Get the Crew Out!

[MIflyer]

After WWII there came ejection seats and a generally increased recognition of the need to make provisions to get crew members out of damaged and crashed aircraft. So in addition to the ejection seats provisions were made for the activation of devices to blow the canopy off by ground rescue personnel. In addition some larger aircraft received markings on the fuselage that said "Cut Here" showing safe points to cut holes in the fuselage to get the crew out.

In the mid-1950's the USAF faced the need for new technologies for ICBM's. But that did not mean all the customs and requirements developed for aircraft could be discarded. So on the Atlas ICBM they put markings on the boat tail, the covers for the engine section, "Cut Here" was marked in case you needed to get the aircrew out and the Stand Clear marking were placed inside. Well, there was no aircrew and no conceivable reason why anyone would be trapped in the engine section, but regulations were regulations.

When we refurbed and modified the Atlas E/F ICBMs into space boosters the same "Cut Here" markings were reapplied, although eventually one USAF Staff Sgt pointed out that they had misclocked the Stand Clear markings and they no longer lined up with the ones on the outside.

 

[Greg Boeser]

How long was our nuclear deterrent offline while the stencilling was corrected, oh. Never mind. I think I hear a black helicopter circling.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

We also had "no cut" zones stenciled onto aircraft -- I suppose out of concern for live hydraulic lines going apes**t under the tender mercies of a crash-saw.

Our cockpit process for safetying an IFE aircraft (ACES II seats) was put into a mnemonic: SET-B5. Safety the seat itself, safety the EPU, Throttle back to zero, and only then hit the Belt harness at its 5 points. Ignoring that could send you for a rocket-ride.

 

[tyrodtom]

When I first got to Seymour Johnson AFB , N.C. in 1966, there was a hole in the roof of one of the B-52 maintenance buildings.
A unlucky flightline mechanic had took a ride in the pilot's unsafetied ejection seat a week before I got there.
He didn't survive, of course. And several people that screwed up , starting with the pilot, and on down , were demoted, reassigned, etc.
SAC was not forgiving.

 

[MIflyer]

I think the seats that fired downwards would have worried me. I had a HS teacher who was Bomb/Nav in B-47's and said he nearly ejected himself on the ramp - downwards.

I recall reading of B-47 that had a problem, a fire warning I think, and the crew punched out, or tried to. The pilot and copilot's canopy came off, the control columns retracted into the floor, but the seats did not fire. The pilot climbed down under the instrument panel, saw that a crewman was unconscious on the floor, and bailed out through a lower hatch. The co-pilot started to do the same thing but when he saw the crewman out on the floor, climbed back up to his cockpit, pulled the control column up out of the floor and landed the airplane. Then he ran like hell, figuring that he had done enough to save the other guy's life and the airplane might blow up at any moment.

Imagine what it would be like climbing out of or back into that seat, which has not fired, and might go KERPOW at any second, with you halfway across it.

 

[strider190]

I think the seats that fired downwards would have worried me. I had a HS teacher who was Bomb/Nav in B-47's and said he nearly ejected himself on the ramp - downwards.

I recall reading of B-47 that had a problem, a fire warning I think, and the crew punched out, or tried to. The pilot and copilot's canopy came off, the control columns retracted into the floor, but the seats did not fire. The pilot climbed down under the instrument panel, saw that a crewman was unconscious on the floor, and bailed out through a lower hatch. The co-pilot started to do the same thing but when he saw the crewman out on the floor, climbed back up to his cockpit, pulled the control column up out of the floor and landed the airplane. Then he ran like hell, figuring that he had done enough to save the other guy's life and the airplane might blow up at any moment.

Imagine what it would be like climbing out of or back into that seat, which has not fired, and might go KERPOW at any second, with you halfway across it.

 

[strider190]

This B 47 you speak of was flown by my father (pilot) . Your facts are mostly wrong but it's true that the Co-Pilot was able to climb back into the cockpit, unlock the controls and land the plane. The man whose life he saved was Joe Maxwell the IP aboard.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

This B 47 you speak of was flown by my father (pilot) . Your facts are mostly wrong but it's true that the Co-Pilot was able to climb back into the cockpit, unlock the controls and land the plane. The man whose life he saved was Joe Maxwell the IP aboard.

Would love to hear more about this, especially the "facts" that you say are wrong.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Yes. Out with it. There is nothing we like more than debunking aviation myths.

 

[Snautzer01]

Agree with above gentlemen.

 

[MIflyer]

I read that book at least 60 years ago, so I recall very little of it other than the elements that struck me the most, like the control columns retracting into the floor for ejection.

I recall one very good article by an F-86D pilot. He said that the pilots were told that if the Fire Warning light came on you had about 15 sec to get out. In the pilots minds that eventually became zero seconds. They eventually found out that if you did an abrupt pushover the generator contactor opened momentarily, with an effect the same as tuning a car's ignition key off and then right back on again: everything on the instrument lights up. At night that was quite enough to get the pilots to punch out. They later figured they lost quite a few airplanes because of that.

 

[Snautzer01]

Thats ok. I hope S strider190 will set us straight. Always good to hear from a source so close to the event.