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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
07/16/09
07/16/09
07/16/09
07/16/09
"Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full."
...but I might like yours better.
07/16/09
07/16/09
Then again that plane only has like a 40' wingspan, and at 10' per story it easily covers 30' of building...
So, what's the distance in which something 40' wide looks 30' wide?
07/16/09
07/16/09
07/16/09
We can't know how close the plane is to the balcony unless we know how far the camera is from the plane or balcony.
07/16/09
That's a negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full.
No, No, Mav, this is not a good idea.
Sorry, Goose, but it's time to buzz the tower.
07/16/09
07/16/09
07/16/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
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12/08/08
12/08/08
12/09/08
Reports were that the pilot was making his approach with the right engine dead when the left engine went out as well, so unless these cracks caused fuel leaks, I doubt that was the problem.
12/08/08
Considering he was injured in his fall, he must have waited until fairly late to eject.
12/09/08
Modern ejection systems are designed such that you can safely eject from a stationary fighter, so it shouldn't matter how late he ejected as long as he wasn't too close to the impact site. Used to be you'd have to manually open the canopy and actually climb out of the cockpit before diving overboard, but now the ejection seat will lift you to a safe height before deploying the parachute. Now, that doesn't gaurantee you an injury-free touchdown by any means. There's still the matter of locating a safe area to land in, fighting crosswinds, and the fact that even during an ideal landing you'll still hit pretty hard. And that's assuming you're conscious at that point. And that you weren't injured during the ejection.
I once read about a fighter pilot (either Navy or Marines) who blacked out over open water. He sorta regained consciousness just in time to eject (all he could see was water everywhere), but he was flying at supersonic speed at the time. He shattered all four limbs immediately after lifting free of the cockpit. He'd been moving so fast that hitting the air was like slamming into a brick wall.
12/09/08
Keep in mind that the altitude of ejection does matter depending on the attitude of the airplane. If you eject too low and your path of ejection is too close to parallel to the ground - or pointed towards the ground - you'll end up impacting. It happens more often than you'd like to know.
However, the Russians have the best ejection seat technology (material for a Gizmodo story?) that will, depending on altitude, automatically right the seat so that even ejecting at overtly odd angles will still send the seat up after a quick course adjustment.
12/09/08
True, but there are only two instances when that should be an issue. Either you're in a spin and timed your ejection wrong, or you weren't flying level when you ejected. In the former case, well, timing literally is everything. If you can't correct the spin (which I understand can be tough job), it's all a matter of if you can gauge exactly when in the rotation to pull the handle so you'll eject in an upward direction. In the latter case...well, I haven't really heard of an instance where a pilot was unable to right a non-spinning aircraft (if it's flying true, that means your attitude control _should_ be working properly, so...).
However, if you eject when the plane is upside-down, I'd think death would be more likely than an injury. And in this specific case, it sounds like whatever injuries the pilot received were due to him catching a tree with his parachute, resulting in him being suspended above the ground.
And the cause of the crash itself appears to have been failure of both engines. The pilot was attempting to land with just the left engine running, when that also died during his approach. I wonder if something happened to his fuel supply, like a leak or a stuck valve.