Oops

[Brad]

A 64-year-old man accidentally ejected himself from a fighter jet at 2,500 feet

A surprise company outing to an air base caused a 64-year-old French man so much stress that he flung himself from a fighter jet in mid-air, grabbing the ejector button in a panic and tumbling through the skies above France before landing in a field.

www.cnn.com

No thank you

 

[fiver]

I want to laugh, but you gotta feel bad for the guy.
I mean how do you back out of that gracefully?

 

[RBHarter]

Well that'd be an oooohhhhh chute .

Back in school I read about the circa 1948 ejection seat tests in long detail and had the fortune of seeing the 4+ miles of rocket sled rail bed where the tests were done . Having had a 155 mph wind in my hair and seeing all of the pictures of the pilot , who's name I don't recall , I really have absolutely no desire to exit a moving vehicle at 450 mph much less a sedate 250 knots ....... Jack something I think .

 

[462]

While in the Air Force, there were tales of some maintenance guy sitting in the cockpit of an F-100 or F-4 and pulling the ejection handles and plastering himself against the hanger's roof. I have no first hand knowledge of the truth of the tales.
I sat in many hundreds of those cockpits performing weapons systems checks, mostly on the flightline, and the first few times were daunting.

 

[oscarflytyer]

While in the Air Force, there were tales of some maintenance guy sitting in the cockpit of an F-100 or F-4 and pulling the ejection handles and plastering himself against the hanger's roof. I have no first hand knowledge of the truth of the tales.
I sat in many hundreds of those cockpits performing weapons systems checks, mostly on the flightline, and the first few times were daunting.

Was in the Army, but heard that basic story too. Similar, pulled on tarmac, didn't eject high enough to open shoot, etc.

In the French incident, just saw an update last night. There was a system failure, or the pilot would have been ejected too! What is SUPPOSED to happen, is (regardless of who pulls the ejection handle), rear canopy blows and back seat is out. Then front canopy and front seat is knees in the breeze. Everything worked, up to point where pilot was NOT ejected. Blown glass cut his face, but he was still flying. Bad wrong went very right, for once!

 

[fiver]

but now someone has some seriously large volumes of various paper work to fill out.

 

[popper]

Col. John P. Stapp
I did read about the mishap of the B52 ejection cage. BIL says the seats work very well, thank you. And the chopper ride back to the ship was enjoyable.