Harvard II ejection Moosejaw, Jan 24/14

[PilotDAR]

Click here

No way, I'm not clicking anything around an ejection seat!

[Shiny Side Up]

I like how that page has testimonials from satisfied "ejectees".

[AirFrame]

You could do that in the L39 - pop the canopy, and
manually separate the chute from the seat, and step
out over the side. But the tail would surely kill you.

Could you elaborate on why? I haven't tried skydiving at speeds the L39 must get to, but the skydiving I have done leads me to think that you could bail out of any 200mph or less aircraft without being hit by it (assuming you're bailing out of something flying straight and level, which may not be the case in the situation you need to bail out of). Gravity seems to work faster than drag, so you fall away from the plane before falling back behind it.

Could you not raise the nose to reduce airspeed, and then jump out? What does the L39 stall at?

[careerpilot?]

Ejections seats have gotten better over the years, but ...

My father had a short-igniter F-86 flame out over a
very thick cloud layer in Europe, 1 Wing. He did a
deadstick instrument approach to an airport he'd
never landed at before. Timer was ticking because
hydraulic controls are battery powered without the
turbine. Perhaps wiser heads would have ejected.




Fast forward to CEPE at Cold Lake. F-104 had all
sorts of systems failures after takeoff. Dad wanted
to burn off some fuel before landing, but the people
on the ground said land it now or get out. So he
did a very fast, heavy approach and landing with
no BLC, etc. Touched down faster than the tires
and drag chute were rated for. Kept it on the runway,
no violent back-crushing ride and the airplane was
saved.

You are comparing the first generation of ejection seats from over 50 years ago to the absolute latest in today's technology? It's apples to oranges. Even the previously quoted article about the Hawk is much older technology - the hawk has the Mk 10, the Harvard has the much newer Mk 16 (same seat as the F-35, Eurofighter and Rafale).

The old seats in the Century fighters were single stage, so the initial charge needed to be powerful enough to clear the airframe. This meant the shock on ignition was much higher, and the amount of acceleration the seat could accomplish was limited by human physiology. The new seats are 2 stage; an initial catapault fires the seat up the rails, and a second rocket motor kicks in to blow the seat/pilot clear. This results in much more acceleration, but over a much longer period - therefore, the initial G is much less while survivability is much higher.

As for simply bailing out, that's not a possibility. As mentioned, the parachute is stored in the seat (in the triangular head box you can see in the picture). You only wear the harness, then clip into the parachute when you strap in (it doubles as your shoulder harness - you can see the buckles with the red squares on them in the picture as well). Even if you could, I certainly wouldn't want to try it - the new seats are far more safe. Just ask the two pilots who found that out on Friday.

[The De-Icer]

Don't know too much about this incident or the aircraft but have a few questions.

First of all, glad all are safe - most important.

1) Was the touch and go landing so hard that the gear was damaged that extensively? What was the reason for this hard landing to leave pieces of the aircraft on the runway?
If yes, why was the second take-off started. Was it safer to throw fire to the coals, and deal with the situation in the air?
Thinking that the aircraft was probably in a low energy state, with damaged gear, on a paved, controlled runway with emergency services in the proximity

2) Someone mentioned "high winds". What exactly is considered high winds (crosswind, headwind etc.). Are these pilots trained to operate in high winds. Is the aircraft able to handle heavy crosswinds?

3) If the weather/wind was such that a landing in the first place was going to be dodgy (if this comment about the wind was true) then who made the decision to leave the ground in the first place.

Again, not much knowledge about the incident but swiss cheese seems to be the tastiest in a scenario like this. Trying to find some holes and hopefully we can all learn from it and make the holes in our swiss cheese a bit smaller on every flight!

Cheers

A

[Colonel Sanders]

When I got my L39 type rating a few years ago,
during my training I was told that there were 9
ejections in North America, and in eight of the
cases, it was determined afterwards that they
would have been better off to stay with the aircraft.

Frankly, people were using them like the BRS on
Cirrus aircraft - as a first choice, instead of a very
last resort. That's one of my issues with them.

Was the touch and go landing so hard that the gear was damaged that extensively?

Yeah, that's the question that no one will answer.
If it wasn't, that brings into question maintenance
or manufacturing or design. Certainly enough doubt
to ground the fleet until that question is answered.

[AuxBatOn]

CS,

Just curious how many hours you have in functionning bang seat equipped airplanes?

[Colonel Sanders]

I fly single engine, cold seats, Aux - you know that.

I also have a couple thousand hours sitting on parachutes
that I think are of dubious value. Last couple airshows I
did, I didn't even wear one.

Hot seats are personally a bit scary to me, esp with
marginal maintenance, which raises a cost/benefit
question in my mind. Ask the Red Arrow guy about that.

absolute latest in today's technology?

Is that what the Red Arrows use?

[AuxBatOn]

Saying that we use the seat liberally is a little outside your arcs of fire CS. We do not take the decision to eject litely. Sometimes, it's decided for us, like when we are out of control below 6000 ft AGL. Normally, those instances have a risk assesment linked. Otherwise, if I think I can bring an aircraft back and not hurt myself in the process, I'll bring it back. Otherwise I'll ride the seat. If I can, I'll get inputs from more experienced folks. It's a quick risk assesment to weigh risk vs rewards for both options. But it is not taken lightly or liberally.

If your dad was able to bring a stricken jet sucessfully, good for him. I'm sure in other circumstances, it could have turned for the worst, and an ejection would have been the best course of action. Hindsight is always 20/20.

[Colonel Sanders]

Saying that we use the seat liberally is a little outside your ...

What I am saying is that of the nine civilian
ejections of L39's, it widely is considered that with
20/20 hindsight, that eight of them were the wrong
choice.

While not a large sample, it is still food for thought.

Also, there needs to be a cost/benefit analysis. As
the Red Arrow pilot found out, ejection seats are not
without risks, which is the picture painted here.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. If
the RAF can't maintain it's ejection seats, I probably
can't, either. I probably don't have better maintenance
personnel than the RAF.

[AuxBatOn]

This thread is not about your L39s but the ejection of 2 pilots out of a Harvard II, or did I miss anything?

[Colonel Sanders]

My apologies for the thread drift. Let's
get back on topic.

What happened during that touch & go landing
that so severely damaged the gear?

We are told here that the two pilots are the
"best of the best" which I completely accept.

That therefore raises the question of maintenance,
manufacturing, and design.

[trampbike]

The DFS will publish a report at some point, just like the TSB does. We'll all be able to read it then.

Fly safe everyone!

[2R]

I watched a friend doing touch and go's in a borrowed rusty home built ultra-light when the landing gear collapsed on one side and dug in enough to spin him around on the runway. He scraped his knee and strained his neck. The added weight of the helmet he was wearing may have added to the muscle strain in his neck.
The ultra light was landing at about twenty miles an hour into a five knot wind. He should have been able to jump out and run at that speed.
The thought of attempting to land a short coupled aircraft at 90 knots/103 knots/160 kmh with broken gear that might produce more strain on the neck in the rapid yawing movement during the landing than the human frame is able to survive without serious or fatal injury.
One of the happy thoughts I had while thinking about yawing and the impact on the human frame and some applied mechanics, kinesiology and bio-mechanics, was I remembered watching a lady (in her second trimester)walking towards a pole at a slow seductive pace and reach out and grab the pole and spin around the pole and end up upside down in full display of her athletic prowess. If that can happen at a walking pace can you imagine the yawing forces involved at the landing speeds of a short coupled fast trainer at 90 knots.
I wonder if the MOD has any funding available for further research into this theory, Who said you could not learn about flying while watching what should be an Olympic sport and supporting single mothers by buying overpriced beer.
How is that for thread drift ?

[Richard_K_Spyte]

This thread is not about your L39s but the ejection of 2 pilots out of a Harvard II, or did I miss anything?

Nope, I think you nailed it.

[trampbike]

except
for the HvdII which had it's landing gear collapse
during a routine T+G.

Nice, so you know more than most people currently working at 15 Wing, please enlighten us.

[2R]

Landing gear issues are not common but not restricted to training aircraft. The SAS Q-400 landing gear collapse was a maintenance issue since corrected by changing maintenance procedures of the Q-400 gear and SAS saving face by trading their old Q's for new ones. I heard that it was an airline using the wrong grease during maintenance.
The Q-400 gear collapse was on a routine line flying landing.

[GyvAir]

Such a revealing CADORS on this one:

2014C0311
Occurrence Summary
Date Entered: 2014-01-27
Narrative:
Moose Jaw MTCU reported an aircraft accident involving a military aircraft, a Government of Canada, Department of National Defence Raytheon Aircraft Company CT-156 Harvard II (APCH11) conducting training within the Moose Jaw MTCA. Two POB. Minor injuries. No impact to NAV Canada operations.
O.P.I.: Further Action Required: No

Lots of fields left blank or "unknown"
http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/c ... d2014C0311

[grimey]

Such a revealing CADORS on this one:

Lots of fields left blank or "unknown"
http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/c ... d2014C0311

So? It's the CIVIL aviation daily occurrence reporting system. This was a military aircraft, on a military flight, in military airspace, not in an incident involving any civilian aircraft.

[GyvAir]

So? It's the CIVIL aviation daily occurrence reporting system. This was a military aircraft...

Yes, I was slightly surprised to see that one had been filed at all. What I was commenting on was the apparent deliberate vagueness of the report, to the extent of not even mentioning that they ejected from the aircraft.

[bradley]

This was a military aircraft, on a military flight, in military airspace, not in an incident involving any civilian aircraft.

The Harvard IIs are owned by Bombardier and leased to the CF.

[trey kule]

Vagueness!

I know, I know. The nerve of the military not wanting to release anything until after an investigation gets all the facts..avCanadaers want to know now...actual facts are optional.

And those darn pilots are no better. No tweets. No facebook status updates. No selfies during the ejection. You would think they know that in this day and age our readers here must have news instantly...the .inconsiderate bastards. Relegating us to speculate on ejection seats, and demonstrate our misunderstanding of the difference between owner and operator.

Now lets talk about the elephant in the room. Did either of these pilots have tailwheel time? Time in a Pitts? Didn't think so. I expect that will be one of the root causes identified as influencing their decision to eject.

I am starting to think this was all a big conspiracy .

[Gannet167]

I'm told that of the over 800 Tex II's out there, the 25 Canadian air frames have over a quarter of the fleet wide landings and something similar for hours. One ejection is a pretty decent record over the more than 200,000 hours on those 25 planes alone.

[trampbike]

Yep, first Harvard II the CF destroys since they got them, almost 14 years ago.

[pdw]

Vagueness!

I know, I know. The nerve of the military not wanting to release anything until after an investigation gets all the facts..avCanadaers want to know now...actual facts are optional.

And those darn pilots are no better. No tweets. No facebook status updates. No selfies during the ejection. You would think they know that in this day and age our readers here must have news instantly...

There are a few investigations I've watched from start to finish where IMO it paid off to offer as 'little' as possible (the "vagueness") at the beginning. In the process though, some safety items were missed and IMO never got into the final ... and that makes me realize that paying attention to investigations early on and even discussing them in a public forum (polling the audience) can be very helpful to that cause.

To put the correct productive spin on a final report might be with fewer complications if all the finer details haven't already been exploited by media and tossed to public opinion. Out at the remote airports it is slightly easier to evade that scrutiny and ultimately avoid offering more than necessary for the record.

I spoke up twice by contacting investigators where it looked like a cause would go unnoticed. It resulted in some serious education of what an investigation all entails, yet also to realize there is a time to speak up and a time that's 'too much later' when voicing that concern might no longer make any difference.