A-6 Deck Ejection

[Finn]

The brakes failed:

 

 

 

I wonder if the pilot, who went out first, told the B/N that he was leaving?

 

Jari

Edited March 31, 2022 by Finn

[Oldbaldguy]

Flight deck looked like somebody kicked over an ant hill for a minute there.  BN appeared a bit surprised and/or a tad slow on the uptake.  Landing downwind under a round canopy at 30 mph or so has to suck but apparently neither guy got wet, nor did the jet for that matter.  So, if he looked good in the break, it was a good day all in all.

 

[easixpedro]

Ohheckno! That’s the stuff of nightmares. A hydraulic failure right there meant no nose wheel steering or brakes…just trundling off the angle. Every time we landed I was on the little button to pump the emergency brakes till the damn thing cavitated for just this reason! Great job by the deck crews to collapse the chutes and save the crew though!

 

[John1]

Damn, never saw that one before.   Wonder what was scarier for the crew - knowing you are going over the edge or knowing that you are landing in your chute on the deck of a carrier doing 30 knots or so?

 

Old Bald Guy, I think the delay on the BN ejection was because the seats are sequenced not to go up at the same time due to potential for collision.  I might be wrong, I know this is common in other jets. 

 

Hey Pete - on the EA-6B, were all the seats sequenced with a small delay to avoid something like this?  If so, I'd hate to be the #4 "tail end Charlie".  

[Finn]

Still hanging around:

 

 

Jari

[daveculp]

Did they have to wait until it ran out of gas to recover the airplane?

[easixpedro]

10 hours ago, John1 said:

Damn, never saw that one before.   Wonder what was scarier for the crew - knowing you are going over the edge or knowing that you are landing in your chute on the deck of a carrier doing 30 knots or so?

 

Old Bald Guy, I think the delay on the BN ejection was because the seats are sequenced not to go up at the same time due to potential for collision.  I might be wrong, I know this is common in other jets. 

 

Hey Pete - on the EA-6B, were all the seats sequenced with a small delay to avoid something like this?  If so, I'd hate to be the #4 "tail end Charlie".  

 

7 hours ago, daveculp said:

Did they have to wait until it ran out of gas to recover the airplane?

 

As for shutting off the motors, lord only knows. There's options (none good) of securing the motor from an access panel. I doubt anyone climbed out to secure the throttles. Or they could just flood the motors with a lot of water, but I don't know how the could have got the hose close enough.

 

John, you're likely right about the sequencing. I don't remember if the A-6 had command eject, where if anyone pulled the handle they both went. On the Prowler we had a little handle that if selected meant that if either front seater pulled the handle, everyone went. If not selected, it was a singletons. Of course the folks in back had their own vote. Any ejection from the Prowler was dicey. Individually the seats were 0/0 meaning 0 airspeed and 0 altitude and you'd live. Reality was you needed 80 knots to have separation from the seats as they'd likely come down on the other crew as they rocketed out. The seats had .4 second separation as they went out. Back left went first instantly at 0.0, back right at 0.4, front right at 0.8 and the pilot at a lifetime 1.2 seconds after pulling the handle...  

 

Circa the early 2000s there was an instance of a Prowler doing just this. It was during Carrier Qualifications, and you can see the pilot stomping on the rudder pedals for brakes and the rudder going full over as they trundle off. Poor kid in back--was his first carrier landing IIRC, had no clue, thought it was a good landing and Boom, goes rocketing out on his seat. They all made it out, but the plane was lost. 

 

-Peter

[Finn]

Looks like for the A-6 the seats were independent:

 

 

Jari