Marine Pilot Joke

[DBLang]

I think the russians developed a method of detaching the rotor blades a fraction of a second before the canopy blew and the ejection seat fired. Or maybe I'm just having Golden Eye flashbacks, but I am pretty sure they did it.

 

[Daedalus]

Best line ever "I'm guessing it's the same reason the Osprey got its ejection seats taken out...enlisted crew would probably be upset at being screwed while the asshole officer flyboys punch out." - Vegita...that was great

 

[Daedalus]

I can't see any reason why the Goldeneye helo ejection thing wouldn't work...assuming that it is over water or desert, being that the blades will become huge projectiles

 

[Fly Navy]

Now the trick is, are you flying high enough to even have the reaction time to punch out.

 

[vegita1220]

If Black Hawk Down is at all accurate in its helicopter scenes...I'd say typically yes. But then that's like not putting ejection seats in a B-1 or F-111 since they also fly low penetration missions. I still put my money on the pissed off enlisted crew theory. B-1s and F-111s are only crewed by asshole officer flyboys if i'm not mistaken.

 

[Rainman]

Lost me on that one. . .

What does low penetrating missions have to do with lack of ejection seats?

 

[jdfairman]

Thats a roger on the blades being detached before the seat goes off. Its done of course with an explosive charge. Dont know how well it works.

 

[doubledown]

I watched a program on Discovery channel, the US government DID develop a fully operational ejection seat that ejected straight up. The blades blew off just before. Though it worked, it didn't work all the time (as far as sometimes the pilot dummy would get hit by the rotors) and I think that's why then never developed it further. I think the idea was to get it into all of the military helicopters, but it obviously failed.

 

[Farva]

What about the screen door on the polosh subs? Cant forget that one.

 

[vegita1220]

Originally posted by Rainman
Lost me on that one. . .

What does low penetrating missions have to do with lack of ejection seats?

Well, I figure if you fly low, you're closer to the ground.
If you're closer to the ground, you have less time from loss of engine to the time you smack into the ground.
B-1s and F-111s fly low...they have ejection seats. I'm just joking about the asshole officer flyboy thing of course...sort of.

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

B-1's and F-111s do have ejection "systems." The entire cockpit goes up.

 

[Daedalus]

I don't know about the B-1 and the F-111 but I’ve seen videos of fighter pilots punching out at very low altitudes, like 100 -1000ft. Aren't the seats made so that the rocket fires with enough velocity to work if the plane is on the ground? Also the higher you go the faster you can safely go, no? And the faster you go the more dangerous the ejection becomes? Isn't there a max survivable speed for ejection?

 

[spsiratt]

Zero/zero seats can eject sitting stationary on the ground. Zero altitute/zero velocity. Still, not all planes have them though. There is a maximum survivable ejection speed, but who really knows it. There have been plus mach ejections, but a load of broken bones came out of it. The last one I know about was an ANG guy over the water. He punched out as low altitude and plus mach. He broke both arms, both legs and generally got broke, but he survived.

 

[nittany03]

The russian helo you're thinking about is the KA-50 Black Shark or Werewolf. It's a single-seat attack job, so no worries about BFing your aircrew just to save your own butt! And yes, I believe the rotor blades are designed to (hopefully) blow off before they turn the pilot into sushi. Here's a link for the curious. Dunno if any other helos have the same thing.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/ka-50.htm