Chrisg46 wrote:
I read once of that happening to a pilot who wasn't so lucky - he hit the water and sank. He was already several meters down by the time he realised what was happening so he mentally shrugged and pulled the ejection lever. Apparently he shot out of the water like a missile.
Apparently the IA drill on the carrier is to do an immediate hard Right to avoid thundering over the plane - this is what they did this time, but no one noticed the guy on his parachute, which snagged the corner of the flight deck and left him hanging over the water. Didn't notice him for a couple of hours apparently...
Re the above video - I imagine that cable snapping could have inflicted a lot of nastiness amongst the deck crew?
I was going to say how the hell would you not go straight into the canopy after it had been blown off, but from what I've just seen if you eject under water the canopy doesn't come off, you just go straight through it. Also apparently they are not meant to eject when at the surface as they are likely to come straight back down and hit the water hard, so they are meant to wait until they are at least 10ft deep to eject and then release themselves from the seat. Guess that all depends on the ejection system the aircraft uses though and it could be outdated information too.
Most aircraft canopies have a line of 'detcord' in them. When you pull the handle, part of the sequence is to either blow the canopy off or blow it to bits. Anything that is naval has the 'blow the canopy to bits' option.