Eject, eject, eject!

Eject, Eject, Eject

Since the introduction of ejection seat equipped aircraft in the early 1950s the ADF has recorded no fewer than 92 ejections (RAAF 77, RAN 15). The first was on June 14 1951 when a RAAF Gloster Meteor Mk. 8 inadvertently ejected its pilot while on an acceptance test flight near Iwakuni, Japan.

Interestingly the Dassault Mirage III, operated by the RAAF from 1963 to 1989, was involved in 23 ejections during its service life – the highest ejection rate of any type operated by the ADF.

Causes ranged from engine failure (13), undercarriage failure (6), fire (2), loss of control (1), and mid-air collision (1).

One such RAAF Mirage ejection on May 27 1985, involved the then Flying Officer John Quaife. Now an Air Vice- Marshal and head of capability systems within the Department of Defence, Quaife is one of the few serving ADF members to have experienced an ejection. (Another is current Chief of Air Force Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd, who also ejected from a Mirage – refer March 2005 AA. ) “I had ejected from probably 1000ft with a rate of decent of about 2000ft per minute when I initiated the ejection which gave me one swing underneath the parachute before I hit the ground – I was pretty lucky!” AVM Quaife recounted to AA.

Piloting 75 Squadron Mirage IIIO A3‑36 in the circuit at RAAF Darwin, AVM Quaife was returning from a red air ‘bounce’ training mission with five other Mirages. As he was turning base for landing a problem with the Mirage’s engine fuel control unit resulted in a compressor stall.

“Basically all I did was roll the wings level and played with the throttle to see if I could clear the stall but that wasn’t really going to happen,” said AVM Quaife.

“I got out a MAYDAY call, which was surprisingly quite calm and professional when you listen to the ATC tape, and then reached for the seat pan ejection handle directly behind the control column. The Mirage had a face blind handle on top of the seat, however the pan handle was the recommended one to use because you were more likely to be able to maintain the correct posture – head back and your whole body as far back against the seat as possible. ” The face blind handle required a pilot to reach above and behind the head and pull down with both hands a protection blind to about the stomach region, thereby protecting the face and upper body during an ejection sequence.

“The very nature of pulling forward the face blind handle could induce you to take your head forward with the handle, which is not a good ejection posture. ”In the Mirage, once the handle was pulled the canopy is jettisoned from the aircraft.

“I think it’s half a second later the seat is supposed to fire – it didn’t! Whilst there might have been a bit of temporal distortion going on it was subsequently proven that, no, I did not get my advertised point five of a second delay. Suffice to say it was enough time for me to sit there in the ‘convertible’ model with the wind in my hair and think ‘this is not good’ and I tried to pull the handle again.

“There had been earlier problems with the (Mirage) seat that lead to binding in the handle’s cabling and that was going through my mind. So pulling the handle again harder would be a good first step I thought.

“That still didn’t initiate the seat and I was just about to do that inquisitive ‘let’s have a look down and see what’s going on’ when the seat fired, which wasn’t all that crisp as I had started to look down with my head coming forward.

“As the cartridges were firing I was strongly resisting by pushing my head back into the seat to get into the correct posture again and when the rocket motor fired the acceleration effect confused my inner ear and caused me to grey out then black out. It was quite disorienting because those two effects meant I couldn’t see and I had the sensation that I was tumbling, which apparently is quite a common sensation for people who eject. It was only occurring while the acceleration forces were happening. ” Prior to AVM Quaife’s ejection the RAAF had retrofitted the Mirage’s Martin-Baker cartridge fired seats with a rocket fired seat, ejecting the pilot with a more gradual acceleration.

“This was good news for me as it was a much more comfortable ride. ” After the seat had separated and fallen away the main parachute deployed with the opening jolt awakening AVM Quaife from his black-out.

“When I was hanging in the parachute and saw the aircraft fly away in front of me I thought ‘fantastic, I’m going to see this thing land!’ but I was reaching around behind me to release the dinghy pack (the ejection seat’s seat cushion which contains survival equipment, rations and single person life raft). When I was looking down for the clips to release the dinghy pack I saw how close I was to the ground and so I never got a chance AVM Quaife with the restored A3-36 from which he ejected on display at the Aviation Museum and Heritage Centre in Darwin. (Dept of Defence) The remains of Mirage A3-36 prior to its static restoration. (Paul Lostroh) (SSGT Bennie Davis/USAF) to look up and see the aircraft land and nor did I get the chance to release the dinghy pack – it was all over so quickly. ” His Mirage flew on to make an almost perfect touch down on mud flats not far from Darwin’s runway.

“I copped some stick from my mates actually but I prefer to maintain that it was a reflection of my skill as a pilot as to how well trimmed the aircraft was!” quipped AVM Quaife. “It landed in an appropriate landing attitude. ” The Mirage was configured with a large centreline fuel tank and two underwing supersonic tanks.

“While the landing gear and centreline tank were ripped off this gave it enough cushioning to slither to a halt riding on the supersonic tanks. It was incredible, it was hardly damaged at all – my map was still sitting on the instrument coaming!” “I inelegantly landed in a heap and was really just winded so it didn’t damage me at all. ” By chance a local Channel 8 TV station crew was at the RAAF base filming a piece on the search and rescue (SAR) helicopter on the day of AVM Quaife’s accident.

“When I landed I thought to myself ‘get up you fool, you’re not hurt’ and stood up to find the other Mirages in the sequence to land were circling above me. Next thing the SAR chopper turned up. I was able to walk and hop on board the chopper, and was flown straight back to the base and delivered to the base hospital within minutes.

“The SAR chopper was just getting airborne to go and film for Channel 8’s story when my MAYDAY call came in, so you could not have got a more swift pick up than that. ”

Training

Less than a week following AVM Quaife’s ejection he was back flying.

AVM Quaife says he could not wipe the smile from his face for weeks following his ejection as he was extremely happy to be alive, but puts his successful ejection down to training, not luck.

“When I ejected my actions, which I’m pleased to say were probably about 100 per cent correct, were not a reflection of my brilliance with coming up with a cunning plan, they were really a reflection of my training. You read about people who have died in aircraft accidents that really were survivable if they had only made a decision to eject earlier. But I can understand why people may be reluctant to eject because, on the face of it, it seems like a desperate way to save your life.

When confronted with an ejection situation I didn’t hesitate to follow my training and eject. ” “My decision to eject was pre-thought as I knew if I had a problem from downwind to short final then I would really have no other option than to eject,” said AVM Quaife.

Up until 1997 RAAF pilots undergoing fast jet conversion were subjected to a ‘ride’ on an ejection seat simulator at the Aviation Medicine section located at RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia.

A charge under the simulated seat, rated to around 10 g (about half that experienced in a Macchi ejection!), would launch the student along a near vertical rail to around 4. 5 metres before being lowered back to the ground.

But the ejection seat simulator was removed from the training syllabus as students were experiencing back and neck injuries.

“Did it help me with my ejection? – I don’t think so,” remarked AVM Quaife.

“The simulator was doing more harm than good since some guys were being injured using it. It was like bleeding for no particular purpose. ” Pilots are now taught ejection seat procedures and the correct seating posture for ejection on fixed training seats, with the RAAF now focusing more on ejection decision making processes rather than riding a seat simulator.

“You can take aircrew in the Hawk and Hornet simulators into an ejection situation and allow them to go through the decision making tree of thought and have them realise that they are in an ejection situation and identify that it is time to eject,” said AVM Quaife. “The sims can give you a reading of what the parameters were at the time and how survivable your ejection was. It can tell a pilot ‘Great you made the decision to eject but you should have made it 10 seconds earlier’. ” The RAAF is thorough in giving its pilots really clear guidance on what is an ejection situation and what is not.

“We make sure that there is complete understanding of what an ejection situation is,” said AVM Quaife. “For example, the circumstances by which you have lost control of the aircraft versus altitude. It’s just written that if you’re passing a certain altitude and you’re still out of control then you will eject – it’s a done deal. The esoteric argument as to whether you might have been able to regain control in the last 50ft before you hit the ground is just not something we’re going to get into. And if you’re going to perform a controlled ejection then you want to have as much altitude as possible in the equation.

“I think history would back me on this and say that the number of people that have ejected when they shouldn’t have could probably be counted on less than one hand, versus the number of people that should have ejected but didn’t. ”

From Handle To Hospital

Once the ejection handle is pulled a pilot will be hanging in a parachute in under 10 seconds.

A generic ejection sequence starts with the pilot assuming the correct posture sitting upright, back firmly against the seat, arms tucked in, thighs as far down as possible on the seat, feet far forward touching the rudder pedals and looking straight ahead. The aim is to keep the back as close as possible to a normal upright posture. Incorrect posture during an ejection can cause severe neck and back injuries.

A two handed grip is the reccomended technique for pulling the handle. In abnormal circumstances one hand may be required depending on whether the pilot is still attempting to control the aircraft.

“You may have to have one hand on the stick and one hand on the ejection handle and pull,” explained Flight Lieutenant Darren Irvine, 81 Wing’s safety officer and a PC-9, Hawk and Hornet pilot. “But if it’s totally out of control and a hand on the stick doesn’t matter then it’s recommended to have one hand on the handle and one hand on your wrist and pull while looking straight ahead. ” Excluding the canopy jettison or detonation, the ejection sequence starts witha cartridge firing underneath the seat which routes hot gas along piping into a power retraction system to pull the pilot back into the seat, similar to how a friction lock on a car seatbelt prevents a passenger from moving forward.

Some of the initial gas will initiate the main cartridge and the seat will start to move. All of this takes half a second.

“As the seat starts to move, straps that were holding the seat to the airframe are sheared off and trip rods arm two parts of the seat – the drogue gun and the barostatic time release unit (BTRU),” explained FLTLT Irvine. The BTRU is a device that operates when the seat has reached a predetermined altitude that will allow for safe man seat separation.

In the case of the Hawk and Hornet the rocket motor will then ignite, egressing the seat to a height of around 50ft.

The armed drogue gun has a minor time delay before launching a solid metal rod from the side of the seat which in turn pulls a small white coloured drogue stabilising chute from the top of the head box.

“Up until this point, once the seat hits the airstream, it may be tumbling all over the place until the drogue chute starts to stabilise it,” said FLTLT Irvine.

“It can still spin but will be stopped from tumbling in the vertical sense, which will hopefully be less disorientating for the pilot. ” The drogue stays deployed until the BTRU allows the drogue shackle to be released, separating the drogue from the seat and pulling out the main chute from the head box.

The opening force of the main chute pulls the pilot from the sticker straps that hold him (or her) into the seat.

“The seat shell, which falls way, leaves the pilot hanging underneath a parachute,” said FLTLT Irvine.

Still attached underneath the pilot’s thighs is the seat box.

If ejecting over water or flat open land the pilot will release the seat box, which remains attached to the harness and hangs around four metres below. A single person dinghy will then inflate in readiness if the pilot enters the water.

Should a pilot eject over terrain or trees are present, for extra protection, the seat box will not be released.

“Going into trees you’d leave on your gloves, have your helmet visors down and face oxygen mask on for protection from the branches,” said FLTLT Irvine.

“Going into water you’d probably remove your gloves as these will simply fill up with water so you won’t have dexterity any more. You’d also drop the mask from your face as well. ” Interestingly, military parachutes are divided into four colours: bright orange, for attracting attention; white, for camouflage in snow; olive green, for camouflage in bush land; and tan, for camouflage in desert-like environments.

Once on the ground or in the water the pilot will use the survival equipment and rations from the seat box and survival vest to evade capture or wait for rescue by the SAR helicopter.

A few of the items a pilot has to survive include radios, flares, signal mirror, a small amount of water and food.

Seat boxes are packed according to the environment the aircraft will likely be operating in. For example, the RAAF’s Hornets participating at Red Flag Alaska in April were to fly some missions over arctic environments. The Hornet’s seat boxes had their water packs removed and replaced by a thermal sleeping bag. At the conclusion of Alaskan operations the seat boxes were to be swapped with ones suited for flights in Australia.

The recovery of ejected RAAF aircrew in Australia is contracted to CHC (Australia), which operates a fleet of Sikorsky S-76 SAR helicopters from RAAF Bases Williamtown, East Sale, Tindal and Pearce. CHC (previously Lloyds) has held the SAR helicopter contract since 1989.

While RAAF flying operations are underway the SAR helicopter and crew are on constant stand-by for launch to respond to an ejection.

Stretcher recovery is the preferred method of retrieval over the rescue strop to help minimise further injury to a pilot’s back and neck. Retrievals from the water requires the use of a modified stretcher fitted with floatation devices, aiding the rescue crewman with the recovery. CHC’s S-76s are able to carry two stretcher patients and two seated patients, covering the possibility of recovering four ejected aircrew from two training aircraft.

RAAF medical personnel flying in the SAR helicopter will treat the aircrew once they have been retrieved. After an initial assessment the medical personnel can decide whether to return to the RAAF base for treatment there or fly the aircrew to a larger and specialised civilian hospital.

The SAR Flight at RAAF Williamtown performed its last ejection retrieval in October 1994 with the recovery of two 76SQN aircrew after the Macchis they were flying collided in mid-air northwest of the base.

The Bang Seat

The design of modern day ejection seats was perfected independently during the course of the Second World War by aircraft manufacturers Heinkel in Germany and Saab in Sweden.

Ejection seats became vital pieces of safety and survival equipment onboard high performance aircraft as airspeeds became faster making baling out an impossible task.

Helmut Schenk, a Heinkel He 280 test pilot, was the first person to egress from an aircraft using a production ejection seat, on January 13 1942, after the control surfaces on his He 280 iced up and it became inoperable.

Early generation ejection seats used a solid propellant cartridge charge to eject the seat out of an aircraft. The charge was ignited inside a telescopic tube attached to the seat running up the back of the cockpit, forcing the seat to ride up the tube and out of the aircraft – a process comparable to a bullet being fired from a gun – thus giving birth to the name ‘bang seat’.

As airspeeds on new design aircraft became even faster more propellant was needed to eject the seat clear. Doing so risked damage to a pilot’s spine from the sudden and extreme g forces. The development of rocket propelled ejection seats during the early 1960s helped to combat the resulting injuries sustained during an ejection by providing a more linear acceleration of the seat.

Some ejection seats require a minimum amount of forward airspeed to function properly. The development of the ‘zero-zero’ ability for ejection seats to successfully egress from an aircraft that have zero forward airspeed and zero height in altitude enabled aircrews to eject from aircraft flying at low altitude, low airspeed and from incidents occurring on the ground or on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Manufacturers

Russia’s Zvezda, Britain’s Martin- Baker and the US’s Goodrich are currently the prime producers and suppliers of new ejection seat systems to the manufacturers of military aircraft.

Zvezda makes the K-36D ejection seat fitted to the MiG-29 and Su-27. It also makes the K-37-800 helicopter ejection seat for the Ka-50 (the Ka-50 was the first helicopter fitted with an ejection seat for improved pilot survivability – it was seen more as a psychological boost for pilot combat courage).

Goodrich produces the ACES II (Advanced Concept Ejection Seat model 2). First introduced in 1978, ACES II is the standard US Air Force ejection seat. It is currently fitted on the B-1, B-2, A-10, F-15, F-16 and F-22.

Martin-Baker, probably the world’s longest established and experienced manufacturer of ejection seat systems, began work on developing ejection seats from 1934. Its seats are fitted to a wide range of military aircraft including US Navy, British and European fighters and trainers, and will equip the F-35 JSF.

At last count on Martin-Baker’s website the number of ejections using its seats stands at 7234 (with 15 so far in 2008). Martin Baker is famous for presenting aircrew who have used its seats with a tie.

“If you’ve ejected you’ve got to have a Martin-Baker tie, even though it will be one of the daggiest ties in your collection,” said AVM Quaife.

Raaf’s Seats

The three ejection seat equipped aircraft operated by the RAAF are the PC-9, Hawk and F/A-18 (the F-111s are fitted with a unique crew escape capsule).

All are fitted with Martin-Baker seats, but each has important differences.

The RAAF’s PC-9s are fitted with two zero/60 multi-stage cartridge seat systems.

“Because the PC-9 doesn’t have a rocket seat it must have a minimum forward speed of 60kt for an ejection to be achieved,” explained FLTLT Irvine. “This takes into account that when a seat is shot up the forward speed will allow the canopy to fill and safely give the pilot at least one swing before hitting the ground. So you can be at ground level with no downwards vector and you can eject at 60kt. ” Both seats sit on a rail angled rearward of vertical. As well, the seats are angled laterally in relation to each other to increase separation clearances if both are ejected during an emergency. When a training aircraft is being flown with two pilots the rear seat will fire and egress first to further increase seat clearances.

This is a common feature of ejection systems on two-seat aircraft.

Aircraft designed for low level flight will often have ejection seats which fire through the canopy, as waiting for the canopy to be jettisoned may take up valuable time in the sequence. This is the case for the PC-9.

Atop the PC-9’s seats are two ‘horn breakers’ which pierce the canopy, fracturing its integrity and allowing the seat to be ejected out of the aircraft. The Hawk’s canopy is fitted with a canopy destruct system which has a mild detonation cord (MDC) embedded within its acrylic plastic. The detonation cord initiates when the ejection handle is pulled, shattering the canopy within a few milliseconds before the seat commences its egress.

The Hornet’s canopy is designed to be jettisoned first during its ejection sequence. However the Hornet seat can penetrate through the canopy if it fails during the jettison process.

The Hawk and Hornet seats are both zero/zero rocket assisted units allowing for a safe ejection with zero altitude and zero airspeed.

The RAAF’s Hornets recently have been retrofitted with a new generation three (GEN III) seat harness giving a greater operating range, particularly with out-of-control ejections.

“There was a tendency for the shoulder straps to slide off the shoulder at times so the GEN III harness is a safety improvement,” said FLTLT Irvine.

The Hornet’s GEN III harnesses are recognisable by the dark green strap colour in lieu of the original light tan coloured straps.

Seat maintenance and servicing on all the RAAF’s Hornets operating from RAAF Williamtown is carried out by 3 Squadron’s Ancillary Maintenance Section (AMS).

Ejection seats are modular in design and are made up of three components; seat frame, head box (contains the parachute) and seat box (filled with survival equipment and rations). The head and seat boxes can be individually removed from the aircraft for servicing without the removal of the actual seat frame.

Every two years Hornet seats undergo a basic serving with a full strip down and reassemble once every six years.

TWIN VS SINGLE? The RAAF has twin-engined F/A-18F Super Hornets on the way and single engined F-35 JSFs planned to arrive mid next decade, which again raises the old question: are two engines safer than one in fighters? This was one key consideration during the Mirage replacement evaluation during the early 1980s which saw the twin engined F/A-18 Hornet win out over the single engined F-16. Subsequently, during the RAAF’s 23 years of Hornet service, there has not been a single ejection due to engine failure.

“I can recall an incident that occurred during my Hornet flying experience which was a catastrophic engine failure caused by the ingestion into an engine of a bird,” said AVM Quaife. “The engine was virtually gutted and the pilot would certainly not have made it back to Williamtown had he not been flying a twin engined aircraft. So there have been engine related incidences where the fact that the Hornet has two engines did allow us to recover the aircraft which otherwise we might of had to eject from. The number of incidents are very small in number but still it’s a factor. ” “Let’s presume we buy the F-35. A valid argument against the F-35 is that, yes, it only has one engine. Since we can’t buy twin engined F-35s, the reality is that we would be carrying greater risk, but, is it the same risk we carried with the Mirages? The answer is, no, because the reliability of the F-35 engine is much, much higher. Are we still exposed to the vagaries of the environment such as birds in the air? Yes, we are. So we would be accepting a higher level of risk courtesy of the fact that it is a single engined aircraft. However, I don’t think that it leads you to the conclusion that we don’t buy them and operate them purely because of this. ” The RAAF’s single engined Hawk fleet has not had an incident to date where a catastrophic engine failure has occurred in that jet resulting in an ejection.

“The Hornet is late 70’s early 80’s technology when those engines and airframes were designed whereas the latest version of the Hawk engine is a mid 90’s to 2000 era engine,” said FLTLT Irvine. “So it’s much more reliable technology and even if they do spit a blade they will keep on running to the point where you can get back down on the ground. ” Much more reliable technology has meant far fewer ejections in recent years.

Still, while most pilots would like to avoid being awarded a Martin-Baker tie, it is good to know the security of the ejection seat is there if needed. o