French fighter jet joy ride goes très, très wrong (2020) | Hacker News Reader

French fighter jet joy ride goes très, très wrong (2020)

caranddriver.com

675 pointscurmudgeon22226 comments

Ouch! I'm glad the guy is okay, that could not have been "fun" given the description of the ejection.

In Sunnyvale they used to train Orion P3 crews at Moffett field. Of course Sunnyvale and the surrounding towns had a few military contractors doing RADAR development who did not have many military targets to paint, so when a P3 flew over it made for a good "real life" test.

On one such flight, the check pilot decided to "spice up" the newbie pilot's life as they returned to Moffett field by casually flicked on the RADAR threat detector. Sure enough, one of the contractor's search RADARs was 'pinging' them, but unexpectedly they were also testing a tracking RADAR which then subsequently got a good lock on the plane. That made the RADAR LOCK alarm go off in the cockpit and the trainee, as he was trained to do, immediately hit countermeasures without thinking. (That will save your life!)

The plane was on final approach to the field, and when it activated countermeasures it consisted of both chaff and IR flares (bits of magnesium, lit and cast to the side to distract heat seekers) These mostly landed on the Sunnyvale golf course which is in the approach path.

I used to play that course, and after this event there were a number of burn spots where the flares had landed and then burned out on the ground, and for probably two months there were bits of foil chaff that could be found in various nooks and crannies around the course!

> immediately hit countermeasures without thinking

Out of curiosity, if this is the doctrine, why doesn't the plane just fire countermeasures automatically?

Some systems do. I've worked on one.

If you’re low on countermeasures you may want to dole them out more sparingly.

Pretty much. There's a recent video going around of a Russian helicopter in Ukraine firing off all its flares in panic after its sister helicopter is taken out by MANPADS. Predictably, the Ukrainians wait until he runs out, and then he gets taken out anyway. Not that hard to search for it.

Indeed. I was thinking about the same video in response to this question.

Here is a link: https://twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1517817773199699977

It seems like the natural next step would be "automatically deploy countermeasures while you still have [some threshold] remaining, then revert to manual below that," but I can also see how needing to train pilots in two or more different modes starts to pile up complexity costs and maybe leads to more mistakes compared to a simpler system.

I'm not sure the pilot would even notice the missile to do anything about it manually..

/Why, I oughta....

-- In Military Countermeasures

Ah, the balancing act of human in the loop.

This was super interesting regarding the ejection seat's features and behavior depending on speed and altitude at which the seat ejects.

https://martin-baker.com/products/mk16-ejection-seat-for-raf...

https://extantaerospace.com/products/ALE-47_CDU.pdf [pdf]

In the picture above you will see a dial for modes. They range from human tell the machine exactly what to do (via the PRGM dial and other switches), to human consent to what the machine wants to do, to machine do what you want to do.

I'd be willing to bet the "hit the countermeasures immediately" reflex was because they were landing. Low altitude, low speed, no ability to maneuver. If somebody was shooting at you in that situation the missile would be on you in seconds and countermeasures are the only chance you have.

In a more normal combat situation there's a lot more human judgement needed in the use of countermeasures. For example if a fighter locks you up and fires a missile from 50 km away and you fire chaff immediately you might temporarily disrupt their lock, but it's likely that the chaff will disperse and they'll be able to re-lock you before the missile gets anywhere close. You can't just fire them off continuously because it's a limited consumable.

Love those old stories. I've climbed through the P-3 on static display outside the ramp, and I wish they still flew more of them around there. I used to be friends with a guy at the local grocery store who was a P-3 mechanic.

That reminds me of this story:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8u0q6i/tifu_by_scarin...

> That made the RADAR LOCK alarm go off in the cockpit and the trainee, as he was trained to do, immediately hit countermeasures without thinking. (That will save your life!)

And this is why there are armament switching which you turn on only when you enter approved airspace to employ weapons / countermeasures and turn off when you leave (and vocalize on the radio to do so for the rest of the jets in the formation). Then pushing the button which releases weapons or countermeasures does nothing.

...and then the enemy surprise-attacks you in your own airspace and easily shoots down all your planes?

all guns should have a safety...

My comment, as well as the parent post, refers to training. When not in training, the placement of armament switches, as well as many other risk avoidance measures, will vary based on the type of conflict and risk. There is a good article from a Ukrainian fighter pilot you can read to see the extreme opposite of the training environment (high risk flight with enemy overhead). The most surprising thing is that he doesn't run pre-flight checks. I bet he took off with those switches armed.

> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44877/ukrainian-fighte...

This comment is correct, it is not "normal" to enable the RADAR threat subsystem on training runs or when just flying along in your own airspace. The fault here was on the check pilot who thought it would be "fun" to turn that subsystem on to see the reaction.

No one is making a surprise attack on one airplane over Sunnyvale.

Just look at this from a risk management perspective. Chance of aircraft being surprise-attacked in extremely well-defended airspace during peacetime: essentially zero. Consequences of that aircraft being surprise-attacked: loss of one aircraft and crew.

Chance of inadvertent release of weapons and/or countermeasures when switched on: apparently not zero, given the trainee's response. (An automatic response that I would be very, very, very pleased to see as an instructor!) Consequences: potential loss of civilian life and/or property.

So you have zero * (1 airplane + 1 crew), versus non-zero * (? civilians + ? buildings). I know which side of that inequality I'm landing on.

No one was making surprise attacks against Honolulu in 1940, either. The point of the military is to be credibly prepared for even low likelihood events (which, due to game theory, is what makes them low likelihood in the first place).

You don't arm switches like that in training unless over a suitable area, like the water. Combat is different, where you may keep it armed on TO and landing for the reason discussed.

There also weren’t reconnaissance satellites in 1941 that would detect some fleet leaving Vladivostok (or some western Chinese port). There weren’t over the horizon radars, or airborne interceptors with radar that can see hundreds of miles. It’s a completely different scenario in almost every way.

Finally, no current potential enemy state has the kind of aircraft carrier fleet needed to perform that the of attack. The U.K. and China both have two active carriers, but the Chinese are still training up. The Japanese launched about 300 planes from six carriers.

Nowadays, any surprise attack on the United States would be a counterforce launch of hundreds of ICBMs and SLBMs with at most twenty minutes of warning to launch a response, and hours to launch a second strike, assuming command and control networks remained active.

What do you think does the risk-reward tradeooff look like between the risk of accidentally firing a live rocket in friendly territory and delayed response in an invasion that somehow managed to sneak by all early warning systems to the point where one unexpectant figher pilot has to intervene within milliseconds?

The only scenario after the invention of modern surveillance/detection mechanisms I can think of would have been 9/11 and in that case the problem wasn't reaction time but red tape, identification of compromised airplanes and willingness to shoot down civilian planes full of American citizens who might already be trying to recapture the plane.

To be fair, the planes at Pearl Harbor were arranged to prevent sabotage, which made them easier targets for an air attack. There are tradeoffs to every kind of preparedness.

On one side of the equation, where you've got zero (but it's not, it's just very close to zero) and the consequences may be your death of you don't act and are wrong.

It's like hearing gunshots outside the window of your house in your very safe hated community because someone thought it would be fun to prank you with a gun with blanks. Do you drive to the ground and maybe hurt yourself or knock some things over and damage them, or do you do nothing convinced that there's no way someone could be firing a gun close by?

I know what I'd do, and it's not the one that relies on a bunch of assumptions going against what the situation is presenting itself as when getting it wrong might mean my death.

> hated community

Freud would surely be proud.

Lol, Freud would have a field day with phone keyboard auto-corrections and fat-fingerings. :)

I mean, it wouldn't be the first time someone forgot one or two of their FENCE checks...

It reminds me of a similar story I heard a while ago. As in your story, some military contractors were testing a new radar system at the factory. And conveniently, the factory was near an international airport, so they were using the civilian traffic as targets. As these planes usually don't have threat detectors, they were completely unaware they were used as guinea pigs for this new radar.

That was until someone had the brilliant idea to test the radar on an El Al plane...

This must have scared the hell out of the Israeli pilots and it seems this created a small diplomatic incident.

I had to do a double take over 2 days to understand what you mean.

I've flown El Al...but I forgot the brand. In the initial read, I thought you were referring to a fighter plane make (kfir, mirage, sukoi, mig etc) so your story didnt make sense. Your story is more enticing with that context

The downsides of peer pressure. If you don't want to do a thing: don't.

I've been called some pretty bad names by captains of industry for not wanting to partake in their chosen 'team building exercises', not a team player and so on. My body, my rules and if you want to bond over kayaking, parachute jumping, alcohol, drugs or bearing your heart out to perfect strangers that's perfectly ok with me. But I will join if and only if I feel like it. And any kind of pressure is going to turn a 'maybe no' into 'definitely no'.

And that goes for backseat rides in fighter jets as well.

The copy of this article is so good. The entire piece made me laugh so hard. Thanks for posting this!

Agreed. The phrase, "al fresco fighter jet" is enough to consider reading this article if you haven't already.

Had me in stitches that line :)

This one flew right above me, what does that mean? It's it something like driving open convertible is referred to as fresco? Where I come from fresco was just a brand of cheap wine that students drank when we dabbling in sophistication an inch above vodka and beer...

Dining al fresco means sitting outdoors (literally "fresh").

Normally used to mean an activity in the fresh air, generally with pleasant overtones. So dining "Al fresco" might be a meal on a terrace, or a picnic in a park. Flying al fresco could be a jolly ride in a biplane or a hot air balloon, glass of bubbly in hand, not so much the scream of air through your shattered canopy as you guide your crippled jet to the ground.

That student plonk was aiming at debonair status; the favourite of my student days was a cooking wine with the grand title of Red Ridge Claret a little undermined by arriving in a 3L cardboard box, which stacked nicely on the mantelpiece as trophies of just how sophisticated we were.

With regards to painting it seems to mean work done on top of fresh plaster.

However the term "en plein air" means works executed in the outdoors.

Indeed. And then I felt bad for that old guy. But then it was really hard not to laugh again. Very glad nobody got seriously hurt.

If the 2nd seat had also ejected that Rafaele could have come down pretty much anywhere, it could have easily led to lives lost on the ground.

Came here to say this. After reading SEO riddled garbage for years, this was a pleasant surprise.

Want to know more? Scroll past 2 pages of ads

What ads? I haven't seen an ad for over a decade.

Most Car and Driver pieces, even the relatively objective car reviews, tend to be better than average in this regard, with more editorialized pieces especially entertaining. It’s one of the main reasons I subscribe to the physical magazine despite its very large proportion of advertising, which is at least somewhat offset by a low subscription price.

The author, Ezra Dyer, does spectacular work. He’s written many, many other brilliant automotive pieces around the web.

I remember reading him many moons ago in the Improper Bostonian.

Here's a bit about how he got his start writing about cars. https://www.motortrend.com/features/ezra-dyer/

Back in the early `90's there was a funny article, from Japan, being shared about a US fighter pilot who had ejaculated to safety after some mechanical issue with their plane.

The French words every here and there were cringy though.

I really disliked the style, sounded amateur.

I despised it. Made it incredibly difficult to read as the desperate attempts at humour mangled the English language so much I had to read half the sentences twice to understand what they meant.

> At which point the pilot beat feet away from the aircraft

Why were there so many feet near the aircraft that the pilot was having to beat them away? Whose feet were they? Were they still attached to the people whose feet they were? And if not, what on earth had happened?

"Beat feet" has been a widespread English idiom for retreat since the 1940's, still to this day published in print thousands of times every year.

baffled that one can make the observation: "attempts at humor mangled the english language", and in the same observation not understand one of the most widely used idioms in the English speaking sphere.

I'm curious - where are you from? I'm a thirty-something California native, I was able to piece together what the idiom meant after reading the sentence a few times, but I'd never come across it before in my life.

I also thought the article's tone was bizarre, for what it's worth.

I was born and have lived in England for decades and I've never heard it or read it before ever. I would love to know where the parent is from that they consider it to be "one of the most widely used idioms in the English speaking sphere". How many times per day do they use it? What kind of hell do they live in that they would need to use that phrase so often?!

Well I'm a 37 year old Brit and never heard that term fwiw.

It’s a Martin Baker seat. At least he’ll get a tie.

https://martin-baker.com/ejection-tie-club/

Irritatingly imprecise wording on that page:

> Here at Martin-Baker, we run an exclusive club that unifies all pilots whose lives we’ve helped save: life membership of the Ejection Tie Club is confined solely to those who have emergency ejected from an aircraft using a Martin-Baker ejection seat, which has thereby saved their life.

Does that mean you need to be a pilot to be a member of the club? Or does being a co-pilot or passenger qualify? And if you're testing the ejection seat (wittingly or unwittingly as in the case of this article) in a healthy airplane, such that it isn't a life-saving technique, do you still qualify?

no, but you have bail out volontarily and in a dangerous situation, the question has already been put to the manufacturer: no tie for the unluky retired.

Voluntarily leaving your healthy plane will get your license revoked by the FAA as we've recently seen happen.

Where?

That odd story a couple months ago where some guy seemingly crashed his plane deliberately for tiktok clout?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31104691

And before,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729307

ahh, thank you

A YouTuber purposely crashed his plane in California, FAA says: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31104691

Only if you’re the pilot.

That is terrible PR. In any case, who knows what would have happened if he’d stayed on board, considering that nobody seemed to care about the limits the doctor set?

On the other hand, he probably does not want a reminder of his “adventure”.

>In any case, who knows what would have happened if he’d stayed on board, considering that nobody seemed to care about the limits the doctor set?

He would've been much safer, though maybe he would've passed out (which I fully recognize as an unpleasant experience.) Ejecting from a jet would be a very hazardous day for any job.

Yeah you're right. Still terrible PR. It just sounds petty.

Given the spirit of the club I bet he got a tie.

A co-pilot is still a pilot, and nobody willingly ejects from a healthy aircraft.

Ejecting can still go wrong, and subjects your body to huge compressive forces - it's not uncommon to fracture your spine.

Interesting point about non pilot crew though - although there must be a fairly limited number of fast jets that have mission crew with ejector seats. Perhaps a couple of US bombers?

Wasn't there a plane (thinking bomber with you) that ejected down from the aircraft so that the minimum altitude was super important?

B52 ejects in all directions, some up, some down ha.

Early F-104 Starfighters had a downward-firing ejection seat [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Eje...

The Soviet Tu-22 (a bomber) also did this. (Though not the Tu-22M, which is basically a different plane.)

http://www.airforce.ru/aircraft/miscellaneous/ejectionseats/...

Super convenient - climb a ladder, strap in and then tech guys winch you up with a hand crank (on first models).

Altitude less than 1500 ft and you're dead. G-load above a threshold and its rails jam, so you're not going anywhere. 1950s tech that flew into 1990s.

B52 has entered the chat of flying fossils.

The Avro Vulcan had two ejection seats, for the pilot and co-pilot, and nothing for the three other crew members. They had a door and were expected to bail out, which after they switched to flying low level under enemy radar wasn't really possible. Predictably this lead to several tragedies. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/11/the-v-bomber-ejector-seat-co... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan

> subjects your body to huge compressive forces - it's not uncommon to fracture your spine.

I've heard that military pilots are retired from flying after the second ejection (regardless of the reason for it) due to this spinal injury concern. It must be one hell of a kick in the ass.

Back in the 1950s and 60s my dad was a parachute training instructor for the RAF. As well as teach others how to safely jump out of planes, he also basically did QA for ejector seats.

His service ended when one such seat really wasn’t ready for humans. It totally fucked his back up — he didn’t become wheelchair bound, but was told to never lift anything heavier than a cup of tea for the rest of his life. Registered disabled from his mid-30s. Ejector seats were, and I assume still are, no joke.

Ejection seats also got a lot more powerful over time. The gold standard now are 0/0 seats, so called because they can be used at 0 altitude and 0 speed. Earlier seats had speed and/or altitude requirements.

Presumably this means that they kick you harder too, with all such subsequent effects.

Many early ejection seats used explosive charges instead of rocket motors. These were less powerful overall (didn't throw pilots as far from the plane) but I suspect they might have kicked a lot harder in the instant of ignition.

Interesting... it sounds familiar with various videos of ejection over time, but I never realised this changes the force dynamics!

Modern ejection seats have a smoother acceleration curve than the early ones.

> nobody willingly ejects from a healthy aircraft.

You'd think so, but sadly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729307

Technically, that’s a bail-out. Has somewhat fewer rockets and high-g forces than an ejection seat.

> Interesting point about non pilot crew though - although there must be a fairly limited number of fast jets that have mission crew with ejector seats.

I mean you're reading an article about one, aren't you? Also the Panavia Tornado. F-15E, etc.

I'm so sorry for the retiree. I'm sure the colleagues meant well with this unusual present, and it probably was an admin effort to pull it off, but he was clearly uncomfortable to receive his gift.

What hasn't been covered in the comments, to my surprise, is the aspect of peer pressure that made him accept the present. This wasn't a gift voucher for a flight in a hot air balloon, so colleagues should have planned for a "plan b" in case he wasn't going to have the flight for fear for his safety. Apparently, social pressure was exercised to coerce him - bad, shame on them!

Nice read with a paced schadenfreude.

I just wonder if it's luck or just some fog of the accident? The hero's harness was said to had been loosen - which is what eventually prompted the "grabbing of the handle" at negative g - in ejection scenario this is exactly opposite of the prescribed tightening of most slack in the harness in order to minimize the risk of hitting something on the way out of the cockpit. Also it must've been a hellishly painful yank ...

Somehow it feels the story had too many "au contraire"s to it. Ground crew not tightening the straps to the guest? Someone had to arm that seat, yet not telling the guest about the purpose of the "striped loop"? The pilot "running away" from the jet after having just managed to land it literally in "hot seat"?

My disbelief failed to suspend in this case, so to speak.

Oh, well, good that all lived to tell the story!

I suspect he just wanted to pull himself back 'down' against the seat. I guess if the seat comes up to meet you that's roughly the same effect.

Still, 35lb or so of pulling effort to activate the handle. It's like trying to drag a 4yo kid with both hands, except the handle is much thinner.

It all does look like a bigger deal of the front seat misfire. Also from the investigation report (linked in reply by altgans) it seems that there was an issue with misinflation of the raft.

The retiree turned to be like a true test pilot, hopefully making it better for others.

> Still, 35lb or so of pulling effort to activate the handle. It's like trying to drag a 4yo kid with both hands, except the handle is much thinner.

The negative g's are doing the pulling in this case though, all the passenger had to do is hang on. At -0.5 g a 160lb person will be "pulling" with 80lbs of force just by grabbing onto something.

Yep. Apparently somewhere between "not strapped in well" and "not strapped in at all" and as he hit the canopy, likely grabbed for whatever he could out of instinct.

https://youtu.be/-zIxqKwoHsM?t=427

Although one does wonder how much this is face-saving by him and/or the Air Force who don't want to blame a guy for what likely cost over half a million dollars, if not more. There's the cost of all the labor, the canopy, downtime for the jet, and then those seats cost roughly over $200k each and while I imagine they might get sent back to M-B for refurbishment rather than just being chucked, ehhh: https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/397m-for-172-martinbake...

At some point I started to wonder if it wasn't some sort of slapstick final revenge plan on a type-A asshole, which of course no one would admit to.

A former US fighter pilot comments on this incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zIxqKwoHsM

Intro ends at 1:25

The top comment on that video is great.

I don't get it?

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yeet

Ok, so I did get it. And French people say "le". I just didn't understand why it's considered so funny. The YouTube comments especially praise this as the funniest comment ever written but it's pretty obvious?

Humor is subjective and generational. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Emphasis on generational :)

PS. I am a millennial, and I absolutely love the zoomer humor. You guys are f* hilarious ^_^

Depending if I'm watching the video on the mobile Youtube app, or in the desktop browser, I get completely different top comments.

Mobile app: "Pilot: you OK back there? Retiree: Le’YEET!!!!"

Desktop browser: "He got everything in one trip. Ride in a fighter jet, ejecting, and a sky dive."

Another testament to Youtube's amazing UX consistency. /s

I see "I flew backseat Mig-29. Will always remember pilot pointing at my ejection handle "please do not grab this, my government will be unhappy with both of us" [emoji]"

In mobile incognito, I get that as well.

Ward Carroll has a good story of a Captain who ejected himself from an F14 while inverted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAcpoMhuqqw

It’s wild that the ejection sequence failed. Some two-seat aircraft have a “forward both, aft self” ejection mode for these types of events where you don’t trust the guy in the back to make good ejection decisions, and I originally assumed that was what happened here. Oops.

> the first ejection damaged the front seat, such that it didn't eject

This as well -- fairly damning evidence of failures in design and/or manufacturing. Fortunate that the extemporaneous round of belated testing happened over friendly territory!

The post-incident report found a design flaw in the box that transmits the ejection signal from the back seat to the front seat, allowing it to get damaged. That and one loose screw.

No, a connector was not fully screwed in, which is why the seat didn't eject.

Either way it sounds like it was good to discover this in a situation that didn't require ejection.

It's also practical; as the plane is moving forward, the aft seat needs a head start to reduce chances of mid air collision, or even burns.

What's wild is that a connector not being fully screwed in by mistake prevented a very expensive jet full of a lot of fuel from lawn-darting (and potentially killing a lot of people. Crashing fighters seem to have a knack for ending up in dense residential housing areas.)

The solo switch according to the youtube fighter pilot video is so that a solo pilot doesn't have to wait for the rear seat to fire if they activate an ejection.

I'm curious about that explanation--in the seats I'm familiar with, initiation (including all the different potential sequencing modes) is done entirely through an explosive train to prevent this exact failure mode (loose Cannon plugs cause plenty of other problems though).

We're talking about different things. In "forward both, aft self" mode a front-seat-initiated ejection still ejects both seats in the normal sequence, while in "solo" mode it would only eject itself. For obvious reasons, you would never fly with a passenger in "solo" mode.

In my 53 glorious minutes flying in an F16 with the USAF Thunderbirds, the only thing I kept thinking was KEEP MY HANDS UP AND DON'T GRAB THE BIG YELLOW EJECTION HANDLE BETWEEN MY LEGS, even at .99 mach pulling 9.2G.

Edit: he apparently was not strapped in "well" (or at all) and when the pilot went negative G after a dramatic post-takeoff climb, the dude flew out of the seat and probably instinctively grabbed for something.

https://youtu.be/-zIxqKwoHsM?t=427

Are you a fighter pilot? I thought 9G is the upper limit of what even a seasoned fighter pilot can handle without passing out. I'd imagine most untrained individuals would pass out quite a bit below that.

I was a guest riding in the back seat, definitely not a fighter pilot! And at 9.2 the pilot was fine but everything other than the center of my vision was grayed-out. I also had a 1G pressure suit on, that took the sensation down by about a point by forcing blood up out of my legs. But 9.2 sustained is way different than 9.2 for a few seconds as part of a max-g turn.

Very interesting! It must have been an incredible experience. Sure, fighter pilots show a lot of bravado and have an air of devil may care attitude around them, but I'm convinced that the feeling of flying these incredible machines never gets old even after decades of experience.

I think this is the official french military report on this: [1].

1: https://omnirole-rafale.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rappo...

Wow, the ejection handle got broken off in the process!

I mean it sucks that this happened, but kudos to the writer, because this article is hilarious.

Ezra Dyer is such a great car writer. I loved the Car & Drivers of yore, especially pre-2010ish. Ezra’s pieces are the only ones left that remind me of why I was so obsessed with hoarding and re-reading these mags as a kid. Even so, I miss how clever & irreverent the old C&D was.

Ezra's column was always the first thing I turned to when C&D turned up.

When I worked at British Aerospace Dunsfold in the late 80s/early 90s, it was a hard rule that nobody got to sit on an ejector seat unless that had been training in its use. I am surprised that it's not an absolutely universal rule. The consequences of inadvertently triggering an ejection while in the maintenance hanger are pretty ugly.

I remember this story when it came out originally.

One thing I wonder: a 64-year old spine will not take kindly to the kind of pressures experienced in a fighter jet ejection. Even a trained fighter pilot in the prime of their life can sustain serious spinal compression injuries.

I'm sure the passenger survived but I doubt he was as healthy as before :(

That was wonderfully written. Such a relief that right below the heading it was made clear that no one was harmed. The witty, yet restrained tone, combined with just the right amount of technical details is so refreshing to read. I wish there was more good writing in general.

So wrong that the GoPro that the retiree was wearing was not even turned on, which is a shame, even if I doubt that the footage would have been released.

It's completely unsurprising though given everything else that wasn't in order lol. The ejection system wasn't fully connected!

Ejecting from a fighter plane is not only dangerous. It is relatively common that people who eject develop spinal injuries because of it.

There are other problems. My Dad had an engine fire in his RAF Vampire over East England, didn't have an ejector seat, and decided it would be better to belly-land the thing, which he did, succesfully, in a cabbage field.

He got out of the Vampire and trudged over to an old yokel who had been sitting watching all this.

Dad: Is there a phone around here?

Yokel: You'm will be paying for all them cabbages?

Hmm. Was the farmer compensated?

No idea. I'm not sure he should have been, but he very probably was - but my Dad was risking his life to protect the farmer, so Dad would not have paid for it. And as far as I know people were compensated for RAF crashes on their property - they certainly are now today, though RAF pilots do everything they can (up to their own deaths) to avoid militraliry accidents.

How was he risking his life to protect the farmer?

> I'm not sure he should have been, but he very probably was - but my Dad was risking his life to protect the farmer

Why not? It's not your father who should compensate the farmer but the government. And if government property causes damages to a citizen's livelihood, then the government should compensate them. At least, in a civilized democracy.

And that's happens in the UK. Of course, the farmer has to put in a claim, and I mean't that I do not know if he did so.

Hence:

> but he very probably was

I think you're missing a comma:

> I'm not sure he should have been

> I'm not sure, he should have been

Otherwise it reads like you think he shouldn't have been compensated.

> my Dad was risking his life to protect the farmer

The farmer is an equal citizen with equal rights, regardless - that is what the pilot was protecting.

This is supposedly where the idiom "bought the farm" comes from.

I don't think so. It came from the life insurance paying off the family farm (if I understand correctly).

Closer to "not in my backyard", until and unless it absolutely and directly benefits ME

A reaction like that implies that the farmer was screwed over in a previous incident or has heard of someone that was.

Or, more likely, perhaps he just has a typically dry British sense of humor.

A lot of people sure don't get British humour, with a 'u'.

Hence the old term "bought the farm" for a crash landing.

Fascinating, I always thought this referenced retiring on a farm.

Close. The term originates from payments the War Department (now DoD) made to families after someone died in combat. In some cases the payment was enough for the family to pay off the mortgage, so the dead person was said to have "bought the farm."

Exact origin is obscure. Some think it relates to paying a farmer, some that it refers to a death benefit.

Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia:

"For improved pilot survivability the Ka-50 is fitted with a NPP Zvezda K-37-800 ejection seat, which is a rare feature for a helicopter."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-50

Yes, ok, it has explosives to blow away the rotors. But how many different ways could that go wrong...

There was a single successful ejection in Ukraine so far

Well, you'd (theoretically) only do it when not doing it would be worse. So all those ways it could go wrong won't kill you, because you were already going to die. But if it all works, you might live.

What if the rotor destruct system fired when you weren't ejecting tho?

I can't find the specific incident easily by Googling, but I read a long time ago about an incident, possibly with F-16s, a training exercise where suddenly a sidewinder fired uncommanded, and took out another plane.

You would think that would surely be human error, but investigation showed that apparently something just shorted out.

Well, if it takes off the rotor, hopefully it also ejects you. If it doesn't, well, you should probably promptly initiate ejection. And the ejection should be easier, since there's now no pesky rotor in the way...

Attack helicopters are designed to be survivable even in very rough landings, so it's not actually obvious that a risky ejection mechanism is going to increase your chances to survival in all instances.

>Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia:

There are videos on Youtube with captured Russian pilots who ejected their aircrafts in the recent Ruso-Ukrainian war and they all had pretty big gashes on their necks and their overalls soaked in blood from all that bleeding like a stuck pig.

Apparently the canopy and ejection system acts like a guillotine on Russian aircrafts, but that's just what I've heard, I'm no expert on soviet era ejection seats, so if anyone has more info on this would love to learn more.

Perhaps the canopy is supposed to be jettisoned, but the system is designed to send people right through it if that doesn't work.

Wouldn't being blasted through the canopy be bad for the pilot's health?

So's the out of control aircraft!

Fair point

Well, you can have a pointy helmet or something intended to break through when all else fails. I don't remember the details, but I remember reading about something like that, on some aircraft.

There is a scene from the James Bond movie Goldeneye where this is show (although probably not realistically)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln5TaRt5LU

This is my question. It's not unusual to be quite injured after an ejection - spinal injuries, wind blast injuries, parts from the canopy hitting you, hard landing.

It's not uncommon for 20-something military pilots to be retired from flying after an ejection. Or at least on medical leave for a year or more.

Two years after first reading this, I still find myself giggling uncontrollably over the exquisite prose, especially this line:

> When either the fore or aft seat in a Rafale is triggered, the second one is supposed to follow automatically, on the theory that if one crew member makes an unscheduled departure, there's probably a good reason for the other to promptly join the exodus.

So bone-fucking dry. Gods I love ridiculous things delivered in a no-shit-Sherlock manner like it’s as boring as the weather.

Now that's an article author that enjoys his job.

Loved the article. Following it thru roads less traveled and stumbled on the golden nugget.

John Stapp's Law (or Stapp's Ironic Paradox) states: "The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle."

It’s kind of surprising how often people get a good idea for a gift and totally ignore the recipient’s cries of protest.

When I crossed into my forties a couple of friends were insistent that I do "a big thing" of clay pigeon shooting, go karting, overnighting in a rented a cottage, get all the guys together etc etc.

I point blank refused, I was going through a serious bout of panic/anxiety attacks at the time, and this was the last thing I needed. All I wanted was a few quiet drinks and a sit-in curry with some local pals. The amount of sulking that went on for weeks afterwards was quite something to behold.

I know that feeling; people projecting what they like onto you, assuming therefore you will like it too and then getting upset when you don't. It's horrible because it feels like it's your problem - but it's really not.

It’s weird too, because if they wanted to do all that why not just make that a separate plan/trip at a later date? There’s no reason to force it on someone when your free to just go do it as a group later

Easier to justify. Maybe even a little test or shooting off steam for their own life.

It's their problem because there is absolutely nothing wrong with just asking. People want to surprise other people with nice gifts while simultaneously having no idea whether the recipient will want it.

Any picture of the actual grab / ejection ? Curious from interface point of view. I read from article that it was stripped yellow, but anything else?

https://martin-baker.com/products/mk16-ejection-seat-for-raf...

Thanks for the find.

Based on various images it appears the same location. I wonder after many decades whether location has changed. Either way, I would say it was a big birthday surprise.

There's the story of the guy, he was in GQ I think, who was answering questions like "What is't like to:" "Get ejected from a fighter jet?"

Scary shit, his flying machine was starting to do its real job which is of being a suicide machine, so he had to bail. The guy think he was an airman, became an inch shorter.

EDIT: I would say instead of "real job" I would say "original job." Early aviation was full of deaths. First the guys jumping off the Eiffel tower with wings, splat. Then the famous German glider Otto Lilienthal, splat. Then more experiments, then eventually the Wright Brothers, who said "how do we fly without going splat?" Their invention was how to control the machine, wing warping. Others already could power it, just not control it. And they both lived in fear of splat, that's why they refused to fly on the same flying machine.

Interesting & funny article, but but... my brain keeps focusing on the fact that the pilot's ejection seat did not work => is that usually supposed to happen? In this case the Rafale wasn't even doing anything fancy... .

In the F/A-18 we had a selector that you could set to "both" or "rear only" exactly for this type of scenario. Qualified NFO in the backseat, you want both, and I know people who's lives were saved crashing off the carrier. But for a ride along, "rear only" is definitely the correct setting. And I'm pretty sure this has happened before, remember stories from years ago.

I hope they'll fix the seats to not damage each other during ejection.

Never, ever, surprise me at the office.

That was actually written very funny!

I wonder what his heart rate was when he ejected, that's like 12-14G apparently, insane

I dont get it. Is the parachute deployed of the ejection too? How did the man survive

The sequence is fully automatic: as soon as you pull the handle, the canopy pyros blow a hole, the straps pull the occupant's limbs in, the seat launches, separates from person, finally chute deploys. Your next inputs after pulling the handle are steering and landing the chute if you are conscious.

By the way, the gentleman should be receiving a necktie from Martin Baker.

https://ejectionsite.com/

Yes, the parachute is in the ejection seat, it's deployed automatically later by necessity, as the pilot could be injured and/or unconscious.

sounded like an episode of the office, thanks for the good laugh

E-ticket ride

read this far superior retelling:

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32131240/french-dassault-...

Agreed, this version is better

Ok, we've changed to that from https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/13/man-who-never-wanted-.... Thanks!

do you read everything on the front page? o_O

It doesn’t take a ton of effort, but dang may have advanced searches setup.

Not anymore. I used to keep more on top of it but now I just feel guilty about not.

The Mercury News article is a syndicated CNN piece:

Text-only version: https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_2ab742409be210c718777d3fb8...

Premature ejectculation

Lol... somebody sure had a lot of fun writing this up :)

I don't know if it's specific to Car and Drive but the writing in this article is terrible.

Your opinion is almost universally disagreed upon by the comments in the article itself and here. Care to elaborate?

Personal preference, probably. I, for one, also found it a bit strange.

terribly good

Nah, it's not terrible. It's just not very professional—probably intentionally for humorous purposes. It reads like a story being told over beers at the local pub.

I actually really enjoyed it, makes the story very engrossing imo

And these people conduct wars.

No, usually passengers on joy rides are not conducting combat operations.

This is too fantastic. I am sure that it did happen, but the specifics here are exaggerated. For one, ejection seats are not "designed" to both eject. That is one of many options, one you do not set on passenger rides for specifically this scenario. And I am confused about the "negative .67g". Is that 0.67, whch is .33 below normal, or -0.67 which is basically like hanging upsidedown. Fighter pilots don't pull that much negative under normal circumstances, let alone with a civilian passenger. 0.67 would be scary for the uninitiated, but it isn't crazy. You can feel almost that in normal airline flying.

This is a perfect example of how state militaries have more power than they are mature enough to handle.

This is the likeliest explanation for The Great Filter, in my opinion. Civilizations develop power well beyond their wisdom and then snuff themselves out.

I don’t understand the connection you’re making. This was a civilian who happened to work in the defense industry; we have no indication that he was otherwise familiar with the mechanical workings of the fighter jet he was put in. For all we know, he was the night janitor at a warehouse.

I think the point was more about the entire chain of command that allowed themselves to be talked into allowing the flight to take place.

Exactly. These organizations are entrusted with nuclear and biological weapons.

I feel like I want these people to know how to have fun rather than be robots. If someone is in charge of a nuclear weapon, I hope they know, truly, the value of life.

I also want them fucking around and not using the weapons in the Middle East.

I also hope they know, truly, the value of life. I am not optimistic that they are wise enough to wield the power they have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...

I don’t blame the civilian. I am not optimistic that the military organization that owns this fighter jet is capable of making good decisions.

No offense to janitors, but I don't think janitors get retirement gifts costing tens of thousands (if all would have went well, in this case I guess you have to add at least a zero to the price).

I'd guess this was some fairly high level exec.

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