On Mar. 21, a 2-year old black bear named “Yogi” was ejected from a U.S. Air Force B-58 during tests of the Hustler’s escape capsule.
The bear was ejected at 35,000 feet from the USAF bomber flying at supersonic speed (870 mph): “Yogi” survived the test and landed unharmed 7 minutes, 49 seconds later.
Although the Air Force celebrates the test conducted 54 years ago today as the first ejection of a living creature from a supersonic aircraft, the first live creature to eject from a supersonic jet was George F. Smith, a test pilot of North American Aviation.
Smith ejected at Mach 1.05 from an F-100 Super Sabre off Laguna Beach, California, on Feb. 26, 1955 after experiencing a flight control failure. He spent 5 days in coma and eventually recovered in spite of various injuries.
While cockpit footage from inside a North Korean Su-25 jet is quite rare, what is even more interesting is the weird (at least by Western standards) adornment exposed by the video.
Indeed, as noticed by our friend Tim Robison, Editor in Chief of AEROSPACE, the magazine of the Royal Aeronautical Society, there is some lace-trimmed cover on the ejection seat headrest.
Whether this is a standard decoration or a pilot customization is still open to debate; for sure it doesn’t seem to be made of fire-resistant material as one should expect from almost everything inside the cockpit.
Two pilots had to abandon a turboprop training aircraft when they determined it would not be safe to attempt a controlled landing.
On Jan. 24, the crew of a Royal Canadian Air Force’s CT-156 Harvard II (the Royal Canadian AF version of the US built T-6 Texan II trainer) experienced what the RCAF calls a “controlled ejection” during their landing approach at 15 Wing Moose Jaw.
An issue with the turboprop landing gear had developed during the flight, and it led to the eventual “controlled ejection.” When the pilots realized they had a problem with the gear, a second aircraft from the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 15 Moose Jaw Wing launched from the Saskatchewan training air base to survey the issue. The observers in the second aircraft determined the problem could result in a dangerous landing attempt, so the Wing Operations decided that an ejection was the prudent course of action.
Both pilots walked safely from the incident and are being treated for very minor injuries. In the meantime, the flight training at the base has been paused pending further review of the incident and other safety procedures.
The cockpit audio you can find below in the form of video with trancript was recorded in 1975, during a flight that ended with the ejection of a pilot and a WSO (Weapon System Officer) out of a U.S. Air Force F-4D Phantom, about 80 miles off the coast of England. It was uploaded to Youtube with some background photo by the son of the pilot who says: “Both my dad and his navigator were rescued […]”
The recording starts with “Trest 11” a flight of three Phantom jet performing air-to-air training before (at 04:00 min) one of the F-4s suffers a compressor stall.
Hear the rest of the advendure unfolding.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
Although the pilot of the doomed fighter jet gives bearing, range and distance to RAF Bentwaters, “Trest” was a standard radio callsign of the 48th FW, based at RAF Lakenheath.
Located some 200 chilometers to the North of Sydney, NSW, Austrlia, Fighter World is a museum of Australian military aviation, providing a unique insight into the past and the present of the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force). Fighter World is located next to the entrance of Wiliamtown airbase and the museum provides also the opportunity to watch, from a dedicated observation deck, the daily activity of the nearby military airport.
The following pictures, showing past aircraft, equipment, flight gear and ejection seats, were taken by Boris “F16VIPERMAN” Aguilar and give an idea of the amount of interesting exhibits that can be found at Fighter World.
Socials
Categories
The Aviationist patch
Send me an email if you want to support this site buying the original TheAviationist.com patch, only available through this website!
This website makes use of cookies, both proprietary or by third part, in order to improve your browsing experience. For more information check our cookies policy.
By closing this message, proceed surfing or using this website, you accept to use cookies. Don’t show this again
