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From:  (D Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: MiG 23 crash
Message-ID: <8131@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 Jul 89 01:28:13 GMT
References: <8028@cbnews.ATT.COM> <8093@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: D Murphy <>

In article <8093@cbnews.ATT.COM> listen@cbnews.ATT.COM writes:
>
>They're two different systems, although they're both part of the ejection
>seat as currently packaged.  A modern ejection seat will fire a cartridge
>to kick the seat out of the plane, fire rockets to boost it further (in
>case of an ejection at very low altitude), and then simultaneously cut
>the pilot loose from the seat and fire the parachute (hooked to the pilot,
>not to the seat) out of its canister.  The best modern seats use
>a cartridge-plus-rocket system for the parachute deployment too, in
>fact, to get the chute fully deployed almost instantaneously.  The latest
>production seat, the Martin-Baker NACES system for the US Navy, can get
>the pilot on the ground safely after an ejection from an aircraft flying
>at 100 feet UPSIDE DOWN.  There are experimental "vertical-seeking" seats
>that know which way is up and can vector rocket thrust to turn around in
>mid-air and head upward, but the NACES seat is not one of them -- it just
>gets the parachute out awfully fast at low altitude.  It does measure
>altitude and speed as it leaves the plane (using its own sensors), so it
>can decide whether panic-mode chute deployment is in order.
>
>                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

The Soviets have these too. TV film of the MiG-29 (Fulcrum) crash at the Paris
Airshow '89 showed that the plane was heading vertically for the ground when
the pilot ejected at what must have been 50 - 100'. Upon leaving the plane the
seat righted itself and deployed the chute immediately. It hadn't opened fully
before hitting the ground but must have provided some breaking as the pilot
bounced once but virtually walked away from the crash (leaving a big expensive
and embarrassing hole behind him). Presumably a higher altitude ejection
would have resulted in the seat moving further from the plane before deploying
the chute.

Paris doesn't seem too lucky a place for the Soviets :-)

[mod.note: Fair is fair.  Moscow wasn't all that lucky for Napoleon 8-) 
- Bill ]


Murff....

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D.J. Murphy     *Artificial* intelligence ?  Evidently.....