Eject! Eject! Eject!

[krp8128]

why does Canada have fighter jets?

Mounties were having "hardware" envy?

[The AD]

why does Canada have fighter jets?

Are you kidding? You can almost see Sarah Palin's house from Canada. She's liable to "go maverick" on Canada at any time.

[Gripen]

My friend's dad crashed an F4 Phantom when we were kids but ejected safely.
He said there was a cannon shell under the seat for ejection propulsion.
I tried to find some verification about that. It fucked up his back.

Depending on the version of Phantom the seat was either a Martin Baker H5 or 7, both of which utilize rockets.

My best friend growing up ejected from his T-45 Goshawk two weeks before his wedding. He was a wee bit sore for the event. He ejected while landing and only got one swing in the chute before he hit the ground and his aircraft tomahawked down the runway.

[splat]

Gripen - Were there any jets in the 60s that used an explosive charge to launch the ejection seat? Dude told me the story himself. He eventually missed that one physical that doomed him to ultralight status.

[Jethro]

I have a friend from high school who was a navigator in an F14. Shortly after a carrier takeoff they lost all control and the plane started porpoising and they ejected. My friend said he developed bruises in the pattern of his safety harness.

[Gripen]

Gripen - Were there any jets in the 60s that used an explosive charge to launch the ejection seat? Dude told me the story himself. He eventually missed that one physical that doomed him to ultralight status.

Air Force or Navy/USMC pilot? Pretty sure some of the earlier F-104's were I think. Some of the really early ones had a downward firing seat to avoid the high T tail. Did not work well at low altitude.

[kevok2]

Looking at the pictures, the chute opening may have been just as violent as the ejection.

It's even more fun when the chute opens at 200 knots. There have been instances where the pilots were killed by the wall of air pressure and/or rapid deceleration from the drogue opening.

My friend's dad crashed an F4 Phantom when we were kids but ejected safely.
He said there was a cannon shell under the seat for ejection propulsion.
I tried to find some verification about that. It fucked up his back.

F-4 IIs had Mk. H-7 ejection seats I think--although not a cannon shell per se, it is enough of a pop to blow the lid off the can and kick the pilot and the 200 pound seat out at holy shit feet per second. "Cannon shell" sounds like a pilot's term of sarcastic endearment. Even if you're sitting exactly parallel to the seat with your head all the way back they'll jack you up.

Edit: Totally missed the second page--Gripen, I think you're right...the F4s had Baker H5s and the F4IIs had Baker H7s.

[P_McPoser]

Talk about a shitty place to lose an engine. less than 500 feet, flaps, and speedbrake deployed. Fuck.

[SchralphMacchio]

Photojournalism competitions = slayed.

Seriously.

Try telling someone there is zero photoshop on this? It's not something you see everyday, that's for sure. Thank goodness that guy made it out alive.

[Gripen]

Talk about a shitty place to lose an engine. less than 500 feet, flaps, and speedbrake deployed. Fuck.

As a wise pilot once put it, he is out of airspeed, altitude and options, all at the same time.

splat- Your friend father could be referring to the initial stage that is sometime called an ejection gun. It uses gases to initially lift the seat up the rails and begin the rest of the ejection process.

[neck beard]

why does Canada have fighter jets?

It doesn't any more.

[Jumper Bones]

It might not have been engine loss so much as asymetric thrust - the plane was doing very low-speed, high angle-of-attack flight, and was using engine thrust to stay aloft. My guess is that the pilot turned on the afterburners at some point, and the left one lit but the right did not, and at that low a speed and altitude it was enough to push the aircraft over out of control.

Very dramatic series of photos, amazing.

Canada has F-18s for protecting its airspace and sovereign territory. They have a big ass searchlight mounted on the left side of the nose for nighttime interception aircraft ID.

So another guy gets to join the Martin-Baker club...

[nesta]

I wonder if that's the same CF-18 that the guy "took" home to see his mother from Cold Lake years ago. I had just got on the old Little Red chair at Whistler, the day he was on his way home, because he came up the liftline from behind out of nowhere and about a hundred feet off the deck, and I thought the lift was coming apart. It was definitely an experience one would not forget!

[kevok2]

It doesn't any more.

I literally lol'd at that one

I had just got on the old Little Red chair at Whistler, the day he was on his way home, because he came up the liftline from behind out of nowhere and about a hundred feet off the deck, and I thought the lift was coming apart.

That's one way of doing avy control...

[Garrett]

Canada has lost 16 CF-18s, incurring eight pilot deaths as of 4 April 2009.

And zero of those were lost doing anything resembling what a fighter jet was intended to do.

[Gripen]

And zero of those were lost doing anything resembling what a fighter jet was intended to do.

What exactly are you insinuating?

Military aircraft are lost through training accidents all the time, training is what they are supposed to be doing. I have no idea what the fuck you are trying to get at.

[jerr]

I just watched the footage. It looks like he was balancing low power with flare but got too slow to stay stable as he reintroduced power. Also the chute landed well away so no burn issue.

From the op pics it looks like he'll have a damn sore neck for a very long time but the chute had stopped swinging by the time he landed so hopefully he won't have had massive ground impact.

I landed a roundy parachute, like that which the pilot landed, a few weeks ago. No aircraft bail out, we were just screwing around at our dz, it was unintentional and not ideal but there you go. The impact is kind of like leaping off a house roof, in ideal circumstances. If the canopy was swinging you into the ground, or you weren't ready to roll out of it, like the pilot probably wasn't - nasty.

Hope he's all good

[Garrett]

What exactly are you insinuating?

Military aircraft are lost through training accidents all the time, training is what they are supposed to be doing. I have no idea what the fuck you are trying to get at.

Fighters are antiques. No one dogfights anything anymore. They just fuck around at airshows and drop 500 pounders on brown people once in a while to try and keep up some pretense that the whole category isn't a giant masturbatory waste of money. Kinda like when we fly B-2s all the way from some bayou to effin' Iraq to drop a couple conventional bombs...work vastly better and cheaper carried out by more mundane hardware.

Of course jets are lost in training. One might think such jets should be lost in anger now and again if there was any real purpose to their existence. When was the last time a Canadian fighter was lost to a foreign Air Force? Korea?

[dumpy]

Fighters are antiques. No one dogfights anything anymore. They just fuck around at airshows and drop 500 pounders on brown people once in a while to try and keep up some pretense that the whole category isn't a giant masturbatory waste of money. Kinda like when we fly B-2s all the way from some bayou to effin' Iraq to drop a couple conventional bombs...work vastly better and cheaper carried out by more mundane hardware.

Of course jets are lost in training. One might think such jets should be lost in anger now and again if there was any real purpose to their existence. When was the last time a Canadian fighter was lost to a foreign Air Force? Korea?

If the US and to a lesser extent didn't keep up on fighter technology, a day may soon come when we need them.

We prepped our military for many years to fight one large enemy, while being less prepared to fight smaller, militia type groups. Then one day our primary enemy folded, the enemy now consists of guys in sandals using surplus equipment from the old enemy. Our military hasn't been as well prepared to handle that, but I assume this is changing.

If we let our ability to fight "evil empires" slide, what happens when a large, developed, militarized nation decides to back whatever guerilla group we happen to be fighting?

In other words, we should be prepared for all possible scenarios.

[L7]

When was the last time a Canadian fighter was lost to a foreign Air Force? Korea?

I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure we lost one or more in Afghanistan. You know that place littered with Russian hardware and taliban/al Quaeda that the US bailed on for a number of years there. If that makes you feel better.

[wren]

CF-18s haven't been deployed in combat since Kosovo in 1999. And I believe each CF-18 pilot gets to take his jet "home for the day" once a year. While I was at Western (in London, ON) a Western alum would bring his jet back for homecoming every year and do a flyover for the football game. Pretty sweet.

[nesta]

CF-18s haven't been deployed in combat since Kosovo in 1999. And I believe each CF-18 pilot gets to take his jet "home for the day" once a year. While I was at Western (in London, ON) a Western alum would bring his jet back for homecoming every year and do a flyover for the football game. Pretty sweet.

hmmm... didn't know about the "home for a day" thing. Pretty certain this guy made the news by being reprimanded as being AWOL ( with a CF-18 to boot)

[SchralphMacchio]

I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure we lost one or more in Afghanistan. You know that place littered with Russian hardware and taliban/al Quaeda that the US bailed on for a number of years there. If that makes you feel better.

I did some poking around and Canada has sent some air support to Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was in the form of E-3 Sentries helicopters and other support craft ... no fighters from what I could see. That said, defense of Canada Air Space would require F-18s for interception purposes, no? Or are they using F22s now?

[Viva]

Canada has F-18s for protecting its... sovereign territory...

from baby seals.

[wren]

hmmm... didn't know about the "home for a day" thing. Pretty certain this guy made the news by being reprimanded as being AWOL ( with a CF-18 to boot)

Well that other situation might have been different. In 4 years at Western the same guy showed up with the CF-18 every homecoming weekend so I'm guessing he was granted permission for that.