Aviano F-16 pilot KIA

[Swanee]

NVG's? Ejection Seat Safety: Senators Push for Review.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20131129/NEWS05/311290014/Ejection-seat-safety-Senators-push-review

Perhaps the Senators should educate themselves on current egress technology. The seats we have now are pretty damn safe. In my short career I've known of 5 guys who have ejected out of a Goshawk, 4 that have ejected out of Hornets or Super Hornets, and 2 that have ejected out of Harriers. All of them were okay and returned to flight status.

Neck safety = limiting the ability for you to move your neck/head. That's not going to work in a fighter cockpit. Everyone who flies with NVGs and/or JHMCS knows the risk and how to mitigate it.

[Jaded]

I question how a helmet mounted cueing system that kills you if you eject too fast passed into active service. We don't mitigate that risk at all - we just accept it because we have no other choice. I can't knock off my JHMCS like I do my NVGs.

To say that ACES II is so safe that we shouldn't be developing or investigating new technologies is unsat in my opinion. I love that my seat is 0/0, but it'd be great if it wouldn't dislocate my knees and potentially break my back in an ejection.

[Swanee]

I question how a helmet mounted cueing system that kills you if you eject too fast passed into active service. We don't mitigate that risk at all - we just accept it because we have no other choice. I can't knock off my JHMCS like I do my NVGs.

To say that ACES II is so safe that we shouldn't be developing or investigating new technologies is unsat in my opinion. I love that my seat is 0/0, but it'd be great if it wouldn't dislocate my knees and potentially break my back in an ejection.

I hear you WRT the JHMCS. Thinking about it now all we brief is "Body position on the way up, IROC on the way down." How do we fix that? With a neck/helmet strap that retracts your head into a good, stable position?

Though we don't really have that many issues with our MB NACES seats- like I said 11 dudes used them and all of them hit the ground only in pretty damn good shape. The leg garters can be a pain to put on (especially in the dark while wearing a dry suit) but they work pretty well to protect our legs from not only flail injuries but also making sure we clear the instrument panel.

[brabus]

We don't mitigate that risk at all - we just accept it because we have no other choice.

Sure we do, it's called get to the slowest practical airspeed before punching. Got it, there's clearly situations where you don't have that luxury, and in those all we have is "risk acceptance," but nobody said flying fighters was low risk. I'm not advocating we should not continue to press for improvements to HMCS (for both capability and safety), but it's not a true statement to say we purposely wear a "helmet that will kill us" with zero risk mitigation.

[SocialD]

I question how a helmet mounted cueing system that kills you if you eject too fast passed into active service. We don't mitigate that risk at all - we just accept it because we have no other choice. I can't knock off my JHMCS like I do my NVGs.

To say that ACES II is so safe that we shouldn't be developing or investigating new technologies is unsat in my opinion. I love that my seat is 0/0, but it'd be great if it wouldn't dislocate my knees and potentially break my back in an ejection.

It's a damn good seat. Ejecting at 569kts or in an out of control aircraft is going to be a pretty dangerous proposition no matter what seat. But I agree that we shouldn't just call it good enough. Hopefully we dump the HMCS and pick up the HMIT (Scorpion), I believe that will help out the ejection issue, not to mention it's a way better helmet. However, I would have rather had them spend money to get auto-GCAS developed and in the jets much quicker. That would have saved way more lives!

Edited November 29, 2013 by SocialD

[Jaded]

 

Sure we do, it's called get to the slowest practical airspeed before punching.  Got it, there's clearly situations where you don't have that luxury, and in those all we have is "risk acceptance," but nobody said flying fighters was low risk.  I'm not advocating we should not continue to press for improvements to HMCS (for both capability and safety), but it's not a true statement to say we purposely wear a "helmet that will kill us" with zero risk mitigation.

Really? Did our ejection procedures change when our ejection envelope was reduced from 600 to 450 kts with the implementation of JHMCS? Does the out of control CAP have any airspeed considerations? Do we fly our mission differently now that we are outside of a survivable ejection envelope for more of our sortie time? I completely disagree that any attempt has been made to mitigate ejection risk. The fact that ejecting at the slowest possible airspeed was already the safest way to eject does not mean we are compensating for JHMCS limitations.

[Cap-10]

I question how a helmet mounted cueing system that kills you if you eject too fast passed into active service.

Same way the new MB seat made it to the T-38 where, if the canopy fails to depart the aircraft during the ejection sequence, there is a well above average chance that your nugget will meet the canopy before the secondary thru the canopy piercers gets a chance to fracture the canopy, especially in the RCP where just bout everyone sits with their nugget an RCH below the canopy glass.

Cap-10

[TreeA10]

The F-35 helmet comes with a HANS device. That might work.

[waveshaper]

This may be a little out of my lane, very narrowly focused, somewhat different point of view, and not official in any capacity but it does relate to ejection seats. Also, I do have a very simple question at the end. During my career I participated, down in the muck, in way to many aircraft/helicopter crash response recovery efforts and even directly assisted the accident investigation board a time or two. One particular aircraft crash that I supported late in my career has always bothered me and I believe the aircrew may have survived if the aircraft had upgraded MB ejection seats installed.

This particular crash happened in Feb 2002, involved a T-37, and resulted in the lose of two fine young officers (Historical note; one of these young officers father was a USAF Colonel and the first American jet ACE during the Korean War). The location of the crash site was near Spofford Aux Field and the T-37 aircraft was based out of Laughlin AFB. My understanding of what happened is that something caused the T-37 to stall at a very low AGL. By the time the T-37 stalled it was to low and did not have enough airspeed (outside the safe ejection envelope) for the aircrew to eject. The T-37 pancaked into the ground and apparently the aircrew never attempted to eject.

During the crash recovery effort the scuttlebutt from some of the folks far more knowledgeable then me (pilots/egress techs, etc) was that the pilots knew they were outside the ejection envelope and never attempted to eject. Also, it was suggested that if the T-37 had been equipped with the upgraded MB ejection seats then the aircrew may have been able to safely eject. This was one of those YGTBFSM moments for me.

Some T-37/A-37 MB ejection seat minimum ejection envelope data.

1. T-37 (AETC); F1-B Timer (1 sec chute) 200ft AGL/120 KIAS or F1-B Zero Delay Lanyard 100ft/120KIAS.

2. A-37 (Foreign Sales); Upgraded MB ejection seat, 0ft AGL/70 KIAS.

Later I did some research on my own and found out that none of the T-37 MB ejection seats in AETC had been upgraded. I also found out that there was a program in place (for a very long time) that upgraded the MB seats in all exported A-37 dragonfly's.

Question; Why didn't AETC upgraded the T-37 MB ejection seats?

[matmacwc]

It was old and going away.

I would have tried the handles anyway.

[HossHarris]

And upgrades cost money.

[Fifty-six & Two]

This particular crash happened in Feb 2002, involved a T-37, and resulted in the lose of two fine young officers (Historical note; one of these young officers father was a USAF Colonel and the first American jet ACE during the Korean War). The location of the crash site was near Spofford Aux Field and the T-37 aircraft was based out of Laughlin AFB. My understanding of what happened is that something caused the T-37 to stall at a very low AGL. By the time the T-37 stalled it was to low and did not have enough airspeed (outside the safe ejection envelope) for the aircrew to eject. The T-37 pancaked into the ground and apparently the aircrew never attempted to eject.

It was his grandfather that was the Korean Ace. Nick was a hell of a dude and it's hard to believe it's been almost 12 years since he passed.

[B52gator]

At least you guys aren't sitting in a 50 year old ejection seat that ejects you downward.

[HossHarris]

A 50 year old seat would be an upgrade ....

[Day Man]

At least you guys aren't sitting in a 50 year old ejection seat that ejects you downward.

At least you have seats.

[brabus]

Did our ejection procedures change when our ejection envelope was reduced from 600 to 450 kts with the implementation of JHMCS? Does the out of control CAP have any airspeed considerations?

I don't have the -1 in front of me, but pretty sure 600 kts was not "good to go" before HMCS; you were still well into the flailing injury/high likelihood of extreme injury portion of the chart. I don't think you're "in the green" until below 500 kts, regardless of HMCS.

Out of control CAP has zero to do with helmet type, nor airspeed. Really the only numbers that are related are altitudes. Not sure what you're getting at here.

Lastly, you are never forced to wear your HMCS. You can choose to wear a 55P 100% of the time. As they say, it's a BK jet.

[billy pilgrim]

I don't have the -1 in front of me, but pretty sure 600 kts was not "good to go" before HMCS; you were still well into the flailing injury/high likelihood of extreme injury portion of the chart. I don't think you're "in the green" until below 500 kts, regardless of HMCS.

Out of control CAP has zero to do with helmet type, nor airspeed. Really the only numbers that are related are altitudes. Not sure what you're getting at here.

Lastly, you are never forced to wear your HMCS. You can choose to wear a 55P 100% of the time. As they say, it's a BK jet.

I wonder if you'd be better off if you were able to take the DU off before ejecting, of course you'd be missing the visor (which would be no different than flying sans visor with NVGs at night)... I'd be curious to see the stats on how many successful / unsuccessful ejections there have been with the JHMCS.

[B52gator]

At least you have seats.

Touché

[Flare]

I wonder if you'd be better off if you were able to take the DU off before ejecting, of course you'd be missing the visor (which would be no different than flying sans visor with NVGs at night)... I'd be curious to see the stats on how many successful / unsuccessful ejections there have been with the JHMCS.

Is it the weight of the DU that does the damage? I guess I assumed it was the cable attached to the UHVI.

[Smokin]

Combination of factors. Weight of the DU at the very front of the helmet causes issues but it is really the the DU, or HMCS shell NVG adapter, that catches the windstream and put pressure on the neck that is not there with a 55P. So you get a worse cranium forward force during the actual ejection than an immediate reversal as the sail attached to the front of the helmet hit the windstream. That's what the AFE shop was told as the result of the sled tests anyway. Haven't seen it in writing before, so take it with a grain of salt.

The cable should only cause damage if the QDC does not actually disconnect properly or it is not routed correctly. Only the latter would be a factor at night.

[matmacwc]

The scorpion should take care of some of those problems, but the top of the HMT looks the same as the HMCS.

[waveshaper]

AN/URT-44 Locator Beacon failure rate = 10 Failures out of 22 Ejections.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20140205/NEWS/302050028/Locator-beacons-Air-Force-ejection-seats-failing-unacceptable-rate

[Tonka]

This is really disturbing... I would personally hold the program office that field this equipment responsible. How is it possible that they "tested" this and fielded it and now that they are testing it again there is a 100% failure rate.

There is never enough time and money to do it right the first time, but apparently there is enough time and twice the amount of money to do it a second time.