General > General Technical Chat
WTF!!! (French Airforce FUBAR)
langwadt:
--- Quote from: joeqsmith on April 11, 2020, 05:14:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: shakalnokturn on April 11, 2020, 12:38:16 pm ---I'm sure they enjoy their job, just I don't enjoy them doing their job.
Now having a couple of hints on how seriously the elite are doing their job over our heads, yes F... them!
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the post. I enjoyed the story.
I liked this video on Taffy Holden
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Another accidental take-off
https://youtu.be/TGjPu6DPzWU?t=97
I'm guessing the "co-pilot" that froze wasn't really a pilot but some spectator along for the ride
bw2341:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 11, 2020, 05:49:38 pm ---I've read the BEA report.
A number of things to consider, but I'll sum up the main root cause: the passenger had a medical examination a few hours before the flight, and it followed he got a medical restriction to +3G. Unfortunately, it appeared that this restriction was NOT communicated to the pilot. Whereas he had planned on having a "cooler" flight than usual, just because there was a civilian passenger, he wasn't aware of the +3G restriction, so during the initial climb - which he didn't adapt, because he had no reason to - they were subjected to ~+4G. The report states that the hypothesis of the passenger passing out was rejected, but he got under so much stress that he freaked out and pulled on the wrong thing just as some kind of reflex.
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While, my French isn't good enough to understand the full report, there is additional detail in section 2.3.1.1. Mission on page 29.
The accident flight wasn't a dedicated demonstration flight, but a regular operational training mission with three jets in air combat manoeuvres. The doctor telephoned the pilot, telling them to not make the flight too intense for the passenger. The pilot decided to cut the flight short and fly only the first phase, leaving a simple flight out and then returning to the airport.
The takeoff phase was unchanged. Since the accident aircraft was the third one in the formation, it followed the other two in a standard takeoff in order to rendezvous with them later. During takeoff, the pilots do not pay attention to the g-loading, so they may routinely exceed +4g.
bw2341:
https://www.defense.gouv.fr/content/download/580401/9905742/A-2019-03-I.pdf
Here's the link to the report.
The failure of the front ejection seat is interesting. The sequence selector has two pyrotechnic control lines to the front seat, one for the main ejection motor and one for the harness tensioner. The tensioner charge functioned correctly. The main ejection motor did not fire.
The pyrotechnic control lines are probably shock tube detonators, which are thin tubes filled with explosives. The burning explosives transmit a signal from one place to another, directly triggering the ejection motor.
In this case, the control line from the sequence selector to the front seat ejection motor was not tightly screwed into the body of the sequence selector.
langwadt:
--- Quote from: bw2341 on April 11, 2020, 10:51:28 pm ---https://www.defense.gouv.fr/content/download/580401/9905742/A-2019-03-I.pdf
Here's the link to the report.
The failure of the front ejection seat is interesting. The sequence selector has two pyrotechnic control lines to the front seat, one for the main ejection motor and one for the harness tensioner. The tensioner charge functioned correctly. The main ejection motor did not fire.
The pyrotechnic control lines are probably shock tube detonators, which are thin tubes filled with explosives. The burning explosives transmit a signal from one place to another, directly triggering the ejection motor.
In this case, the control line from the sequence selector to the front seat ejection motor was not tightly screwed into the body of the sequence selector.
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apart from all the other screwups I'd consider an ejection seat failure quite a serious fault
I don't know if all fighter jets fire both seat automatically, I seem to remember stories of other people getting a ride in a two-eater jet being told by the pilot that if told to eject they shouldn't hesitate because he would not wait long even through the rear seat is supposed to leave first
bw2341:
The Rafale has a selector switch for SOLO (independently controlled ejection) or TWO (both seats will eject if either handle is pulled). On the accident flight, the switch was set to TWO so both seats should have ejected.
Another technical fault during the flight was that the life raft in the pilot survival kit failed to inflate due to a blockage on the trigger cord.
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