Flying Gear

[willedoo]

Have recently sent this Polish Air Force partial pressure suit off to live at a museum. The museum already had the outer helmet; I supplied the cloth inner communication helmet, connecting helmet neck ring, the suit, boots and gloves. The suit is circa 1991, but the type is still in use.

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by willedoo

[willedoo]

I finally got the gloves in place on this dude. All the fingers on the mannequin were joined so I attacked it with one of those mini hacksaws to split the fingers apart. Even then it was fairly tricky to get the gloves on. I'm not sure what permanent signage the museum will use; I wrote down some info on the suit, e.g. specs, function and a bit of background history, but they tend to dumb things down a bit for the visitors. Only the occasional visitor is interested in the technical side of things. Too much info and most people won't read it.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

You've done your bit.. well done!

 

[willedoo]

I came across this video of a Belorussian MiG-29 pilot doing a zero altitude ejection, so thought I'd post it here for want of a better place. You can see his gear fold before liftoff.

 

 

[facthunter]

Looks as though the gear folded as soon as the weight came off it. Someone trying to be a bit smart?  Nev

[onetrack]

Wow, that was one risky ejection. I wonder what the survival rate is for near ground level ejection? I can recall the "Bud" Holland B-52 crash, one of his senior officers ejected just before they hit the ground, but he ended up in the fireball.

[willedoo]

37 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Wow, that was one risky ejection. I wonder what the survival rate is for near ground level ejection? I can recall the "Bud" Holland B-52 crash, one of his senior officers ejected just before they hit the ground, but he ended up in the fireball.

Not sure what seat it specifically is, it would be either a K-36DM or a K-36DM Series 2. Both are good for stationary zero/zero ejections. The rocket charges are set to send the seat high enough to get a safe canopy allowing for time lost in seat/pilot separation. I think it's around  300' average. In this case the opening parachute is catching some ground speed air as well to help fill it. As long as the canopy fills completely and has some air under it, the landing shouldn't be too much harder than coming down from height. Having said that, it all happens so fast it must be a fine line.

 

I seem to remember the reason the U.S. Navy originally went to Martin Baker sets was because of their better low altitude qualities at the time.

[willedoo]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Looks as though the gear folded as soon as the weight came off it. Someone trying to be a bit smart?  Nev

Maybe trying to show off and it backfired.

[facthunter]

These days a "positive climb' call is made prior to moving the lever out of "down. and locked" .  Nev 

[pmccarthy]

Well the nose was pointing up.

[facthunter]

That doesn't count. The altimeter is your reference. Nev

[facthunter]

There will always be the SB or base Ace who whips the gear up too soon,.  Nev

[onetrack]

He never even got the thing off the ground! - so I can't imagine what he was thinking with a gear retract! Maybe something in the back of his mind from his training, about making sure the gear is retracted, if you know you're going to crash?

[facthunter]

That's not a common procedure either. You are told to land with as much of the gear you CAN extend, unless ditching.  Nev.

[onetrack]

Why is that, Nev? I would've thought gear retraction would prevent a lot of wing and fuel tank damage in a crash landing, as compared to crashing with extended gear?

[facthunter]

They've studied it and the benefits outweigh the bad side is their philosophy.. Absorb as much energy as possible with the strong bits is what they say. . I don't know what the C-310   pilot hand book says  but the  same principles apply .  Nev

[willedoo]

I wonder if another possible explanation is that the MiG pilot had his hand on the gear retract lever and inadvertently put too much pressure on it when he rotated.

[facthunter]

He should have his hands on throttles and stick. I doubt he ever closed the throttle, and there's a drag chute there somewhere. Took a while to eject also. . Nev

[willedoo]

39 minutes ago, facthunter said:

I doubt he ever closed the throttle, and there's a drag chute there somewhere.

I couldn't see the brake chute deploy. It would have been fried instantly if it did.

[willedoo]

I counted about nine seconds from tail strike to ejecting. He'd need to think a bit quicker if he makes a habit of it.

[willedoo]

Freeze framing that ejection shows a bit of detail, although the resolution is bad. You see the canopy eject then the seat egress under rocket power. The rockets extinguish, then it's hard to see but the telescopic drogue arms deploy to push the pilot + seat onto his back. In the meantime, the pilot separates from the seat and the chute opens. The chute is stowed in the head box (head rest) and blows off extracting the chute while pyrocutters separate the pilot from the seat. The headbox then normally falls away from the chute canopy and falls to the ground, but it's too small to see in the video. Just after the pilot gets a full chute canopy and starts descending, you can just make out the life raft/radio beacon/survival pack combo deploying at the end of the connecting lanyard.

 

The survival gear is stowed in the seat base which stays with the pilot attached to his parachute harness. After the pilot separates from the seat with the seat base stuck to his rear end, pyrocutters cut the seat base inner bag restraining cords which allows the raft, radio beacon and survival pack to drop down on the end of a 20' connecting lanyard. If they are over water, the pilot is supposed to release his chute from the harness locks a few feet above water to avoid drowning under the chute. 10' rings a bell, but it could be a bit more. Once he's in the water, he can pull on the lanyard to pull the already inflated dinghy over to him. He's also supposed to previously undo the oxygen mask unless it's a later seat with the emergency O2 bottle inside the seat base that's strapped to his backside. The earlier seats had the O2 bottle mounted on the rear chassis of the seat, so once you have seat/pilot separation, you have no oxygen supply. In that case if you go under the water with the mask still on you can ingest water into the lungs through the mask's oxygen hose. With the later setup, you can breathe underwater from the O2 bottle for a short amount of time. That's in theory; if the Belorussian pilots are anything like the Russians, they fly around a lot with their masks loose. You'd get a kick in the pants over that if you were flying in a western air force.

Edited February 10 by willedoo