Well, I guess I got my ass handed to me.

It may have to do with cultural bias. But still, I do enjoy celebrating the Brit's special take on weird aircraft. ;)


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638194959.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638194959.JPG

Well this looks like a Bristol Freighter. I got my first aircraft ride back in the 1950's in the Bristol 170 of Silver City Airways between Lydd, Kent UK and Le Touquet, France.
Our Morris Minor Travellers car was underneath us and we were enroute to Spain.
Thanks for the pic!

they used to have a car ferry service with those, between uk and belgium and i'm sure in other regions as well..
They had some really ambitious ideas in those days :D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638201325.jpg

Don't take it to bad, US just built more planes and has had more plane designers come up with all kinds of ideas..

I guess it's the benefit of having a single set of rules (as opposed to europe being diverse) and coming out of WW2 with the best possible circumstances and zero damage in the home front...(and europe being shot and bombed to chit)

All that just was a breeding ground for all kinds of ideas..


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638201702.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638201702.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638201702.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638201702.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638201702.jpg

Probably a duplicate from years ago...

Test pilot George Aird narrowly escaped death by ejecting sideways from a prototype jet that nosedived (1962). Aird fell through a greenhouse on his way down, breaking both legs but ultimately surviving. The photographer, Jim Meads, had planned on taking a picture of the aircraft as it safely landed at an airfield in England. But thanks to good planning and quick wits he managed to snap this remarkable photo instead.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638455023.jpg

Speaking of ejections, one of the things I've always wondered about is them downward ejecting seats first installed in the Starfighter.
But have not been able to find any pics or vids of that thing in action.

Seems like a nutty idea and amazing they actually did develop that into a production plane

I believe the reasoning behind it was that the F-104 was the first supersonic production fighter with a T tail. There was concern that a pilot ejecting upwards might hit the T tail.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638534118.jpg

Yeah, as I recall from reading about this system for an engine failure on takeoff you roll the booger upside down then blast yourself out the top (bottom).

Maybe I should have prefaced it with "operational aircraft only".

It doesn't sound like it worked all that well in practice.

It is interesting how much info is on here. I had no idea on the ejections seat so I had to do a search to get more detail.

Wow!

916 Starfighter

http://www.ejectionsite.com/f104seat.htm

Neat stuff.

they also had it on early b52's and that's the only picture i've seen of it used, other then the test picture lower

http://www.ejectionsite.com/b52pix/b52downwardtest.jpg

but haven't found actual footage of it being fired anywhere.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638543394.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638543394.jpg



Rooskies had em too, and used em much longer


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638543394.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638543394.jpg

I thought all B-52's used downward ejection seats on the lower crew stations?

Do they still use em ?? or discontinued in favor of crew gets out manually, while pilots keep the plain under control till the rest are out??

Interesting:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638627185.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1638627185.jpg

Fun fact: Navy E-2's and COD do not have ejection seats and they fly off of carriers. Apparently it would be bad form for the pilots to leave passengers behind:cool:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tnda8IVqkyI" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Same for A3D

As Hoser put it when asked if he ever flew an A-3D

“They tried to make me fly that piece of **** at Key West when I checked in to the Squadron. After a few fam flights in it I decided that a carrier plane with no ejection seats and an air cycle machine in the cockpit that a had a bad habit of coming unglued and frying the crew was not my cup a tea. Besides it weren’t no fighter”.

Apparantly Navy Pilots called the A-3D all three dead :eek:

Yup. That's what we called the A-3. Our squadron averaged losing one per year. My room mate was killed in one by a cold cat shot on the FDR. Too fast to stop, too slow to fly. No ejection seats. Broke up and sank. I had to call his folks.

Has there ever been a COD go down like that?
How many passengers on average abord a C2?? only 2 engines

Or are those loaded very light so they have a bigger margin to pull out on their own?