FAO Les
 

Thanks Jamie. What a fascinating way of taking pictures, I could spend hours going through that lot...and probably will!

Great to see the Comet and the good old Vulcan again. You can see it was a pretty "matey" cockpit for the two pilots and also the two navigators and Air Electronics Officer in the rear section. The throttles as you see were in the middle of the cockpit so the captain had to use the stick with his left hand. Bit of a worry at first but you soon got used to it.

People were always amazed how small the crew cabin was when we used to show them around the aircraft.

Interesting too to see the Flight Engineer's seat on the Comet. Very similar to the VC10 as was the navigator's seat. Don't have either of those now on the modern aircraft of course.

Les :)

Ok so the Vulcan pilot and copilot seem to have ejector seats but the rear crew don't seem to have them? Were the navigators and air electronics officer expendable?

I think could be wrong pilot and co-pilot when ejected went below not above and as for the others they had a window to jump from ask les he is the chap that will know :)

Les am i correct on this ?

It is true that the pilots had ejector seats and the rear crew did not. The authorities decided that it was too difficult to fit them for the rear crew. All crew members had their parachutes on constantly during a flight.

The Rear crew had an escape system which meant opening the entry door in the bottom of the cabin with the ladder removed to the front of the aircraft. The ladder was always cleared from the door during flight. If abandonment was necessary then the Captain would order the crew to do so. The Co Pilot would eject the canopy above the cockpit and he would eject. The rear crew would swivel their seats to face towards the opened door and slide off their seats in turn to slide out of the aircraft on the open door beneath their feet, as they left the aircraft there was an attached cord which would deploy each man's chute as he cleared the door underneath the aircraft. Each crewman also had an assistor cushion on his seat which would inflate and push him out in case of any high G if that was being experienced.

While all this was going on, the Captain would be controlling the aircraft as best he could and would not use his ejector seat until the last crew man had left the aircraft.

The system worked remarkably well and was safe to use for rthe rear crew down to fairly low level. There have been several successful aircraft abandonments in the past.

There were frequent ground practices to ensure everyone was up the speed on the procedures.

Les

Cheers for the info les

Just found a bit more on google about this. There seem to be several incidents of low level problems where the pilot and copilot were able to eject but there was not enough height for the crew to escape.

Imagine being the pilot and knowing that the aircraft is doomed.You have done all you can to save it and then having to eject to save your own life with the knowledge that your crew will not make it.

Did any avros crash?

Didn't see anything about Avros crashing but stumbled on this picture of an F16 Falcon Thunderbird pilot ejecting http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/imag...from-crash.jpg now thats an impressive photo to take.

There was an instance where a Captain stayed with the aircraft too long for his own successful ejection in a serious emergency. He did eject as a last resort and survived only because his parachute lines became entangled in some overhead wires!

Les

Yes there have been a few, can't remember where or when. One instance was when an engine turbine broke off and went through the wing like a circular saw setting all the fuel tanks alight in the wing. The Captain tried to get to an airfield for an emergency landing but was losing control and eventually had to order the crew to abandon the aircraft. When the Co- Pilot blew the canopy off he said the flames could be seen to be higher than the rudder!

They all escaped safely and the Captain got an AFC for his part in it.

They said the engines were 60 feet in the ground after the crash!

They fitted titanium containment shields around the engines after that one.

Les

There is a list of the accidents on the Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vu..._and_incidents

Thanks for the link john

There is also a good account in the introduction of Vulcan 607

Link?

Sorry its old school

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulcan-607-R...9&sr=8-1-spell

Thanks for that link.

Les :)