Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
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Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#2I don’t know anything about anything but it feels kind of amazing that all four ejected with good looking parachutes given the orientation of the conglomerated plane.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#3These are pretty expensive and specialized electronic warfare planes that are identical to a regular F18 in aerodynamic performance. Sucks to lose two of them for an airshow display. Isn’t that what the Blue Angels are for?
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#4[deleted]
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#5What an odd collision. The way they remain in tandem after contact is uncanny, almost as though they were not under direct control.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#6I wonder how you can make the decision to eject in such a short timespan.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#7What an odd collision. The way they remain in tandem after contact is uncanny, almost as though they were not under direct control.
They probably went into a stall (loss of lift) after collision. So they would have lost all control.
Their controls would probably feel all mushy and unresponsive at that point.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#8That maneuver they were attempting looks WILD. Would have been amazing to have pulled of. Or, perhaps to have regularly pulled off until today. I'm guessing that must be some sort of vectored thrust trickery.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#9Is there much of a way to recover from that kind of glomping? Kinda seems like the aerodynamics might hold them together (as the noses are somewhat pointed together), or with enough speed rip them apart chaotically since they're a bit skewed (which could be worse than ejecting early).
It seems pretty obvious that ejecting is the right choice either way, but it makes me wonder if there's any alternative in this kind of scenario.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#10I wonder how you can make the decision to eject in such a short timespan.
They train for it. When people who have ejected talk about it they basically say it's automatic. Things go south they pull the handle on instinct.