Ejection seat information

[Rich Pulman]

There always seems to be some interest/fascination regarding ejection seats and how they work. While digging through an old T-33 AOI (Aircraft Operating Instructions) yesterday, I found some pages that may be of interest here. The T-33 seat is similar, but not identical, to the Tutor’s seat.

[Kip Powick]

First Flight.....Not Off The Ground........Released From RCAF Pilot Training 

This young fella, Roger, seemed to be right out of the picture when he commenced T-33 pilot training. We heard, via the grapevine that he barely made it through Chipmunks and the Harvard and it was commonly known if you could beat the Harvard tail dragger you were going to find the T-33, with a nose gear and little torque,  a much easier aircraft to fly and meet final RCAF  pilot standards.

A little back ground with photos....( one from Rich..thx)

In case you did not know, this is the T-33, and at one time was the advanced trainer for ones final phase of pilot training. I graduated at Portage La Prairie and 4 years later was instructing on them at Gimli, Portage, and back to Gimli.

One boarded the T-33 from the right side via ladder. You can see that the back seat occupant had a bit of a squeeze to get under the canopy and into the rear seat

 

This the front cockpit and the arrow is pointing to what was called the "panic" button, It was recessed and normally a thin piece of onion skin covered it . Pushing that button released both fuel laden tip tanks.

DURING AN EJECTION if the canopy failed to go in the automatic sequence

# 1 is the handle you would rotate forward if the canopy did not blow, two other options were available...unlock the canopy and the slipstream would probably take it or ride the seat up and the canopy ram on the back of the ejection seat would break the canopy.

#2 is the pilot lap belt and normally, in real life, the ejection handles would be down and the lap belt thrown over the right handle ready for the next pilot...

So here's the story.."Roger Ram-Jet was the student and he had done the walk around and was strapping in when "Ace Man", the instructor was crawling over the edge of the rear cockpit. Roger had pulled all the safety pins, put them in his leg pocket of his flight suit  but his lap belt seemed to be stuck so he gave it a good yank. It rotated the canopy lever forward and the canopy blew off the aircraft and Ace almost crapped his pants. The blast scared Roger and he ducked his head and leaned forward onto the Instrument panel......and one finger went into the "Panic" button and both tip tanks fell off the wings and one tech outside almost caught one of them with his foot.

He ceased pilot training a few days later.

 

Another thing all pilots had to be wary of was that ones parachute initiation cable was hooked to a small buckle in the cockpit and if you bEJECTED, that started a clock in the pack that would cause the parachute to explode out of the pack...basically just as you were kicked off the seat. every time you went flying and failed to unbuckle it would result in a ticking sound as you stood up and then your parachute would blow out.......rather embarrassing.

[Kip Powick]

One last "fun with the kids"..(training on the T-33)

When students started on the T-33 they had to go get a backpack parachute, helmet and O2 mask.

Right down the centre of the back of the chute was a wide piece of white adhesive tape with the students name, done with magic marker. Part of our job as instructors was to take the student back to the "chute pack" building  and exchange his chute after 30 days and watch him use the O2 tester to see that he knew how everything operated...........well, I used to take my "newbie" over and watch as he dropped his chute on the packing table to get a new one....and I would wink at the sergeant. While "whiplash" was checking out his O2 mask the Sergeant stripped off Whiplash's white name stripe and put it on another packed chute....... 

Whiplash would come back and the Sergeant would tell him that his chute would be checked and repacked and, as a seemingly after though,t asked the "Newbie" if he wanted to pull the cable, hear the ticking and watch his worn chute explode....

Naturally he was a eager, so he pulled the cable, the ticking started...the chute exploded .........................

.............out popped a red blanket , 3 cans of tuna and a box of strike anywhere matches.....

The expression on the newbies face was priceless.....