Pilot trapped for 5h in cockpit of USAF's new $135m F-22A Raptor after canopy jams

[Henk]

Cool mate.

Henk

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

Who made the seat? because most of Martin-Baker's seats for high performance fighters have full Zero-Zero ability?

 

[evangilder]

Even still, ejecting out of an airplane is risky. Not to mention the damage it would do to the airplane, which would be much more expensive to repair that just a replacement canopy.

 

[syscom3]

A zero-zero ejection has been known to seriously injure the pilot.

Far safer to sit in the cockpit looking like a monkey (and look at the dangling keys) than to do the macho thing and get yourself grounded.

 

[pbfoot]

the russians now make the Cadilac of ejector seats far superior to any western one so I.ve been told eliminating the biggest cause of injury while ejecting while the a/c is in a sideslip it uses acombination of thrusters and drogue chutes

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i'm not saying he should have punched out i realise this wasn't the time or place, but if that canopy was stuck and he was sitting on the runway, with his plane on fire, there would be questions as to why such a high performance jet with a very expensive pilot wasn't fitted with a zero-zero seat, who makes the seat for her?

 

[Bullockracing]

The F-22 uses the ACES II seat, manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. It is a zero-zero seat.

http://www.ejectionsite.com/f22acesii.htm

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

good lord why don't people just stick to what's best and go for Martin-Baker seats

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The F-22 uses the ACES II seat, manufactured by McDonnell Douglas.

Nope - Boeing!

 

[Bullockracing]

FBJ, where did you find that? I called my contact at Langley, but it's possible that the link above referred to only the XF-22 and YF-22.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

FBJ, where did you find that? I called my contact at Langley, but it's possible that the link above referred to only the XF-22 and YF-22.

Back then McDonnell Douglas still existed. They disappeared in 1997. Anything you see referring to North American, Rockwell or McDonnell Douglas belongs to Boeing....

 

[Bullockracing]

Roger that FBJ. Are they still using the MCD name or is it all changed to Boeing?

 

[v2]

Published reports indicate that screws which had loosened and backed out of their mounting holes were to blame for a stuck canopy on an F-22A Raptor on 10 April 2006, trapping the pilot in the cockpit for five hours.
While the chances of another canopy sticking in the closed position on an F-22 are considered remote, contractors are planning on retrofitting longer screws as a preventive measure sometime in the future.
Fire and rescue crews were forced to extract the stuck pilot by cutting the canopy with a rotary saw after all other remedies had failed. Initial replacement estimates for the canopy were quoted at $182,000, but it now appears that it will only cost approximately $83,000.

 

[HealzDevo]

Makes one wonder though... If things are going wrong this early its life are there any other problems with it? It hasn't been said whether this was an aircraft that had been flown or whether it was new. The bolts working themselves loose though sounds like a potential problem... I think there are questions over the building of the aircraft. Raptors are only fairly new so it shouldn't have that many flying hours on the frame should it?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Makes one wonder though... If things are going wrong this early its life are there any other problems with it? It hasn't been said whether this was an aircraft that had been flown or whether it was new. The bolts working themselves loose though sounds like a potential problem... I think there are questions over the building of the aircraft. Raptors are only fairly new so it shouldn't have that many flying hours on the frame should it?

There was a "TCTO" issued to inspect the entire fleet for this condition - I'm sure this is the last we'll hear from it.

 

[evangilder]

Agreed. This is the reason you have a test and evaluation period, to work out the kinks. It would be very premature to say it's a bad airplane based on one incident like this.

 

[R-2800]

hahaha, i like the look on the pilot's face in the first picture! that sucks that he was stuck in there for so long, has there been any othere incidents like this I heared that they cut into the side of the plane to free a pilot, or it might be a variation of this story.

 

[HealzDevo]

All I am saying is that with something like this, I would be doing an extremely thorough check to make sure no other bugs have accidently slipped through... This is something that I haven't heard of happening with any other modern aircraft...

 

[Matt308]

You kidding? This kinda stuff happens all the time. One of the most visible examples are flight test aircraft that typically fly with the gear down. Why? They test the $hit out of the gear before flight during engineering ground tests? Because the risk ain't worth it. These are complex machines whose high level requirements number in the tens of thousands and whose derived requirements number in the millions. Exhaustive testing of the literally millions of permutations of things that can go wrong is not an option and thus engineering and flight test will opt for development assurance techniques that minimize risk such as structural coverage, requirements trace, module testing, quality assurance methodologies, etc.

 

[mkloby]

All I am saying is that with something like this, I would be doing an extremely thorough check to make sure no other bugs have accidently slipped through... This is something that I haven't heard of happening with any other modern aircraft...

That's EXACTLY the kind of sh*t that happens in the military ALL THE TIME! To civilians mil-spec means tough and durable, but to the military it means it's broken, works halfway when it does work, no spare parts will be available, spare parts don't work anyway

You cannot test out ALL possible bugs and kinks in design. You'd never have an operational A/C if you attempted to do that.