General Discussion Thread

[Lordroel]

Question was the FAA also by the rules during the war.

[Wolfman]

The NTSB certainly was at the beginning of the war, and the accident investigators knew it…

[Matt Wiser]

I'm wondering if the FAA let another ejector seat pass without comment, only for it to have an issue and hurt someone. Probably with that theory is if had happened, every warbird operator would have heard about it.


What's the life span on ejector seats anyway?

I think they were worried at first about someone ejecting prematurely; say, due to a false warning like loss of hydraulics, or a fire warning-in most instances, if you get that kind of warning, you get out, period. The example the FAA snot used back when was when a SAF MiG-23 took off on an intercept mission out of San Angelo in 1987, just after PRAIRIE FIRE wrapped, and the pilot had a fire warning light go on, so he did what the book said: eject. The plane kept flying on, to his surprise, and after an F-15 splashed it, AF Intelligence got there and went through the wreckage. They found no signs of an inflight fire, and also saw that the warning light on the control panel to warn of fire had been lit. (OOC: this is based on the RL MiG-23 that crashed in Belgium in 1989 after a premature ejection over Poland and the plane overflew East and West Germany before crashing)

Seats have a decent lifespan if properly maintained. There are a couple of retired techs from the 419th who maintained seats during the unit's time on F-4s who donate their time to make sure 512's seats are properly maintained, and they are training a few students at a nearby aviation technical college to follow in their stead.