Was recently watching a show where a celebrity was given a ride in an F18 fighter jet. I got to wondering - in such instances where a civilian were to be given a ride in a jet like this, what would happen if the jet failed and the ejection seats needed to be deployed? Obviously a celebrity chef will have no clue how to do it... can the PIC eject the guy in the back seat as well? And what about training issues - the passenger wouldn't have a clue what to do, how to react, how to prepare, how to land.... How would such a scenario (however unlikely) play out for the poor passenger? Jedi
Thanks Yin... interesting. So these "celebrity rides" we see from time to time on various shows aren't quite as spontaneous as they lead us to believe. Jedi
Unless things have changed, you will get the ejection seat "training" for sure. Even though the pilot ejecting would result in your own ejection - what if the pilot was disabled somehow? I did the training in hopes of a ride in the backseat of a F-16D when I was in Turkey working on them. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a ride.
And, if initiated by the Pilot (front seat), the GIB (guy in back) goes first otherwise he would get torched by the Pilot's rocket motor.
Jedi, As I recall.....a long, long time ago..... We had a lever in the front cockpit....3 choices. I can't remember the names of each choice. Command ejection, anyone pulls(the handle), everyone goes. Next was if front pulls, everyone goes, but if rear pulls only the rear goes. The last one was when there wasn't anyone in the back seat....they "safed" up the rear seat so that everything was strapped down, and the seat stayed. In all cases in our Hornet, the canopy ejected first, but if the canopy didn't eject, we had spikes on top of the seat designed to go through the canopy. You weren't going to get out unhurt, but you did get out. Again, my memory isn't what it used to be. Bill
Dogdish pretty much nailed it. In NACES aircraft, a switch in the aft cockpit selects the ejection mode. For a VIP ride the switch would be in NORM which means if the aft aircrew pulls the handle, only the aft seat fires, however, if the pilot pulls the handle, both seats go. Why the engineers decided to call this "NORM", I don't know. I have a friend who spent a week at NAS Fallon as a mid. He went up for a backseat ride in an F-5 and had a midair with a hornet. When the pilot ejected, it didn't fire the aft seat so he was just spinning in the wind until he realized what was going on and punched himself out. I don't actually know if that was a failure or maybe thats just how the F-5 seat works. Most of the seat training is to teach you how to survive the ejection and the ride down. Pulling the handle is the easy part.
