MigBuster

The story of a lucky Intruder crew member who survived a partial ejection from a KA-6D From: http://theaviationist.com/2014/08/06/ka-6d-partial-ejection/ This things happen once every some million flights. The KA-6D was a tanker version of the A-6 attack aircraft obtained by converting existing Intruder airframes: radar and bombing equipment were removed and replaced with an internal hose-and-reel refueling package, with the drogue fairing protruding from underneath the rear fuselage. A total of 90 KA-6Ds were produced by Grumman for the U.S. Navy. One of the most famous events that involved a KA-6D during its operational life spanning from 1963 to 1997, took place on Jul. 9, 1991 to a VA-95 Green Lizard Intruder during an aerial refueling mission overhead its aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). On that day, Lt. Mark Baden and Lt. Keith Gallagher, who were the pilot and the bombardier and navigator (BN) of the Intruder “Lizard 515”, experienced a very unusual incident: a partial ejection from the aircraft. Both the crew members released their accounts of the mishap to Approach Magazine in November 1991 and the full story is today reported on www.gallagher.com. Gallagher himself explains: “Murphy’s Law says, “Whatever can go wrong, will, and when you least expect it.” (And, of course, we all know that Murphy was an aviator). […] Fortunately for me, however, he failed to follow through. On my 26th birthday I was blindsided by a piece of bad luck the size of Texas that should have killed me. Luckily, it was followed immediately by a whole slew of miracles that allowed me to be around for my 27th. We were the overhead tanker, one third of the way through cruise, making circles in the sky. Although the tanker pattern can be pretty boring midway through the cycle, we were alert and maintaining a good lookout doctrine because our airwing had a midair less than a week before, and we did not want to repeat.” After the third fuel update call, Lizard 515 aircrew decided that the left outboard drop was going to require a little help and as recommended by NATOPS (which is The Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization program, responsible for rules and regulations governing safe and correct operation of all naval aircraft), they applied positive and negative Gs to force the valve open. As explained by Gallagher, when the pilot moved the stick forward: “ I felt the familiar sensation of negative “G”, and then something strange happened: my head touched the canopy. For a brief moment I thought that I had failed to tighten my lap belts, but I knew that wasn’t true. Before I could complete that thought, there was a loud bang, followed by wind, noise, disorientation and more wind, wind, wind. Confusion reigned in my mind as I was forced back against my seat, head against the headrest, arms out behind me, the wind roaring in my head, pounding against my body. “Did the canopy blow off? Did I eject? Did my windscreen implode?” All of these questions occurred to me amidst the pandemonium in my mind and over my body. These questions were quickly answered, and replaced by a thousand more, as I looked down and saw a sight that I will never forget: the top of the canopy, close enough to touch, and through the canopy I could see the top of my pilot’s helmet. It took a few moments for this image to sink into my suddenly overloaded brain. This was worse than I ever could have imagined – I was sitting on top of a flying A-6!” The sensations experienced by Gallagher during this wild ride were extreme: “I couldn’t breathe. My helmet and mask had ripped off my head, and without them, the full force of the wind was hitting me square in the face. It was like trying to drink through a fire hose. I couldn’t seem to get a breath of air amidst the wind. My arms were dragging along behind me until I managed to pull both of them into my chest and hold them there.” While he was still trying to breathe, Gallagher thought that Baden would never have tried to land and he decided to start the ejection sequence once again: “I grabbed the lower handle with both hands and pulled-it wouldn’t budge. With a little more panic induced strength I tried again, but to no avail. The handle was not going to move. I attempted to reach the upper handle but the wind prevented me from getting a hand on it. As a matter of fact, all that I could do was hold my arms into my chest. If either of them slid out into the wind stream, they immediately flailed out behind me, and that was definitely not good.” In the meanwhile, Baden contacted the aircraft carrier: “Mayday, Mayday, this is 515. My BN has partially ejected. I need an emergency pull-forward!” The reply arrived immediately: “Roger, switch button six.” Baden switched to the UHF frequency preset on Channel 6 and said “Boss (the Air Officer who has to rule the flight deck), this is 515. My BN has partially ejected. I need an emergency pull-forward!” The Boss replied: “Bring it on in.” At this point Baden looked at his BN’s legs still moving and understood that Gallagher was not dead. So when the Boss came up and asked if the BN was still with the aircraft, Baden replied “Only his legs are still inside the cockpit.” Fortunately, the Boss understood what Baden meant and asked him if he was heading to the aircraft carrier for landing. When Baden confirmed he was returning to “homeplate,” the Boss told him that the aircraft carrier was ready to recover Lizard 515. But Gallagher’s conditions were really frantic: “The wind had become physically and emotionally overwhelming. It pounded against my face and body like a huge wall of water that wouldn’t stop. The roaring in my ears confused me, the pressure in my mouth prevented me from breathing, and the pounding on my eyes kept me from seeing. Time had lost all meaning. For all I knew, I could have been sitting there for seconds or for hours. I was suffocating, and I couldn’t seem to get a breath. I wish I could say that my last thoughts were of my wife, but as I felt myself blacking out, all I said was, “I don’t want to die.” While Baden headed to the USS Abraham Lincoln, he thought that he didn’t want to perform a perfect landing (the footage of which can be seen in the video below): “I had no intention of passing up any “perfectly good wires.” I touched down short of the 1-wire (the perfect carrier landing is dubbed OK 3 and it took place when the pilot engages the third of four wires placed on the carrier deck) and sucked the throttles to idle. The canopy shards directly in front of the BN’s chest looked like a butcher’s knife collection. I was very concerned that the deceleration of the trap was going to throw him into the jagged edge of the canopy.” Then after the landing Baden realized that Gallagher was still alive when he said: “Am I on the flight deck?” When Baden and Gallagher knew what really happened, it became obviously how much the Intruder BN had been lucky. Gallagher’s parachute had deployed and wrapped itself around the tail section of the plane then the timing release mechanism had fired and released the BN from the seat. The only things holding him attached to the plane were the parachute straps. For this well executed emergency landing Lt. Mark Baden was awarded the Air Medal for his decisive action on that day and the LSO (Landing Signal Officer), LCDR Mike Manazir, received the “Bug Roach Paddles Award” for his part in the recovery. The crew of the Lincoln was recognized for a well-executed emergency pull-forward – LT Baden had the jet on deck about six minutes after the emergency began. The Captain of the Lincoln would later read over the PA system, a portion of a letter written by Michelle Gallagher (LT Gallagher’s wife) where she thanked the crew of the Lincoln for saving her husband’s life, while the injuries suffered by the BN were later described by Gallagher himself: “My most serious injury was that 1/2 my right arm (the shoulder, bicep, and forearm) was paralyzed due to a stretched nerve in my shoulder. In addition, my left shoulder was damaged as well. I have all of the damage of someone who dislocated his shoulder, but it was not dislocated when I landed. My supposition is that it dislocated, and popped back in upon landing. Other than that, I was just extremely beat up. Via physical therapy, I recovered within 6 months. My right shoulder “came back” in about 1 month, my forearm in about 2-3 months, and my bicep returned in about 4-5 months. I had to re-do all of my physiological qualifications (swimming, etc) to prove that I was OK, but I flew again 6 months to the day after the accident.”

Wasn't aware we could barrel roll Google Type Do a barrel roll into Google: https://www.google.co.uk/

When I worked out what was going on 55 on second go. Way to wear out a mouse!

Everything is cash driven - even the new Scottish "Freedom Navy" - which is why it might look like this

No I suspect England will own the whole thing regardless

The tight gap between Greenland Iceland and the UK (“GIUK Gap”) was once the main “highway” used by Soviet bombers and maritime reconnaissance aircraft flying to Cuba, monitoring NATO maritime activities or simply probing local air defences. The mission to intercept the Soviet Tu-95/Tu-142 was assigned to the 57th FIS (Fighter Interceptor Squadron) “Black Knights”, deployed to Keflavik air base, in Iceland, from November 1954. The 57th FIS flew several types of aircraft such as the F-102, the F-106 (F-4C?) and the F-4E, before receiving the F-15C/Ds in November 1985. The Eagles belonging to the 57th FIS were fitted with CFTs (Conformal Fuel Tanks) which boosted their range allowing the F-15s to intercept and shadow the Bears much further out and for longer time. A former Black Knights pilot, Lt. Col. Tim “Sweet Lou” Kline described to Steve Davies for his book F-15 Eagle Engaged how an intercept against the Bears took place: “They were long intercepts. […] we’d be sitting there waiting, looking down at the water-the icebergs in the cold water-and getting our gas from the tanker while we waited, hoping our refuelling equipment worked because we were away from Keflavik. Sometimes we could be out there six hours.” Thanks to the standard CFTs, the F-15 demonstrated to be the perfect aircraft to intercept the Bears in the GIUK Gap. “When they did show up, they’d still be at altitude. Often we would simply go ‘pure pursuit’ on the raw return because to obtain a lock on would not only give away our presence but also allow the ‘Bear’s’ EWO (Electronic Warfare Operator) to begin tuning in his EW gear and start ‘duelling electrons’ with the APG-63 (the F-15 Doppler radar). It was important to not let them know what range we could actually get a lock on at and other information that would prove valuable intelligence to them,” Kline explained. If the aircraft were Soviet Navy maritime reconnaissance aircraft, instead of flying at cruising level “they’d ramp down to about 300-500ft altitude and slow down to about 230 knots to start dropping the sonobuoys and we would ‘call the drops’ so AWACS could plot their locations for Intel. When they were done they would turn around and go back northeast to Russia.” Sometimes, during bad weather interceptions, the Soviets turned into the F-15 trying force the fully loaded and bit less responsive Eagle into a dangerous attitude. Interestingly, at the apex of the Cold War tension, the 57th FIS mechanics fabricated a fictitious EW (Electronic Warfare) pod from a normal baggage pod. To make it more realistic, the fake pod was fitted with various unused UHF, automobile and other types of antennas and was mounted beneath one of the under wing pylons of one of the local F-15s. When the Eagle carrying the faux EW pod intercepted the Bear, the pilot rolled out alongside the Soviet aircraft with the pod fully visible to the Russian aircrew which took a lot of pictures of the previously unseen pod: how much time that Soviet intelligence officer had to waste in trying to identify the new “EW pod” remains a mystery. Another hilarious moment dates back to the time when one F-15 pilot showed off a Playboy nude centrefold across the expansive side of the Eagle’s canopy, for the Soviet aviators entertainment. Once they saw it, they responded by running the Bear air to air refuelling probe (which was encased in a long cylindrical tube extending above the nose and would be run out to clog up into the drogue basket) in and out, and in and out of its protective sleeve. The Black Knights did not survive too long after the end of the Cold War: in fact the F-15s of the 57th FIS ensured the QRA service at Keflavik until Mar. 1, 1995 when they were eventually disbanded. http://theaviationist.com/2014/08/04/russian-bears-at-giuk-gap/

During the early days of Vietnam Conflict, the US developed a special kind of attack aircraft to stop the flow of enemy troops and supplies: the gunship. The Gunship aircraft, born from the conversion of cargo aircraft into powerful aerial weapons armed with big guns, were based on the concept of the circling attack. In other words, the guns were mounted on the left side of the gunship so that the plane could fly a bank circle, achieving a good accuracy in strafing the target by using high velocity guns with a caliber of at least .30. The first two types of gunships developed by the US were the twin-engine piston powered Douglas C-47 Skytrain and Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, but the final leap was made relying on the size, speed and heft of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules which became known in the gunships world as the AC-130 Spectre. The first AC-130As were deployed in Vietnam in 1968. They were armed with two 20 mm and two 40 mm cannons and they flew their first missions teamed with F-4s, which had the task to attack and destroy with cluster bombs the enemyAAA (Anti Aircraft Artillery) that opened fire against the gunship. During the first missions the Spectre was also able to achieve an aerial victory when on May 8, 1969 an AC-130 shot down an enemy helicopter, as told by Wayne Mutza in his book Gunships The Story of Spooky, Shadow, Stinger and Spectre . But the AC-130s were best and widely used from October 1969 to April 1970, the so called dry season, during which the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) trucks transported ammunition supplies by using the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Spectres crews, that had the task to hunt trucks, were able to destroy and damage 25 of them in one mission: among these there were also AAA vehicles and, some times, the gunships came back to the base badly damaged. In the 1969-1970 dry season the NVA moved about 68,000 tons of provisions on the Trail, 47,000 tons of which were destroyed by the 12 deployed AC-130s with their 20 mm high density rounds and 40 mm Bofors cannons. The 1970-1971 was even busier for the gunships since American and South Vietnamese soldiers began moving into Laos: in fact, while the numbers of AC-130s increased from 12 to 18, the western part of the Trail became filled with an always increasing number of vehicles coming from east, where interdiction sorties had concentrated. Therefore, during this period a gunship could destroy more than 25 trucks per night and the 1970-1971 dry season ended with 58,500 tons of material destroyed. By the end of the 1971, after the NVA increased the number of the armored vehicles and the caliber of guns along the Trail, the U.S. deployed the first example of AC-130E. As explained in detail by Wayne Mutza in his book, the new Spectre model was armed with a new more potent gun, the M102 105 mm Howitzer which replaced one of the Bofors cannons on the left side of the gunship. The first Howitzer was installed in a gunship after it was repaired from some battle damages. Since it could fire from a distance of 12,000 meters, the Howitzer highly increased Spectre stand-off capabilities: the result was a higher kill ratio against trucks, since a vehicle hit by a 105 round had only a 10% chance to be still operable. During its first Vietnam deployment this single howitzer-mounted AC-130E destroyed 75 trucks and damaged 92 ones with the 105, and destroyed 27 vehicles and damaged 24 ones with 40 mm fire in 32 missions. http://theaviationist.com/2014/07/28/ac-130-vietnam-war/

Fantastic!

Pilot does well

Its been in development for so long - the release date is whenever it comes out basically

Lots of people will moan about it............

A well earned rest is long overdue.......take care and we hope you get well soon.

http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB3w/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9654 Thanks, and we appreciate all your input. I know I just said this in the other thread, but we can't just walk into other people's store and sell our games. I do see GOG has added "indie" section just last year, but the application process to get our games on there is still the same as pre-Greenlight Steam (and most other online stores). We need to submit our games and hope they're interested in selling them, and chances of getting our games on there, even after spending a lot of time and money, is very slim. And if you look at other indies' blogs that show the numbers, you should see that sales numbers on most online stores other than Steam are very small, usually a tiny fraction their own online store. In fact, they're so small that its usually combined with all other stores, so the charts usually has only three items - 1. Steam, 2. their own online store, 3. far distant third is "all other online stores" combined. So just getting on one of those isn't going to do us any good, it's only going to cost us more. It would make sense to try those other stores if we didn't already have our own online store. If you are not happy with the service we provide on our online store, and only willing to buy our games from more established stores, then we do apologize, and I'd like to remind everyone that we do offer 100% refund. Good news here is that the Steam is *rumored* to be getting rid of Greenlight process all together, and go "open" store later this year - meaning anyone will be able to sell their games on there, much like Google Play or Apple iTune. If this rumor is true, and they do open up their store, then we can look at moving some of games on there (and even consider closing our own store here), but whether we do or not will depend on how much it costs and how they sell. The decision will have very little to do with what we want, it'll be based on what we can afford. I think I've said this many many times before, and I sound like a broken record, but at the end of the day, its not about what we want (or what we're interested in), it's about what we can afford. It costs us time, resources and money (and a lot of it) to do anything - work on a patch, work on new dlcs, work on new games, and even work to put our games on different stores - and we're not "interested" unless we're confident that we can at least recover the cost (so we don't get deeper into the hole or go out of business completely). We are not interested in anything that loses us more money because we've already lost everything once, and can't afford to lose anymore. Luckily, the mobile games are doing well enough to cover for the cost of SF2 Exp2 and SF2 NA (almost), and things are finally getting close to back to normal around here. If you're offering a million dollars, we'd be happy to take it, as long as you understand that that's not a lot of money for game dev today and certainly not going to get you everything you want in a game. If you're going to insist that we spend extra 15+ million dollars to do the games you want as a condition to take that 1 mil, then no. Again, not because we don't want to, but because we can't afford to. And while all the complaining, fighting and bickering, and personal attacks and threats here do mean we're much happier working on mobile games, it doesn't factor much into deciding what we do. Despite all that negatives, we are still working on new PC games (we must really hate ourselves ), but they are something much smaller and cheaper, because again, its not about what we want, its about what we can afford. Thanks,

Interesting - thanks for posting

Didnt notice this in the link to RT I posted above - the Su-25 looks a bit like a Raven! - so the US shot it down

Informative........... http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/an-elite-f-14-airman-explains-why-the-tomcat-was-so-imp-1610043625

A whip round perhaps? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-28459093 Two ex-RAF jets could find their way into private collectors' hands after being put up for sale with no reserve. A 1976 Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR3 jump-jet and a 1988 Panavia Tornado F3 are being sold at Silverstone Auctions in Northamptonshire this weekend.

With a bit of help

Well done - that sounds really positive and I hope it works out for you.

You mean this? http://rt.com/news/174412-malaysia-plane-russia-ukraine/ It must be true because it's already on Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-25 That's right 3.0mtrs and what you doubt these figures for service ceiling?

Probably why they are all desperately pointing the finger at each other. Basically a ceasefire and a peaceful out come suits Putin more doesn't it.............