I thought the ejection seat was the main reason strike jet candidates had to be light.
Well it is what it is. I usually weighed somewhere around 240 in gear.
We lost Desperado 624 on 31 December 1990. It was going to be the first year ever we had not lost a Prowler. They parted the 3 wire and went over the side of TR (I'll not delve into the whole AMB affair except to say one should use a torque wrench when the MIMS says use a fucking torque wrench).
I was standing by the island with my crew waiting to hot switch into the jet. It went by and pop. pop. pop. pop. The wire slapped the Bear Ace E-2 I was beside. I ran to the port side and saw four chutes. The first three guys were all 250+ in gear were close and Jaguar (HS-9) was right on top of them. Psycho was ECMO 3 though. He was 180 max in gear and was the first out of the jet. Everyone else hit the water. Oscar, the pilot recalls ECMO 1 (Boomer) seat hitting the canopy and then the nose of the jet hitting the water before his seat fired. He said it was a "hand of god feeling" as he ejected and then lifted his head and the SH-3 was on top of him.
Psycho in the meantime was floating downwind in his chute. No problemo. It's the Atlantic off Bermuda, the water is 70 degrees and he can see the boat despite having lost his glasses and he can see the helo picking up his buds. About that time a gray fin goes across a wave. F' that. Sea dye marker, radio, flares. here comes the motor whaleboat to pick him up (Bosun' with M-14 in hand to deal with those dastardly jaws). It turns out that the "fin" was, in fact, a drop tank fin that had ripped off the jet and flipped over with the fin up.
What does this have to do with max weight for aircrew? Crap, I don't know, blame it on too many Wild Goose IPA's.
