F14 Ejection. Mike 'Nasty' Manazir gets his Martin Baker Tie.

[Tikka]

Hi.
Great new video describing the ejection sequence from an F14, and the conditions that led to that ejection. I think some of the issues mentioned are pertinent to threads on other posts. It would be great if @Astro14 could perhaps chip in too. Apologies to those you have watched it, but it is a new video.
For some reason the link is not working. Hopefully, someone smarter than me can correct this.

 

[john_pifer]

Enjoyed that!

Thanks.

 

[Astro14]

38 minutes is a lot to watch…

 

[Astro14]

Two points, one, I’ve had a dual engine stall followed by loss of control.

High AOA. Low speed. Left engine stalled. Lost control. Throttles to idle, right engine stall. Shutdown the second (right) engine to stall (off, as a first step, long before Nasty got that step). Got control back. Took quite a while. Lost nearly 15,000 feet. But while I had control, I still had no engines. Eventually got the engines back. Thought I had described that event in my F14 thread.

Very different outcome.

Two, I actually spun the plane, don’t know if I described that in my thread. Actually reached greater than 110 degrees per second yaw rate. But I aggressively moved the flight controls, after correctly determining the yaw direction - and recovered quickly. It was recorded on the TACTS range sensors.

Nasty is humble enough to admit that he didn’t correctly interpret spin direction, and so, his controls exacerbated the situation. He made the right decision to eject.

Things happen fast in an out of control fighter. You have to orient, decide, and act, all within a second, when things go sideways.

Last point - we still did the vertical recovery in training years later. New pilots had to experience the airplane at its limit to be viable as fighter pilots. There was still some risk in doing so, but flying fighters is all about risk.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

I was suprised that after finding him at fault, he was returned to flying status after a year. If memory serves me correctly, that's usually the kiss of death for an Air Force flyer.

Nice job recovering from dual compressor stall and out of control condition Astro. I don't think I've ever been in a situation that bad.

 

[Astro14]

I was suprised that after finding him at fault, he was returned to flying status after a year. If memory serves me correctly, that's usually the kiss of death for an Air Force flyer.

Nice job recovering from dual compressor stall and out of control condition Astro. I don't think I've ever been in a situation that bad.

I honestly think he screwed up in the recovery of this particular event.

But you’re right, essentially, he was forgiven - his other qualities, and his subsequent flying performance overcame that one mistake.

The guy ended up retiring at rear admiral. He had command multiple times, and he’s got a pretty good reputation.

In the mid-1990s however I saw a cultural shift, towards a “zero defect” mentality. Forgiveness was hard to come by. I think that’s a mistake. I think most folks deserve a second chance.

I am surprised at how little latitude fighter pilots are given today. The degree of scrutiny, and second guessing, is really distasteful to me. Subordinates are not trusted. Pilots are tightly controlled. We’re still better than the rest of the worlds militaries, but we have lost something.

 

[Astro14]

Because I think I describe my event somewhere else, I won’t rehash it here, but I will tell you that about two years ago we had a squadron reunion down in Austin Texas.

Now, my recollection of the dual compressor stall/loss of control event included my detailed communication with my backseater a great guy who we will call “Ferris”. When the left engine stalled, I tried to fly the airplane, when it was clear that the airplane was out of control, because of thrust asymmetry, I told Ferris, “I’m pulling back the power on the right“ and when it stalled I said “I’m shutting down the right because I know that’s a good engine”. I continued describing my flight control inputs to regain control of the airplane, as we lost over 15,000 feet, really closer to 20,000 feet before saying on the ICS (intercom) “I’ve got it I’ve got it.”

So though it happened 30 years before the reunion, I’ve always carried the memory of what I thought was exceptional communication on my part, to keep him informed about the progress of my efforts to recover the airplane.

I should point out that with the left engine, stalled, and the right engine off, we had lost both generators and we were working only on back up electrical power. The backup electric generator used combined system hydraulic pressure, provided by the engine driven pump from the left engine.

but each flight control input also demanded hydraulic pressure from that one system, and the engine was running below idle rpm, so there was not as much hydraulic pressure as we would’ve liked.

Over a couple of bourbons, Ferris and I described our event to another fighter pilot. I described in detail what I had said over the ICS.

Ferris says, “yeah, I didn’t hear any of that”

Because, it turns out, that the inconsistent electric power kept causing problems with the ICS.

I was honestly shocked, his recollection destroyed mine.

So, gobsmacked, I stared at him, and said “why in the hell did you stay with me through 20,000 feet of out of control Flight if you didn’t know what I was doing?”

He sort of shrugged and said “we still had altitude.”

“When you said I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I figured it was gonna be all right.”

 

[Nmr1981]

Because I think I describe my event somewhere else, I won’t rehash it here, but I will tell you that about two years ago we had a squadron reunion down in Austin Texas.

Now, my recollection of the dual compressor stall/loss of control event included my detailed communication with my backseater a great guy who we will call “Ferris”. When the left engine stalled, I tried to fly the airplane, when it was clear that the airplane was out of control, because of thrust asymmetry, I told Ferris, “I’m pulling back the power on the right“ and when it stalled I said “I’m shutting down the right because I know that’s a good engine”. I continued describing my flight control inputs to regain control of the airplane, as we lost over 15,000 feet, really closer to 20,000 feet before saying on the ICS (intercom) “I’ve got it I’ve got it.”

So though it happened 30 years before the reunion, I’ve always carried the memory of what I thought was exceptional communication on my part, to keep him informed about the progress of my efforts to recover the airplane.

I should point out that with the left engine, stalled, and the right engine off, we had lost both generators and we were working only on back up electrical power. The backup electric generator used combined system hydraulic pressure, provided by the engine driven pump from the left engine.

but each flight control input also demanded hydraulic pressure from that one system, and the engine was running below idle rpm, so there was not as much hydraulic pressure as we would’ve liked.

Over a couple of bourbons, Ferris and I described our event to another fighter pilot. I described in detail what I had said over the ICS.

Ferris says, “yeah, I didn’t hear any of that”

Because, it turns out, that the inconsistent electric power kept causing problems with the ICS.

I was honestly shocked, his recollection destroyed mine.

So, gobsmacked, I stared at him, and said “why in the hell did you stay with me through 20,000 feet of out of control Flight if you didn’t know what I was doing?”

He sort of shrugged and said “we still had altitude.”

“When you said I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I figured it was gonna be all right.”

Hey Astro, I’m getting antsy just reading about it! How long did this ordeal last in real time? What altitude are we talking when this happened?