he could land, he did an incredible job of dropping his altitude from 30,000 feet quickly enough to save his BN's life,

[TheScrumpty]

but not far enough to pull out the lanyard to fire the rocket motors under his seat, and the aircraft was at 30,000 feet, the wind blast was forceful enough to suck out the parachute from the seat's headrest, unfortunately, and fortunately it wrapped around the vertical tail plane, at this point the pilot had no options, he was stuck in that cockpit till he landed the plane, wheather it was with a living BN or a dead one, the seat was far enough the catapult so that if he did try to eject,

[TheScrumpty]

I was on that cruise, i remember that day, i was a tomcat pilot in one of the 2

F-14 squadrons on board at the time, there is more to that story, starting with why they were in that predicament, they were flying the tanking duty on that evolution of the day, and they were having a fuel transfer problem, when they tried to remedy the fuel transfer problem the BN's slid up the ejection seat catapult rail, and punctured the canopy,

[dking5454]

... and just grew bigger !