"He was on a US training exchange in the T38 which had an inferior seat. HAd
he been sat on a fairly basic Martin-Baker Mark 4 seat (circa 1950s-60s
vintage) with its zero feet, ninety knots limit (ie not a "rocket seat")it
would have saved him from the T38 parameters he found himself in."Â
That accident happened just after I drove out of Sheppard AFB enroute to
Holloman AFB for Fighter Lead-in. The instructor was a former roommate of mine
at the USAF Academy who also trained at Sheppard and came back as a first
assignment instructor. The ejection seat was indeed inferior to "thrust you can
trust" Martin-Baker with which they could have survived.Â
A fateful decision soon after t/o put them at risk. Just after the gear came up
they pulled up for a closed pattern. Generally these patterns happen at the end
of a mission putting the a/c at a much lower weight. Unfortunately they were
about as heavy as a T-38 gets. As soon as they reduced the power for the
descending 180 degree turn to the runway the plane entered a descent rate that
exceeded the capabilities of their ancient ejection seat. Before they were
halfway around the final turn they realized they were in danger and selected
full afterburner and reduced their bank angle, sending them into the pattern
for the T-37s on the parallel runway.Â
Their decision to eject came far too late. The instructor's seat did not even
make it to the top of the rails before impact and the student's seat made it up
only a couple of inches. After that accident pilots had to burn down a certain
amount of fuel before entering the overhead pattern. That was yet another
expensive lesson for the USAF.
Eric
On Monday, January 5, 2026 at 08:07:13 AM EST, srbrown--- via Mifnet
<[email protected]> wrote:
#yiv8028376139 P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}There has always been much
higher losses in training or peacetime operations than war time. This isn't
necessarily a result of technical issues with the aircraft but just mishandling
or flying into things at high speeds (including runways). Also from losing
control through disorientation and the other generally quite dangerous stuff
military aircrew get up to and have to practice, like tactical take-offs and
landings  on the bigger aircraft and similar capers they get up to. Back in the
warbird years those large single-pistons were (and are) a real handful,
especially when flying slow (which, of course, is when you are also close to
the ground). Similarly the large piston twins presented major asymmetric
handling challenges.I think the UK's Canberra bomber (B57 in US parlance)
killed more crew practicing asymmetric training than it did from actual engine
failures, which always ignited the debate as to whether it was even worth
training for engine failures at take off rather than just practicing asymmetric
flying higher up. The same argument rears its ugly head again and again
regarding spinning training in smaller aircraft.
Fast jets would often struggle when heavily laden, particularly with underwing
stores which added further problems even at higher speeds when manoeuvring,
such as toss bombing or taking evasive action.Â
To add some modern context, the total RAF aircrew fatalities in the first Gulf
War numbered 5. Eight aircraft were lost, four to enemy fire. Each with two
crew per aircraft (all Tornado GR1s which was present in the largest numbers).
During my three years on the peacetime front line the RAF F4 fleet of six
squadrons buried eight guys (ie four aircraft worth). Another four, maybe six,
ejected successfully. Causes varied, some remain unknown. At least four guys I
went through my various stages of training with were also killed on other
aircraft. Only one attempted to eject. He was on a US training exchange in the
T38 which had an inferior seat. HAd he been sat on a fairly basic Martin-Baker
Mark 4 seat (circa 1950s-60s vintage) with its zero feet, ninety knots limit
(ie not a "rocket seat")it would have saved him from the T38 parameters he
found himself in. Such is life. Two were flying Jaguars which had less margins
for error (one was a low level mid-air). The other was in an F3 Tornado and,
just for national balance, had he been flying anF14 with its automatic wing
sweep he wouldn't have died. The RAF F3's were factory-fitted with automatic
wing sweep but it was never cleared for operational use for reasons I never
discovered. We also didn't have life jackets that automatically inflated on
contact with the water, unlike the USA's aircrew, so if you were unconscious
after ejecting you were fish food. At least the US forces could recover a body
if nothing else. (cf Goose in Top Gun #1. But I digress, as always). A Canberra
crashed in about 1977 when I was in my final year in school, just five miles
from the local base where my Dad was stationed, also flying on those Canberras.
That was a nervous phone call home. Another asymmetric practice, another three
killed, including the Station Commander (Group Captain/full Colonel rank) who
was doing his annual rating check. That sparked discussionsin the official
accident report about "cross-cockpit authority gradients" . The instructor
pilot was junior officer rank but who knows what actually happened in those
crucial seconds?
SimonFrom: Tom Ronell via Mifnet <[email protected]>
Sent: 05 January 2026 07:42
To: The Mifnet <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Ronell <[email protected]>
Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 75030] Re: weird ejection storyÂ
I have a Martin-Baker story, too: they held a reception on Capitol Hill for all
of their ejection survivors. In speaking to those who I met at this reception,
I was struck by the fact that the vast majority had ejected during routine
peacetime flights.
Mentioning my surprise at this and wondering about the maintenance of the
aircraft which necessitated so many routine peacetime ejections, instead of
being received as concern about the well-being of the aviators, the Marines
with whom I went and had availed themselves of the open bar, interpreted that
observation as an accusation that the ejectees were pussies who ejected
needlessly, precipitating quite a fracas.
A few years later, at the Paris Air Show, Rick Hatton, founder of 10 Tanker,
expressed his amazement that I am still alive. When reminded that I am younger
and in better health than he, Rick said that was not his reasoning. I suppose
that Martin-Baker reception was but one data point in his calculation....
TR
From: srbrown--- via Mifnet <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Date: 2026-01-05T00:31:57Z
Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 75027] Re: weird ejection story
What I've always found odd about that story is that ejection seats from
Martin-Baker's earlier era didn't deploy the main parachute until the seat had
fallen to below either 10,000 ft . (Or 15,000 ft because different barometric
units could be fitted to the seat  to match the terrain you were flying over).
Most ejection seat designs - and certainly all Martin-Baker's - incorporate a
drogue chute which deploys quite quickly after ejection to stabilise the seat
in an upright attitude. This drogue chute will not deploy the main chute until
the barostat has reached its assigned altitude. This means the pilot would be
falling at a bit less than terminal velocity but fast enough to get him to an
altitude where he can breath. Until reaching that altitude an emergency oxygen
bottle, also attached to the seat, will deliver oxygen in the descent. Once the
barostat triggers at it's calibrated altitude the remaining parachute
deployment sequence can then continue. This involves the release of the main
chute, which is extracted by the drogue, whilst the main seat harness is
released such that the crewman falls away from his seat in his main chute but
still attached to his parachute. All of his other survival equipment is
contained in the seat pan which also comes away from the seat and is dangling
beneath him.
The oxygen bottle is normally attached to the seat so this disappears too but
only below 10,000 ft (or 15,000 ft) which isn't a problem. The US Navy's seats
made by Martin-Baker actually have their emergency oxygen bottles in the seat
pan, so this stays with the crewmembers. This was a USN specification to give
the crewmen breathing oxygen in case they went under water following an
accident off a ship. We poor Brits didn't have such luxuries provided by our
caring employers. In fact I think only the USN had this feature fitted to their
MB seats. (Yeah Fly Navy etc etc). I don't know what year they started
specifying this feature though.
When I looked into this story after first hearing about it many years ago I
couldn't find a reason why his parachute deployed. Maybe the main chute didn't
but the strength of the thunderstorm still kept him, his seat and the drogue
chute airborne, as described. Maybe if his main chute had inadvertently
deployed early at those altitude it would have been destroyed, leading to his
death. I read that the early F8s had a seat provided by Vaught which was fairly
basic but it's hard to find more details on those seats. They were soon
replaced by Martin-Baker Mark 5 seats which were superior in performance. The
USN has remained the biggest customer of Martin-Baker seats ever since. (Not
the USAF though). I'm not being a biased Brit by claiming any superior
performance of MB seats. The French and Israelis also used MB seats because of
their reliability and generally superior performance to alternative
manufacturers.
These seats could be quite uncomfortable, even on short flights, but crew tend
to be quite fond of them. There are several euphemisms for ejecting, including
"banging out" (Brit) and punching out" (USA). My favourite came from a French
exchange pilot who referred to it as "saving the furniture". (Or, more
precisely, "sauver les meubles", usually mentioned with a characteristic Gallic
shrug).
Simon
From:Â Jack Keady via Mifnet <[email protected]>
Sent:Â Saturday, January 3, 2026 23:37
To:Â David Wardell via Mifnet <[email protected]>
Cc:Â Jack Keady <[email protected]>
Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 75022] weird ejection story
keady
Old Photo Club
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 ·Follow
January 1 at 4:19 AM ·His engine exploded nine miles above the Earth. What
happened next was worse than falling.On July 26, 1959, Lieutenant Colonel
William Rankin was flying his F-8 Crusader jet fighter over the southeastern
United States when his engine failed without warning.He was cruising at 47,000
feet. That is nine miles above the ground. Higher than Mount Everest. So high
that the sky turns black and the air is too thin to sustain human life. At that
altitude, the temperature outside his cockpit was seventy degrees below
zero.Rankin had only seconds to make a decision. He could try to glide the
crippled jet down to a safer altitude before ejecting, or he could pull the
ejection handle immediately and take his chances.Smoke filled the cockpit. The
controls went dead. He pulled the handle. The ejection seat rocketed him into
the freezing void. The sudden decompression hit his body like a sledgehammer.
At that altitude, the pressure is so low that fluids inside the human body
begin to expand and vaporize. Pain exploded through his abdomen and his eyes.
His emergency oxygen supply failed. He began losing consciousness almost
immediately.Then his parachute deployed. And that is when his nightmare truly
began. William Rankin had ejected directly into the heart of a cumulonimbus
thunderstorm.From the outside, these storms look like towering white mountains
in the sky. Pilots avoid them at all costs because inside, they are vertical
hurricanes. Updrafts can exceed one hundred fifty miles per hour. The violence
inside is almost beyond description.Rankin fell straight into one. Instead of
descending toward Earth, he was caught. Powerful updrafts seized his parachute
and hurled him back upward. Then he was thrown sideways. Then yanked upward
again. He was no longer falling. He was trapped, spinning inside a living storm
that refused to let him go. Hailstones the size of golf balls hammered his body
from every direction. Lightning cracked so close that he could feel the static
electricity lifting the hair on his arms and smell the sharp burn of ozone in
the air. Thunder was no longer just sound. It was a physical force that slammed
into his chest like a fist. Rain flooded into his parachute, collapsing it and
sending him into freefall. Then the canopy would reinflate and jerk him
violently upward again. The motion was so brutal that he vomited. He lost
consciousness. He woke up still spinning, still trapped, still being torn apart
by forces no human was meant to survive. The temperature swung wildly. At the
top of the updrafts, far below freezing, ice formed on his flight suit, his
exposed skin, his eyelashes. Then he would plunge into warmer air and the ice
would begin melting, only to refreeze seconds later when he was hurled back up.
The rain was so heavy it felt like drowning in midair. He gasped for breath and
inhaled water. His lungs burned. His body was bruised and bleeding from hail
impacts. He was hypothermic and frostbitten at the same time.Time stopped.
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. He later said he believed he was
going to die inside that cloud, spinning forever, never reaching the ground.And
then, after forty minutes of impossible violence, the storm finally released
him.He broke through the bottom of the thundercloud at about ten thousand feet.
For the first time since he ejected, he was falling normally. He could see
trees below. He was descending toward a forest in North Carolina.Rankin crashed
through the tree canopy. Branches snapped around him. His parachute tangled in
the limbs, slowing his fall just enough. He slammed into the earth, badly
injured but somehow still breathing.For several minutes he lay motionless on
the forest floor, unable to believe he was alive.Then he stood up. He freed
himself from his parachute. He began walking. His body was covered in welts
from hailstones. He had frostbite on his hands and face. He was bruised from
head to toe, bleeding from multiple wounds, disoriented from oxygen deprivation
and trauma.But he was alive. He stumbled through the woods until he found a
road. Then a farmhouse. A shocked farmer opened his door to find a battered
pilot in a torn flight suit standing on his porch.William Rankin looked at him
and said simply: "I just fell out of the sky." When military doctors and
meteorologists heard his story, they were stunned. No one had ever survived
being trapped inside a violent thunderstorm at that altitude. The conditions he
described should not have been survivable.Decompression sickness should have
killed him. The hailstones could have knocked him unconscious permanently. The
extreme cold should have caused fatal hypothermia. Lightning could have struck
him directly at any moment.But everything that should have killed William
Rankin somehow did not. He spent weeks recovering from his injuries. Doctors
documented severe bruising, frostbite, minor burns from lightning proximity,
and internal damage from the violent forces that had thrown him through the
sky.In 1960, he published a book about his experience called The Man Who Rode
the Thunder. It remains the only firsthand account of surviving such
conditions.His testimony helped meteorologists better understand the internal
dynamics of severe thunderstorms. Aviation safety protocols were updated.
Ejection seat designs improved. High-altitude survival training incorporated
lessons from what he endured.William Rankin continued his military career after
recovering. He flew more missions. He never ejected from another aircraft.When
asked about those forty minutes inside the storm, he said it was the longest
forty minutes of his life. Time had stopped. He had been suspended between
Earth and space, caught in a force so violent it seemed impossible to
escape.But he did escape. Through training, physical resilience, and a measure
of luck that defies explanation.He retired from the Marine Corps and lived a
quiet life, rarely speaking publicly about what happened. He passed away in
2009 at the age of eighty-nine.More than sixty years after his ordeal,
meteorologists still reference his account when studying severe thunderstorms.
Pilots still learn about him in survival training. His story appears in
aviation safety manuals and meteorology textbooks around the world.Because
William Rankin proved something that science said was impossible. The human
body can endure conditions that should be unsurvivable. When every system
fails, when nature unleashes its full fury, when death seems absolutely
certain, survival is still possible. He fell nine miles through a storm that
tried to destroy him. And he walked away.
#WilliamRankin#TheManWhoRodeTheThunder~Old Photo Club
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