Pilots Forced To Eject From RAAF F/A-18F Super Hornet

[red750]

Witnesses have captured the moment an air force jet crashed at a Queensland base forcing the pilots to eject from the plane in dramatic scenes. Video footage here.

 

 

[Marty_d]

How could they be "forced to eject" when the aircraft (looking remarkably undamaged apart from the sooty bit around the cockpit - ejection rocket burn?) - is trundling along on the ground at walking pace??

 

My totally uninformed guess is that someone accidentally punched them out...

[facthunter]

Not sure I'm convinced of that. With some failures, ejecting is the thing they go for. It's an engine failure where WE would just bring it to a standstill which was obviously possible there but if a fire was indicated perhaps not being there is the deal. You normally fire bottles of extinguisher into the engine area. (zones) but maybe that appeared ineffective. They've grounded the lot whether that is an overreaction, I don't know. They have their rules and the crew are more important than the plane is. I know of a bloke who deadsticked a Sabre I think it was into Tomago airstrip which is not easy at the best of times and he got hung out to dry as the rule was to eject. Nev

[Jase T]

[onetrack]

I reckon they were just following their strict training regime - engine failure means bailout without question, you have only 2 to 3 seconds to decide. No luxury of waiting 20 seconds to see if it's going to blow up, or hit something.

 

There's nearly 22 mins of ejection education in the 1981 USAAF film below. The USAAF train their pilots that every second counts, and you must make an instantaneous ejection decision.

 

Too many pilots left ejection too late, and died in the crash fireball.

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by onetrack

[willedoo]

Exactly, onetrack. The bang seats help but it's the training that saves lives. Stick to your training and you have a good chance of surviving. Spend time debating the issue and you die. It's that simple.

[jackc]

Old saying in the Army:  we broke it, no problem......there’s more where that one came from 🙂