Plane Spotters Corner

[Kymmy]

RIP Not a good year for the red arrows

[Kymmy]

IWM Duxford is having a free open day on Rememberance Sunday

http://beta.iwm.org.uk/events/remembrance-sunday

[Kymmy]

All non-essential RAF aircraft with Mk10 ejector seats have been grounded.. This points towards an ejector seat malfunction for the recent red arrows fatality

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15655865

On a private forum Scampton staff are suggesting that the parachutes failed after the ejection.. (no public link I'm afraid)

[danielf]

Is an ejector seat even supposed to work when the aircraft is on the ground?

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by danielf

Is an ejector seat even supposed to work when the aircraft is on the ground?

Zero-Zero seats are designed to work at zero altitude and zero speed to combat stuff like engine fires at start-up. They though do have to be armed first which normally happens once the pilot is sat and belted in..

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Zero-Zero seats are designed to work at zero altitude and zero speed to combat stuff like engine fires at start-up. They though do have to be armed first which normally happens once the pilot is sat and belted in..

Ah. Cheers for that.

[Kymmy]

Pilot now named

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15655865

RIP Red5 Flt Lt Sean Cunningham

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15652440

An excavation at the site of a 1941 Spitfire crash in a bog in the Irish Republic uncovered huge, remarkably preserved chunks of plane and six Browning machine guns. After 70 years buried in peat could they be made to fire? They certainly could, writes Dan Snow.

Thanks to a "wild idea" from Lt Colonel Dave Sexton, ordnance technical officer in the Irish army, it was decided an attempt would be made to fire one of the Browning guns that had spent 70 years in the bog

I won't add anymore..It's fascinating reading.

[Kymmy]

The video to it is great as well, watched it this morning

[New to cable]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

All non-essential RAF aircraft with Mk10 ejector seats have been grounded.. This points towards an ejector seat malfunction for the recent red arrows fatality

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15655865

On a private forum Scampton staff are suggesting that the parachutes failed after the ejection.. (no public link I'm afraid)

Think of the guys family for god sake! The canopy impact caused the fatal injuries Stop making things up.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by New to cable

Think of the guys family for god sake! The canopy impact caused the fatal injuries Stop making things up.

So what you're saying is that the seat itself which is designed to break through the canopy whilst restraining the pilot somehow didn't beat the pilot to the canopy????

Latest reports from various newspaper sites

The Iraq veteran died when his ejector seat went off while the Hawk T1 jet was still on the runway at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, throwing him up to 200 feet into the air. It is understood that the parachute failed to deploy and he plunged to the ground.

Oh dear yet another one of your "lets try to get one over on Kymmy" times .. and yet another failure..again...... Surprised you used such a solemn time for such an attempt.. shame on you..

---------- Post added at 20:51 ---------- Previous post was at 20:43 ----------

For the techies amongst us if you want to know more about the Mk10 Martin-Baker ejection seat complete with details about it "through canopy" style and the fact that it not a "canopy jettison" action then here's the link..

http://www.martin-baker.com/products...ts/Mk--10.aspx

Although this ended in tragedy it is noted that ejection seats have saved 7364 lives since their introduction.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by New to cable

Think of the guys family for god sake! The canopy impact caused the fatal injuries Stop making things up.

Try getting your facts right for once.

[DocDutch]

Its a shame 2 brave pilots of the red arrows lost in what less than 6 months. Failure of the parachute is in my opinion a criminal investigation as you could class it as murder

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by DocDutch

Its a shame 2 brave pilots of the red arrows lost in what less than 6 months. Failure of the parachute is in my opinion a criminal investigation as you could class it as murder

I think that failure of the parachutes is just a symptom of the main cause..

The seats fired unintentionally which means that the firing mechanism might have been the only item to activate, the drogue and main chute might not have activated if the current theory amongst the RAF techs is correct in that the seat control unit itself failed

[blackthorn]

This is a pretty good site to have a look around, choose which hangar to have a look in and have a virtual tour around the museum. Albeit the us airforce, its still very good.
http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/full/tour-pkg.html