Posted on 04/25/2006 4:14:09 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
Sorry, it looked like a Husky to me. I stand corrected.
The reason it struck me as it did comes from my experience working on aircraft. Now to be fair I was not working on military planes so I am unfamiliar with the rules that pertain in this example.
I can see where firefighters have some specific training in crash environments and emergency situations. I understand that this cat was inside this plane for sometime and I suppose a fair argument could be made that he needed to be out of there.
I would simply offer that the fact mechanics did not get this fella out speaks to how serious this problem really could be. I know that in my time around falcons,leers and gulf streams, if you were not specifically qualified to 'turn a wrench' on those airplanes then you could not do so much as tighten a screw on an access panel.
Everything done had to be logged and signed off and the person doing it had to be qualified to do it sign it off and then have it inspected and stamped by an inspector qualified to sign off on your work. I suppose legit training of firemen associated with the military would qualify them to do this, I guess it just struck me as odd because the environment I worked in would have seen mechanics doing what these firefighters did. I guess I should also take notice of how things change from civilian life to military life.
eject into a canopy that may not open.....
I can tell you, as a Mech that worked on F-16's and other Fighters in the AF inventory, it has always been the Firemen to perform emergency egress. Since sorties were cut down to an hour, the pilot "relief" tube has been eliminated and I can see the emergency...
More likely had a AC cart hooked up to a -60...
I was reminded of two scenes when the subject of ejection came up. The faulty canopy release on the F-14 in Top Gun that killed "Goose" when he struck the canopy on the way out. The other was the AV8 Harrier. That canopy is destroyed with detonation cord (shattered) before the ejection seat is activated. Even under the best conditions a ejection can injure or kill the pilot. It is definitely a last resort.
I went through the aviation survival training class for my current project tasks. The parachute training was little more than strapping it on and some perfunctory description of checking shroud lines, cutting a "tail" and remembering to wait until your boots strike the water to unclip. I really hope that is never necessary.
I hope he had a "pilot's friend" in there....
Agreed. There are a lot of things in life I wish I had a chance to do, but riding an ejection seat out of a out of control aircraft is near the bottom of the list.
We had a pilot in my squadron who was killed when he ejected right off the flight deck (a failed catapult shot) and ended up in the drink alive, and they tried to rescue him with a swimmer for about a half hour, to no avail. He was hopelessly tangled in his parachute shrouds. I guess they call them that for a reason.
In front of the entire flight deck crew and ships company, he drowned right in front of our eyes...they finally got him out and brought him aboard doing CPR the whole way, to no avail.
At the price of that aircraft...take off the helmet and piss in that.
My dad was on the Randolph (aircraft carrier) early in his career. He hated the blast deflector that spewed all over the bridge. He directed his staff to install the other blast deflector to point away from the bridge. Success. That became the Navy standard installation.
Is it a good idea to have an engine running while rescue people are standing right by the intake?
heh heh, no, its not. But one would have to assume this problem went on for quite a while as they figured out what to do. I can guarantee you they didn't have the firemen roll up with the chainsaw on a $500M aircraft in the first hour. Thus the 10 hour problem. They could have had him out of there in 15 minutes if they had to ASAP.
When did this change?
I flew tactical jets off carriers for over 10 years, one of the advances was the SEAWARS, automatic Koch fitting release and LPU (that's Life Preserver), inflator. The only A/C I was aware of without the auto inflate was on the helos, and maybe the E-2/C-2. As for shroud cutters, they were standard equipment in the SV-2 (left pocket) for any configuration with a parachute enabled aircraft.
I'm not sure what you are flying in, but you should check with your PR's to see what you really have.
Yup , newer aircraft create newer problems . When one of the prototype F-22 aircraft belly bumped during a takeoff a fire resulted that burned up the left wing and fuselage . The firefighters had major problems extinguishing internal flames because of the new composite skin of the aircraft . Either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics had an article pertaining to this , and showed a new firefighting tool to punch a hole through the skin and allow extinguishers to be used . As Super Chicken used to say to his sidekick Fred , " You knew the job was dangerous when you took it . " !
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