The Bone is grounded

I didn't even know bombers had ejection seats.
 
I'd be interested to hear what sort of thing they found that resulted in this. We've had a couple such "red stripes" during my career, related to failed or faulty egress/ejection seat components, but each time it was simply a one-off inspection of the rest of the fleet, normally completed within a couple hours of the original message being released internally, allowing flights to resume. Also have never seen such a scenario make it to the level of being a news story. I wonder if there is something more serious in this case.
 
No ejection seats in any plane I have had an IFE in. A couple of those flights had passengers. Never even made the news....

Is the OSO a pilot? Would (s)he have been able to fly the plane if everyone else left.? What is the chance of injury to personnel during the ejection process.??
 
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That B-1B was at KMAF. Mishap was an engine failure that took out the adjacent engine as well. This problem at that time called for the crew to eject. When the aircraft commander started the eject sequence, the hatch(s) blew off but nothing else happened. That all occured about 10 miles from KMAF, so they limped in and landed, knowing their seats could fire off and eject at any time. They thought it would happen when they touched down upon landing, but no way of knowing. Major pucker factor. Sort of like a hangfire when you pull the trigger and the hammer falls on the primer, but the gun doesn't go off. Anyway, the CFR crew said they never saw a crew get out of a plane so quickly. Local paper had a photo of the foamed Bone with at least one hatch missing. It sat on rwy 16R all day until an EOD crew could travel in and make the ejection seats safe. They parked the plane in the old empty space travel hangar under armed guard. Nobody would go anywhere near that corner of the airport.

Lots of heroic pilot skill here. The crew would up saving a valuable asset whether they initially planned to or not. This story may not get out past the local paper, but they deserve medals IMO.
 
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Zeldman said:
Is the OSO a pilot? Would (s)he have been able to fly the plane if everyone else left.? What is the chance of injury to personnel during the ejection process.??
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I wonder about the condition of the cockpit after the ejection seats depart... would it even BE flyable if there were someone left to fly it?
 
Zeldman said:
No ejection seats in any plane I have had an IFE in. A couple of those flights had passengers. Never even made the news....

Is the OSO a pilot? Would (s)he have been able to fly the plane if everyone else left.? What is the chance of injury to personnel during the ejection process.??
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IFE??? OSO???
 
The F-111 fleet also got grounded for ejection system problems during the "Unpleasantness In Southeast Asia".
General Dynamics "forgot" to install parachutes on the ejection pods.
No one knows, or no one will admit to knowing how many Aardvark crews died because of that screw up.
Oh. Is that still supposed to be classified information?
Sorry. My bad.
 
OSO and DSO (Defensive Systems Officer) are or at least were pilots. I knew a USAF pilot back in the 80s who was going to B1 as a Systems Officer (can't recall offensive or defensive) with expectation of moving to pilot at some point. That could all have changed by now. I was also an Army officer who retire 15 years ago so take what I know with a large grain of salt. :D
 
Do I understand right, they were going to bail out of a completely flyable airplane, which was landed without incident?
 
oilburner said:
That B-1B was at KMAF. Mishap was an engine failure that took out the adjacent engine as well. This problem at that time called for the crew to eject. When the aircraft commander started the eject sequence, the hatch(s) blew off but nothing else happened. That all occured about 10 miles from KMAF, so they limped in and landed, knowing their seats could fire off and eject at any time. They thought it would happen when they touched down upon landing, but no way of knowing. Major pucker factor. Sort of like a hangfire when you pull the trigger and the hammer falls on the primer, but the gun doesn't go off. Anyway, the CFR crew said they never saw a crew get out of a plane so quickly. Local paper had a photo of the foamed Bone with at least one hatch missing. It sat on rwy 16R all day until an EOD crew could travel in and make the ejection seats safe. They parked the plane in the old empty space travel hangar under armed guard. Nobody would go anywhere near that corner of the airport.

Lots of heroic pilot skill here. The crew woul up saving a valuable asset whether they initially planned to or not. This story may not get out past the local paper, but they deserve medals IMO.
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No joke, definetely haven't heard this version. Pretty damn ballsy, knowing the shet could hit fan at any time. Should be recognized for the reasons you stated.
 
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Shepherd said:
The F-111 fleet also got grounded for ejection system problems during the "Unpleasantness In Southeast Asia".
General Dynamics "forgot" to install parachutes on the ejection pods.
No one knows, or no one will admit to knowing how many Aardvark crews died because of that screw up.
Oh. Is that still supposed to be classified information?
Sorry. My bad.
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South Korea, '73. Hey Col, what's the deal on the 3 F111s on the ramp? What F111s, there's no F111s here. But Col, right over there...listen, there's no F111s here. Oooook boss, guess it's was a couple of Aero Club Cessnas then. Reckon that U2 that takes off everyday isn't here either?
 
Couldn't figure out why there were NO survivors, ever, from a combat shoot down.
Then the squadron commander of one of the F-111 outfits punched out shortly after leaving his daughter's wedding at Eglin Air Force Base. The pod landed in a few feet of water off of Destin, Florida. The pod was intact, the inside looked like it had been sprayed with strawberry jelly.
And there was no chute to be found, anywhere.
The next day the fleet was grounded due to "wing king post problems." (The main pivot point on the swing wing)
As far as I know, there was never any investigation into General Dynamics and no one was ever punished.
 
^^^ holy crap, that’s terrible.
 
1RTK1 said:
Do I understand right, they were going to bail out of a completely flyable airplane, which was landed without incident?
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They were going to follow EP and bail out of an aircraft that was on fire when fire suppression failed.
 
1RTK1 said:
Musta missed the part about fire suppression failing...
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The way it was written was that a fire indicator remained lighted after the fire suppression was activated. The crew was left with an active fire indicator and probably no way to see if it was still on fire. Really tough choices at that point I'd imagine.
 
oilburner said:
That B-1B was at KMAF. Mishap was an engine failure that took out the adjacent engine as well. This problem at that time called for the crew to eject. When the aircraft commander started the eject sequence, the hatch(s) blew off but nothing else happened. That all occured about 10 miles from KMAF, so they limped in and landed, knowing their seats could fire off and eject at any time. They thought it would happen when they touched down upon landing, but no way of knowing. Major pucker factor. Sort of like a hangfire when you pull the trigger and the hammer falls on the primer, but the gun doesn't go off. Anyway, the CFR crew said they never saw a crew get out of a plane so quickly. Local paper had a photo of the foamed Bone with at least one hatch missing. It sat on rwy 16R all day until an EOD crew could travel in and make the ejection seats safe. They parked the plane in the old empty space travel hangar under armed guard. Nobody would go anywhere near that corner of the airport.

Lots of heroic pilot skill here. The crew would up saving a valuable asset whether they initially planned to or not. This story may not get out past the local paper, but they deserve medals IMO.
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Some corrections to this story. The ejection sequence was commanded in manual, meaning the seats were chosen not to be auto-sequenced. Meaning everybody was their own seat commander that day. This decision was made presumably by the AC in order to avoid the back seaters being struck by the blown hatches on an **uncontrolled bailout, fatality mode that has occurred in the B-52 for instance.

So it is not accurate to say that they were all at risk of uncommanded seat firings at any moment. None of the seats were actuated, except the OSO which was first down the list. The failure of his seat to fire is what prompted the AC to make the decision to stay with an airplane that had a failed fire suppression system, for which the Tech Order calls for ejection (which is why they attempted to eject in the first place).

It is in his decision to stay with the trapped OSO, risking his life and that of the rest of the crew, latter which could have ejected individually at any point they felt like, the reason they all will get medals out of this. That much has never been disputed. The alternative would have been for the rest of the crew to attempt to eject individually, eventually leaving the trapped OSO and whoever else's seat didn't fire, to perish with the aircraft. As a former B-52 Aircraft Commander I can tell you I would have made the same choice this AC did. I'm not leaving a guy trapped if I can help it. He got lucky that the fire warning was not in earnest; had it consumed the aircraft they would have been forced to leave the OSO behind. As I've said before, we work in an unforgiving business.

I am glad the fleet is being grounded, as this was a no-s--t confirmed failure to fire on an ejection seat. Major problems exist here and they need to be straightened out. My hope is the directorate of mx for the Bone doesn't obfuscate the process. The animosity between MX and OPS is a known quantity, and this is certainly not the time for CYA, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
Leave them grounded. We have no significant need for a Mach 1 sprinting after-burning bomber to deliver nukes with.
 
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At least the B-1 OSO stayed in the aircraft.
 
denverpilot said:
Leave them grounded. We have no significant need for a Mach 1 sprinting after-burning bomber to deliver nukes with.
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Whoa now! It’s not a nuke bomber anymore. It’s actually a CAS platform that a lot of commanders prefer because of long station times and a variety of ordnance at their disposal ...well the Sniper Pod does have some IR issues though.
 
denverpilot said:
Leave them grounded. We have no significant need for a Mach 1 sprinting after-burning bomber to deliver nukes with.
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And to add some more irony to your comment, the Bone was handcuffed down to conventional-only as part of the START treaty. They haven't been nuke-delivery capable for decades now. The Bone's fly-to-mx ratios are pretty horrid, always have been. Variable geometry is like the turbo piston installations of GA, great in theory, terrible in mx.
 
Velocity173 said:
Whoa now! It’s not a nuke bomber anymore. It’s actually a CAS platform that a lot of commanders prefer because of long station times and a variety of ordnance at their disposal ...well the Sniper Pod does have some IR issues though.
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No doubt. But imo still an economics-irresponsible way of aging out a strategic heavy bombardment asset, over permissive camel jockey land no less. I know my position is unpopular among fellow bomber crews, since everyone wants their turkey shoot "street cred" T-shirt; I have no such hangups about combat time so I call a spade a spade. It's simply wasteful from an asset management pov. COCOMs couldn't care less of course.
 
hindsight2020 said:
And to add some more irony to your comment, the Bone was handcuffed down to conventional-only as part of the START treaty. They haven't been nuke-delivery capable for decades now. The Bone's fly-to-mx ratios are pretty horrid, always have been. Variable geometry is like the turbo piston installations of GA, great in theory, terrible in mx.
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Ahh man. I forgot about that.

Sheesh. Shut it down.

Fun to watch fly, but none of us really need to be paying for the operating costs of that thing.
 
hindsight2020 said:
No doubt. But imo still an economics-irresponsible way of aging out a strategic heavy bombardment asset, over permissive camel jockey land no less. I know my position is unpopular among fellow bomber crews, since everyone wants their turkey shoot "street cred" T-shirt; I have no such hangups about combat time so I call a spade a spade. It's simply wasteful from an asset management pov. COCOMs couldn't care less of course.
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Yeah wasteful in that particular role but it’s a way of getting them in the game and allowing the crews to stay proficient. Like the Tomcat getting the LANTIRN and becoming a “bomb cat.”

If it were me, in a low ADA theater, we’d have nothing but A-10s supplemented by AT-6 / A-29s and attack helo for CAS. But, I’m not a bean counter and have no idea the impact on the taxpayer for such a setup.
 
Velocity173 said:
If it were me, in a low ADA theater, we’d have nothing but A-10s supplemented by AT-6 / A-29s and attack helo for CAS. But, I’m not a bean counter and have no idea the impact on the taxpayer for such a setup.
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It would cost far less in operational expenses and in wear and tear on very expensive equipment. F-xx's and B-XX's have expensive life limited components. Far more expensive than the equivalent components on an A-10 or AT-6...
 
kyleb said:
It would cost far less in operational expenses and in wear and tear on very expensive equipment. F-xx's and B-XX's have expensive life limited components. Far more expensive than the equivalent components on an A-10 or AT-6...
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Sure but the problem is you still need the more advanced aircraft for the high threat theaters where you require an aircraft with more range, firepower and standoff capability. So it’s a trade off. In the interim you modify your expensive, high tech aircraft to adapt to today’s threat but also keep it in service for tomorrow’s threat.
 
Velocity173 said:
Yeah wasteful in that particular role but it’s a way of getting them in the game and allowing the crews to stay proficient. Like the Tomcat getting the LANTIRN and becoming a “bomb cat.”

If it were me, in a low ADA theater, we’d have nothing but A-10s supplemented by AT-6 / A-29s and attack helo for CAS. But, I’m not a bean counter and have no idea the impact on the taxpayer for such a setup.
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You have the correct idea. I hail from the strat side of the CAF and I'm the first one to admit these assets are being misutilized. The COIN/light attack platform has been heissman'd for decades now. The AF and its internal fiefdoms, is all I'm gonna say about that. But just like the ECM mission set being sundowned with the Raven and relegated to the Navy Growler (by shelving the EB-52 idea, among many other snuffed initiatives), the light attack was a mission set the Air Force didn't want to spend a nickle on and take away from their darling congressional pork barrel POS Thunderpig v2.0 aka the F-35.

But they won't let the Army have it either, so it's CAS from the g-d bozosphere by heavy bombardment assets and anchor AR air medals for all my brothers. One of the most frustrating parts of flying the Buff for me was copying down and training to 9-lines in that school bus. Completely unsuited for the task. We made wine don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what we could accomplish with good ol' American grit and ingenuity, but it was a woefully band aided course of action nonetheless.
 
Velocity173 said:
Sure but the problem is you still need the more advanced aircraft for the high threat theaters where you require an aircraft with more range, firepower and standoff capability. So it’s a trade off. In the interim you modify your expensive, high tech aircraft to adapt to today’s threat but also keep it in service for tomorrow’s threat.
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The Super T was ready made for the mission. And it's an awesome aircraft for it. It's entire life cycle cost is pennies compared to the acquisition nightmare that is the F-35. The entire USAF suffers under the fraud waste and abuse that is the acquiescence to civilian contractors and their perfectly congressional district spread rent-seeking. When people think of defense budget bloat they think of some sergeant sipping brewer's finest-haus in some posh German town in USAFE, when it's some civilian the one creating the most bloat. And I digress.
 
hindsight2020 said:
lWhen people think of defense budget bloat they think of some sergeant sipping brewer's finest-haus in some posh German town in USAFE, when it's some civilian the one creating the most bloat. And I digress.
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I don’t. The bills are public record and one would have to be well below the middle of the intelligence bell curve to think that.

Not that people even in the center of the bell curve read much anymore, but I also digress. :)

Sadly the other truth is that military corruption and bad spending is far outweighed by all sorts of other Fed spending. Even fielding an insanely large military and shouldering the majority of building and fighting between us and most of our so-called “allies”, compared to other Federal level graft, the military is a drop in the bucket.

But people SEE the military and know how expensive some components are, and assume it’s the largest spend. It isn’t by a long shot. (Pun intended?)
 
Velocity173 said:
Sure but the problem is you still need the more advanced aircraft for the high threat theaters where you require an aircraft with more range, firepower and standoff capability. So it’s a trade off. In the interim you modify your expensive, high tech aircraft to adapt to today’s threat but also keep it in service for tomorrow’s threat.
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And if the big bad ever decides to pick a fight, your high tech stuff is either worn out or has been surveyed extensively by the big bad's agents while you were using it to crush the Lilliputians.

Ultimately, you need a high/low mix to deal with the spectrum of problems most efficiently.

It seems like we're doing this the wrong way...
 
Great job by the B-1 crew getting it safely on the ground.

I'll take this opportunity to say the F-35B is the most ridiculous waste of money in the history of the US Armed Forces, and that's really saying something.
 
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kyleb said:
And if the big bad ever decides to pick a fight, your high tech stuff is either worn out or has been surveyed extensively by the big bad's agents while you were using it to crush the Lilliputians.

Ultimately, you need a high/low mix to deal with the spectrum of problems most efficiently.

It seems like we're doing this the wrong way...
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We are the big bad these days. And usually the aggressor. We start it with spooks long before we have to go clean up our mess with the military, though... that’s how our so-called “leaders” make it look legitimate.

We’ll also claim the despots we armed and put in positions of power in foreign lands via cash, weapons, and “consultants” were a better choice than those running against them, or in the case of places where democracy isn’t a thing, were more powerful than them.

We do NOT need over 200 foreign placed MILITARY bases for OUR protection. We’re just playing with countries power structures and threatening them on their borders on a literally constant basis like someone decided that was our job.
 
I think having 70-ish nuclear submarines is a completely indefensible expenditure.
 
I think it's those $10,000 hammers. Yeah that's it. :cool:
 
3393RP said:
I think having 70-ish nuclear submarines is a completely indefensible expenditure.
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Interesting. I tend to believe those subs have a lot of value in their ability to open and close sea lanes, which are (IMO) the key to global trade.
 
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