Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

idahonews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 278 posts

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#221

Post by martheen »

Rp8yXmdmr wrote: post #212
somenameforme wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that seems interesting to me is that they all ejected at nearly the identical time. I'm curious if those systems are automated in case of scenarios like an unconscious pilot. If so, there may be automated clearance/angle systems, but that's speculation on top of speculation.

It looks like there is a switch with "both"/solo"/"forward" option and the "both" option automates that tiny delay between both ejections. On the other hand ejections from both planes at same time is just pilots reaction speed.

That makes me wonder what happen if only the back seat eject, turns out there's a nice picture about that https://theaviationgeekclub.com/story-f-14-pilot-able-land-t...

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#222

Post by bombcar »

zabzonk wrote: post #52
Thaxll wrote: post #11

Once again, thanks Martin-Baker, 4 lives saved.

And 4 new members of the Tie Club: https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/

They’re up to date as of the 12th - https://martin-baker.com/ejection-notices/

“We know you’ve ejected before you land”

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#224

Post by joleyj »

kube-system wrote: post #67
jterrys wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually begs the question...why the fuck would they use THESE for an airshow? They're aesthetically identical to F18 from a ground silhouette perspective. They blew through some really expensive planes from a much smaller fleet for a pony show that any regular F18 could've been part of.

These were locally stationed, just over the border in Washington. The Blue Angels are in Florida today.

The Blue Angels are the Navy's demonstration team. This accident happened at an airshow on an Air Force base. The Air Force's demonstration team is named The Thunderbirds.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#225

Post by joleyj »

jmward01 wrote: post #93
jterrys wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually begs the question...why the fuck would they use THESE for an airshow? They're aesthetically identical to F18 from a ground silhouette perspective. They blew through some really expensive planes from a much smaller fleet for a pony show that any regular F18 could've been part of.

They do training all day every day in these planes. Air shows are probably less exciting than the stuff they practice to do. Also, while they a generically '18's' they are EA-18g's and possibly have enough differences to require maintaining a separate NATOPs check from the other variants. (never flown one so I don't actually know though :). Either way, other than the blue angles who can't be everywhere and don't repr…

The Air Force has their own demonstration team named The Thunderbirds.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#226

Post by 7952 »

bigyabai wrote: post #49
rootusrootus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many comments are trying to overanalyze, or just show off their insightful cynicism. We do airshows because they are cool . Lots of us love airplanes. Humans do all kinds of activities for entertainment that are not strictly justifiable returns on investment. I hope we never get that boring, though every year we do seem to go that direction.

It's worth questioning what the costs are, though. I love military aviation more than the average Joe, and seeing these jets pushed to their limits is pretty gratifying. But this isn't a football/soccer pasttime, the E/A-18 is an expensive F/A-18 block and the aviators are an asset of national security that take decades of experience and millions of taxpayer dollars to train. The losses sustained by the Blue Angels a…

I guess aviation always has an element of risk and the real debate has to be around safety standards and training. A loss of aircraft, crew or worse people on the ground is never acceptable and seems to happen more than it should.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#227

Post by mschuster91 »

oliwarner wrote: post #218
mschuster91 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the pseudo-"arguments" I absolutely hate to read. The problem with America's healthcare is not the military, foreign aid or wars. It simply is not. The problem is the insane amount of waste in the US healthcare system. Y'all already spend much, much more per capita on healthcare than everyone else on earth by a wide margin [1], but get markedly lower returns in life expectancy [2]. Y'all need to cut th…

The waste is a byproduct of a many-layered insurance system forced between patient and provider. Everyone in the chain wants their pound of flesh. That problem will exist until the government provides a managed alternative and takes corporate profit out of healthcare. And that all comes down to the appetite for social spending. It's patriotic to funnel $tn to arms suppliers but only a Commie would want health, dental…

> This money was available to blow stuff up, kill kids in another country. Why not spending something similar to improve the US domestically.

Because there is already more than enough money in the US healthcare system. Just shoving in more money will not help anybody at all.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#228

Post by rob74 »

dylan604 wrote: post #121
Levitating wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these ejection seats work in more or less any orientation. I am more surprised that they didn't immediately blow up or lose control after colliding. Or even that the crew took that long to eject.

The ejection seat is going to do its thing regardless of orientation, but if that orientation is pointed at the ground you better hope you have enough altitude. There was one plane where the ejection seats ejected down and away from the plane that was known for low altitude missions. These seats were affectionately known as lawn darts.

I think that plane is the Lockheed Starfighter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Eje...). Fortunately they were eventually replaced with upward-firing ejection seats. And the "lawn dart" moniker refers to the airplane itself - probably because of the absurdly short wings, which are also placed pretty far back.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#229

Post by kayodelycaon »

martheen wrote: post #221
Rp8yXmdmr wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like there is a switch with "both"/solo"/"forward" option and the "both" option automates that tiny delay between both ejections. On the other hand ejections from both planes at same time is just pilots reaction speed.

That makes me wonder what happen if only the back seat eject, turns out there's a nice picture about that https://theaviationgeekclub.com/story-f-14-pilot-able-land-t...

This is how you get a callsign like “Jumper” or “Rocket”.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#230

Post by [deleted] »

bulbar wrote: post #132
rootusrootus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many comments are trying to overanalyze, or just show off their insightful cynicism. We do airshows because they are cool . Lots of us love airplanes. Humans do all kinds of activities for entertainment that are not strictly justifiable returns on investment. I hope we never get that boring, though every year we do seem to go that direction.

I would say it's part of the US culture. It's not a thing in Europe (one reason might be practical reasons. We have less space to do it safely).

[deleted]
Post reply on HN