What Does this Handle Do?

[unhappycamper]

What Does this Handle Do?
Nothing like an inad­ver­tent ejec­tion story to keep the work­day mov­ing along. (Thanks to avi­a­tion pho­tog­ra­pher Jose Ramos who shared this with us via Facebook.)

As the plane rolled into another stomach-churning manoeu­vre, the pas­sen­ger was prob­a­bly wish­ing that he was some­where else. Then, just like that, he was.

The man, a civil­ian joyrid­ing with his air force pilot friend, acci­den­tally grabbed the eject lever while try­ing to brace him­self. He was instantly fired through the aircraft’s per­spex canopy and blasted 320ft (100m) into the sky by the rocket-powered chair. He then floated down to the ground with a para­chute that opened automatically.

Experts said he was lucky to escape unharmed from the bizarre acci­dent last week in South Africa.

~snip~

DT read­ers may remem­ber a sim­i­lar inci­dent involv­ing a ship dri­ver acci­dently punch­ing out of a Tomcat over the ranges of Fallon a few years back. That one hap­pened after the pilot rolled inverted as well. The pilot got to drive a con­vertable F-14 back to the field after his black­shoe pas­sen­ger departed.


Rest of article at: http://defensetech.org/2009/11/03/what-does-this-handle-do/?wh=wh



unhappycamper comment: I almost did the same thing near the Michelin rubber plantation while riding backseat in an OV-10 Bronco. After an hour and a half of flying around the plantation looking for bad guys we went cloud chasing. I found myself holding onto the ejection handle. Yikes!

The OV-10 was a pretty hot bird:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-10

[hobbit709]

1. Whatever you do, don't touch the red button

Which button
This one-oops.

[unhappycamper]

2. The handle was between my legs and yellow striped. n/t

[hobbit709]

3. I know that, the red button reference was to a bad movie

where it actuated the self-destruct mechanism.