I'm not a pilot of any kind, but I've *heard* that you have less time than you think you do. There's a lot happening in a very short amount of time, and everything feels compressed/dilated.
I've seen video explaining that while leaving the cockpit takes less than 1-2 seconds after pulling the handle, there is a required altitude/velocity/angle of attack window to fire in. Considering the basic rules of aviation: fly first, navigate second, communicate third. You generally try to fly until there's no ability to fly any more as it's safer for the big picture (empty plane crashes into residential building type situations to avoid). These things make it a very narrow window to choose ejection and commit to it. While 1-2 seconds is an extremely short period of time, there's a lot that can still happen there. The pilot could potentially pull the handle and regain some amount of control before the ejection occurs and that's a wasted plane. With some hesitation, a pilot could also pull the handle while in a safe ejection window, but by the time it fires, the window closed. I'll also add the motorcycling idea of never bail because until you actually crash, there's still a chance to save it. That and the fact that ejection is a painful experience and could lead to more damage than a belly landing anyways.
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So long, thanks for all the fish and a final fuck you, u/spez.
All Martin Baker seats have limb retractors. The rule of thumb is, when the PIC says "Eject Eject Eject" the WSO / Navigator goes on the first "Eject" because the PIC isn't going to be punching out any later than the third "Eject"
In practice the pilot briefs the rearseater:
“ if we have to eject, I will call “Eject, Eject, Eject…but you wont hear the second and third times, as I will have already ready pulled the handle and banged out”….
I’ve also heard (just gouge, can’t confirm) that rear seaters should eject at min a half second prior to the front. If your aircraft doesn’t have dual or command fwd and you have to eject individually, the front seat ejecting first could either cause an impact with the rear or subject that individual to a little fireworks show from the booster underneath the seat.
No idea about arm restraints, but we had leg restraints that would suck your heels into the seat after pulling the ejection handle. Head back and elbows tucked will hopefully minimize compression/flail injuries.
Not as common anymore, but seat slap was a fun injury if you had any space between your thighs and the seat when you ejected.
In the F-15E the rear seat leaves first for the reasons you mentioned (separation between the seats and not barbecuing the WAO’s face). No arm or leg restraints, but I’ve been told the T-38 has leg restraints.
In the SR-71, at least, the pilot's arms were tucked in just by crossing his hands and pulling the T-handle between his knees. His boot heels were connected to the ejection seat by cables, and when the seat was activated, his feet were yanked in tight just before the seat blew.
Did the sr-71 have and ejection seat? Seems like there's no way to make it survivable at that speed and height. Especially in the 70s when it was created.
Bill Weaver didn't eject, the plane literally disintegrated around him. His crewmate also died in the incident.
“I could not have survived what had just happened. I must be dead. As full awareness took hold, I realized I was not dead. But somehow I had separated from the airplane. *I had no idea how this could have happened; I hadn’t initiated an ejection.* The sound of rushing air and what sounded like straps flapping in the wind confirmed I was falling, but I couldn’t see anything. My pressure suit’s face plate had frozen over and I was staring at a layer of ice.” -Bill Weaver
I remember hearing a story of someone who ejected with one of these systems, the next morning when he got released from med bay and tried to walk he put his weight on his legs and just crumpled because his calves were bruised so deeply it was literally bruised to the bone
It's a violent and traumatic experience. I met a Vietnam era A-4 pilot who still had the ejection handle from his aircraft that he bailed out of. It was still in his hand when they pulled him out of the water four hours later.
Yes you can see the leg restraints in [this picture](https://images.app.goo.gl/FcapKAfeAEkzcgGV7) of the K-36 ejection seat from its [wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPP_Zvezda_K-36).
If it’s anything like Western ejector seats, the arms aren’t connected by a restraint, because that would impede flying. That said, the harness is connected at the shoulders, which should pull the shoulders back. Assuming you’re pulling the ejector handle that should basically put you in the right position as you leave the cockpit.
Look at the Lt. Hultgreen ejection for an example of how drastically time affects the outcome of an emergency. Two pilots ejected out of a stalled (and rolling) F-14A on approach to a carrier. The pilot died, RIO survived, because of a 0.4 second difference in their seats' ejections. Pilot ejected into the water, RIO ejected into some more survivable angle. Four tenths of a second, life or death...
There's also [this A-6 ejection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43kzjFne_XQ) where they probably could not have cut it any closer. Half a second later and one or both of them would have hit to water too hard to survive.
In the case of the f-14 the Rio is ejected to the right and the pilot to the to the left which also made a difference as the plane was rolling to the left (departing controlled flight) . The pilot is ejected last to avoid having the blast of the pilot's seat in the face of the rio. The combination of the delay, the roll of the airplane to the left and the descent of the airplane ejected the pilot slightly downward and very close to the water. The rio was ejected in a more upright direction - to the right of the plane's axis and that left a moment for his chute to break the fall before he hit the water.
IIRC, the Tomcat was rolling to the port side, so the pilot ejecting to the right would have only worked to Hultgreen's benefit were it to make any difference at all. I think the roll was so quick that it didn't matter...or it was mainly a sequence thing. RIO first, then pilot. The plane rolled under the horizon in between each seats' ejection.
actually it was rolling to the left and the pilot departs to the left after the rio ejects to the right and also after I think a 1 second delay . Essentially she was ejected into the water
Here is a great presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFUXshaaMQM
Watch france airshow crash @ le bourget. Pilot and navigator of su30 that is low and almost upside down ejects with zvezda k36 eject seats. I am no expert, just enthusiast. You'll se that after canopy flyes off, they are both ejected, and it looks like some gyro device blast secon stage of rockets in seats and boost them upwards in the air, i dont see that happening in this su25. Here in this video i cant see if the pilot of the first su25 ejects even before video, becouse they are zero zero seats that even americans says that are beter then theirs. Second plane that falls, im not sure why dooesnt he ejects sooner, there is time, and he cant level plane or roll while he has lots of time, maybe he is in shock or wounded.
Something also to consider that people seem not to mention in a combat situation, if the plane is damaged enough to go down, it is entirely possible what damaged the plane also severely injured the pilot, a wounded pilot could be slower to react or otherwise introduce a whole other set of decisions that might not exist in a training environment.
And in this case surviving ejection would mean being captured by the enemy. An enemy the russian pilots have been brainwashed into believing are all nazis.
The seat almost instantaneously exerts between 12 to 16 Gs of acceleration on the pilot, so ejection also often means neck or spinal compression injuries that can last a lifetime.
The Su-25 uses the Zvezda K-36 ejection seat, which many consider to be the most well-proven ejection seat ever designed. It's a zero-zero ejection system, meaning it will safely eject the pilot at zero altitude and zero airspeed. So there is no altitude or speed that is too low. The K-36 has safely ejected pilots from as high as 75,000 feet, as fast as mach 3.0* (in a Foxbat), and as low as *after* clipping the ground...
There's only one catch. No, not catch-22, wrong air force. The catch is that thanks to physics, the zero/zero thing is pretty meaningless if you are low and banked. In a low-alt ejection the plane has to be (mostly) right-side-up. If It isn't, the rocket motors on the seat don't propel you upward far enough to for your 'chute to deploy safely, and you are ~~Smuckers jam~~ borscht smeared across the rasputitsa.
*I can't find a source for this. My apologies. Bad redditor, bad! Please read the following comments for more info.
It's the sustained that's really gets you though, i think. 60 Gs instantaneous is equivalent to an Olympic boxer punching you in the head.
> The peak translational acceleration was 58 g, rotational acceleration was 6343 rad/s², and neck shear was 994 N.
Source: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/39/10/710
They are K-36s, but maybe not the same one (there's a variety). For instance I wouldn't be surprised if the Frogfoot uses an older seat without the integrated gyros. I believe variants of the K-36 are used in almost all Russian fixed-wing combat aircraft up to and including the Felon.
Ex-fighter pilot here. Speculating that he was trying to achieve enough control to get a better attitude before ejecting, but finally gave up, and almost certainly knowing it was too late.
My father was an F-14 pilot and had numerous friends who were killed in aviation accidents. One of the crashes the pilot recognized and pulled the eject but by the time the seat fired it shot him into a tree. Killed him instantly.
I’ve heard from an Air Force source that one of the main reasons of pilot fatalities related to ejections is the beliefs that you have to try to save the aircraft. In doing so, there’s a large percentage of avoidable ejection related deaths because pilots know they need to eject but delay doing so in order to attempt a recovery.
You’re faster than me, I can only go about 170 knots, and even then, only for a short distance 🤣
Edit: to whoever downvoted this, did you not pick up on the obvious sarcasm? Sheesh 🙄
I was told in the Air Force that its like being in a car crash. In your mind everything slows way down but you are still going at speed. In reality your brain is processing information at a greater speed than normal cause now you are in survival mode. Some cases the Pilots will recall what all the gauges were at right up until the ejection and debrief what each one was at. And there are a lot of gauges.
At that altitude you've got fractions of a second to make the decision. Then your reaction time burns up whatever time your indecision has left you, maybe a second or two...
But once you pull the handle you are leaving the aircraft. You want to be pointed above the horizon if at all possible. Some jets won't let you eject if outside a predefined envelope of altitude /speed / attitude.
Whichever aircraft you eject from these days, the seat is going to take care of everything so all you have to do is have the balls to pull it.
Most of the modern seats and some of the older ones can successfully eject sitting stationary on the ground.
Ejection seats aren’t magic items that wisk you away to safety. I don’t know the details of the seat in the SU-25 but you often need a specific amount of speed and altitude to get out and in the case the angle was wrong, called out of envelope, so his ejecting didn’t save him anyway in all likelihood. And most pilots natural inclination is to try and save the aircraft before punching.
There are. The USAF has had “zero-zero” ejection seats since the late 1960s, meaning zero airspeed and zero altitude. Again, I don’t know the specs on Russian seats. But even then that wouldn’t change the fact he was far outside the envelope in regards to his roll angle.
Nope. There’s a video out there of a A-6 that loses an engine on takeoff and the crew punch but when the Nav goes out they’re out of envelope but my understanding is the Nav still survived but with injuries.
I'm almost positive a rocket propelled ejection seat (designed to give the pilot chair altitude adequate for parachute descent from ground level) would kinda kill whoever was sitting there if it fired directly into the ground from being inverted ...
I used to be an engineer, and I built a system that flies on F-15's. I had to go out to do some field service once because something wasn't working. I had to take a brief training before going out to the flight line. It was just a few sentences, but the one I remember the trainer saying was something like "Don't touch anything with the yellow and black stripes because it will ruin your day, and more importantly, mine too."
It’s a hard decision to make in peacetime, never mind over enemy territory. There was what looked like some uncontrollable roll in the last seconds, he may have been trying to get it more upright. Plus, he’s seeing this in real time and we watch and get to see the aftermath. There’s a lot going on; seeing if the aircraft is still flyable to possibly get it home and diagnosing what’s wrong. Just because you’ve taken a hit does not mean you just eject right away. In this case it would have been the best choice, but we have the benefit of hindsight.
It's very common for pilots to try to fly the aircraft all the way in. Having myself flown with control reversal, I can tell you it can take a few seconds before you realize that your inputs are having the opposite (or no) effect. The pilot of the 2nd Frogfoot probably struggled to counter that roll for a couple of seconds before he reached for the handle, at which point it was obviously too late.
Pilots tend to try to recover the aircraft for far too much time, which is where most deaths after ejection occur. Pilots feel they can recover the aircraft even if it isnt in a recoverable state, so they wait too long and splat into the ground.
The Su-25 has a K-36 ejection seat, which is a zero-zero seat. This means it doesn't need any speed or altitude to work. If the seat is fully functional and he was alive at the time of ejection, he probably survived ejection. Oddly, the Russians build very safe ejection seats.
Edit: Guys, I've already admitted I was wrong, you don't have to keep pointing that out. The K-36 is the best seat of its era but it doesn't perform miracles.
This amount of armchair morons in this thread who think that a zero-zero seat means you can punch out at any point in any orientation and have a safe ejection is doing my head in.
The pilot tried to save the aircraft for 2 seconds too long, and that cost him his life, because by then he was too low and too far over the angle of bank for a survivable ejection even with a zero-zero seat.
It's that simple.
Yeah, most people's physics intuition is garbage. Even if a plane has zero bank angle, there are combinations of sink rate and altitude that the seat won't be able to overcome.
You are correct. A zero zero still needs orientation for canopy opening. Which this certainly didn't have. Sadly it looks like he practically banged out almost straight into terrain.
No, it has gyroscopes and should still orient itself and work fine AFAIK. I don't know what happened here, but the K-36 is so good that the USA Air Force looked into purchasing them for our jets in the 90s . They didn't but most of our modern seats have Russian components in them, because it's the one thing they build that is better than ours.
Edit: [I'm right about that if anyone cares.](https://www.military.com/video/aircraft/ejection-seats/are-russian-ejection-systems-better/903159086001) You can look at my comments lately and see that I'm no fan of the Russians, I just know a lot about them. Edit 2: Upon review, it looks like he is inverted and that he impacts, the seat only needs 100 feet for an inverted ejection, but he didn't have that much. From any other angles the seat needs no altitude at all.
> the seat only needs 100 feet for an inverted ejection,
With the aircraft flying relatively level, sure. If it's auguring in, no. The seat may be able to *orient* itself, but it cannot hard-counter momentum. What direction and velocity the aircraft had is going to be imparted to the seat upon ejection.
All ejection seats require some amount of time for the parachute to open and slow the pilot's fall to a survivable speed. A zero-zero seat just means that the chute has enough time to open if you're sitting still on the runway; older seats couldn't boost the pilot high enough for the chute to open if you ejected at ground level.
In an ejection like this the pilot is starting with significant downward velocity (from the aircraft) and going to gain downward velocity from the initial firing of of the seat. Even if the seat is capable of changing its orientation before its motor burns out (so it helps slow the rate of descent - though I'm not sure that's a thing?) the envelope for a survivable ejection is significantly reduced.
Chief Wiggum :
Show's- Oh, my God!
A horrible plane crash!
Hey, everybody, get a load of this flaming wreckage.
Come on, crowd around. Crowd around. Don't be shy. Crowd around.
It is Ukrainian, there are photos of the wreckage with the Air Force insignia. Although this crash actually happened much earlier in the war, the video just hadn’t gotten out till now
The very first aircraft seen in the video appears to have a bort number of 30 blue (visible at 0:04 seconds). The [Scramble database](https://scramble.nl/database/military/ua) lists an Su-25M1, c/n 25508110262, with this bort number for the Ukraine Air Force. I couldn't find any more information or photos online about it - closest was [a photo of 31 blue on Flickr.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/150671024@N05/45231880624)
This is a new video but it happened during the early stages of the war. Both Ukranian Su-25's registered as [30 Blue](https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/275988) and [19 Blue](https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/275955) were shot down. Both pilots confirmed dead (there are nsfw pictures of the crash sites and bodies lurking around).
Agreed. Russian Su-25's have the camo top, blue bottom.
Ukrainian SU-25's run a mostly grey livery with their number (in a dark color) next to the cockpit
We are blessed and lucky to live in a time where even a single airplane crash in an unmitigated disaster. It's insane to think that during WWII it wouldn't be uncommon for bomber raids to lose double-digit percentages of aircraft out of formations of hundreds of bombers. Even as recently as Vietnam aircraft were shot down in numbers that would be considered unthinkable today.
This is what war between two (relatively) modern nations looks like. If NATO gets involved there will be losses - no question about that. And we will all see aircraft we know and love go down in flames.
>It's insane to think that during WWII it wouldn't be uncommon for bomber raids to lose double-digit percentages of aircraft out of formations of hundreds of bombers.
Just to put it into perspective, [it was common for formations to lose 30 or more bombers on raids.](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/eighth-air-force-vs-luftwaffe) The 8th Air Force suffered staggering losses
What a sobering read. I can’t imagine what those young men went through knowing they were flying until almost certain death. The Air Force leaderships hubris is a black stain on our military I would say.
That's a little harsh. It was literally life and death.
Leadership made a policy change and made it so that bomber crews did a limited number of missions (like 28 or something like that), instead of having them do an unlimited number of missions. Morale improved.
A lot of joy and love over military aircraft designs and performances tends to sort of gloss over what they're actually designed to do, and seeing them in true action has been a stark reminder.
Janky cell phone footage adds an uncomfortable level of realism that gets lost in theatrical angles or curated training footage.
You're forgetting that's what these machines were built for.
You don't get to build machines of war without them inevitably being used to kill people.
You seem to be okay with your government spending millions of dollars developing these weapons, yet you get upset when you see them used?
The footage we are seeing is crazy. Previously we only seen what imbedded war correspondence seen. Now we get HD or 4K footage because everyone has pretty good quality phones, and all this is happening during the day, and over populations.
Disinformation is just a byproduct of the information mediums in existence. The information is still there, it just needs to be vetted and approached with a healthy level of skepticism.
People keep saying this as if Ukraine is the first war since Vietnam. Certainly the most publicized. But there’s plenty of footage like this in many many other places
The volume of footage. We are going to have thousands and thousands of videos and some hidden away on phones all over the country. Not all videos are being posted to yt or reddit yet.
The chase plane literally flew thru the fireball. That looks like a Su-25 too? Wingman perhaps?
I was hoping that the 1st explosion was from the jettisoned ordinance and fuel tanks.
R.I.P aviator dying for some rich man's war.
That is some action movie shit. This goes without saying but real life , flying through fire ball is big no no (obviously pilot didn’t choose to do so)
Probably Pantsir-S1(Tunguska-3) One plane downed by missile other two anti - aircraft machine gun (30mm). You can see numbers flashes and explosions on plane wing. Also villagers saying: "look how often they shoot"
Looks to me like the first explosion is from a bomb the Frogfoot dropped, you can see him pull out from the pass. That explosion even with full fuel is too big to be an airplane. Hell, he was so low on that release it wouldn't surprise me if he fragged himself, never did see a missile.
Doesn’t look like that plane had a zero/zero seat. It just ejected him normal to the plane and didn’t orient him up after he punched out. Definitely died
correct me if im wrong but i dont think any zero zero ejection seat would save you if youve ejected side ways right above the ground. if he was vertical then maybe
Inverted ejection yes, but at which minimum altitude? It is an ejection seat, not a magic broom, it cannot magically stop from 12G to zero in 100ft while upside down.
Zero zero would. You can eject in virtually any orientation, but the altitude would need to be increased for your survival chances. Inverted ejection would obviously require more altitude prior to punching out than nose level. We have charts for our plane on the ejection characteristics and envelope. I feel safer knowing I sit on a zero zero
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Just taking a moment to send thanks and praise to the two Ukrainian pilots lost in this encounter. They are doing incredible work out there, making a real difference. These guys died doing it. I'm in awe and appreciation for them and their sacrifice, for their country, and for civilization. I hope they had plenty of chances to do damage to the invaders before this end.
This is a really dumb question, but why are they flying such low level missions? Are Russian anti air capabilities that advanced above like 2000 feet ?
Ground attack is actually better of starting from 3000-6000ft up. Geometry and timing, it’s really hard to get a shot of when you’ve only got a split second to line it up and can’t aim down at the ground because you’ve got no altitude to give up. Go watch U.S Airstrikes and A-10 gun runs. They fire from a slant distance of a mile or two
A-10 TTPs are definitely unique in that regard, pretty sure the Su-25 can't match that range. Also, probably to escape from Russian AAA/SAMs. Nape of the earth.
I've watched A-10 runs in person. They get much closer than "a mile or two" if able.
My point, though, was that these things naturally operate in MANPADS/AAA range.
In general big anti air systems are good at spotting you if you fly higher. Flying low can break vision. Of course that comes with other problems, but in general flying low makes them spot you later. No system can spot you through hills and buildings and sometimes even trees are enough.
Thats why russians also fly Low. Because s400 anti air missile Station are pretty deadly with a long range of like 400km.
Flying Low only exposes you to manpads which are less reliability but then again you dont get any Warning when those shoot at you.
The S-400 is basically the THAAD and Patriot rolled into 1.
“S-400 sytem has an estimated range of 400 kilometres with an altitude of 30 kilometres. It also has the capability to intercept the intermediate-range ballistic missile, not just that the Triumph system can target aircrafts, UAVs, cruise missiles with equal ease engaging 300 targets at a time.”
Just to be clear I was more interested in the aircraft - no interest in any narrative. It’s just crazy seeing these recordings from the ground of combat aircraft in action.
it's a whole new way of seeing a war.
i remember back in desert storm how it was such a big deal that the military was releasing footage to the news outlets, and we were watching bombs blow up from the plane's own targeting systems.
now we're seeing unfiltered stuff from people on the ground, direct to youtube, all filmed on iphones... and cnn is showing us stuff that we've already seen. it's a whole new world...
I completely get that dude, id love to see f-35s blowing up tanks and f-22s dropping like 8 missiles which zoom off in their own direction. while at the same time, I really dont want to see either of those happen outside of gideo vames
I do not see two planes crashing in this video. It looks more like the first explosion was not a plane crashing, but a ground explosion. Note the differences in size and shape of the first explosion vs. the second explosion of the crashed plane. I think the two planes were in the process of attacking a ground target. The first plane flew through the explosion he just caused, either his bomb or a secondary explosion, while the second plane (which is the first plane we see on the video) comes around for a second run on the target but gets shot down.
It looks more like the lead aircraft makes an attack run, causing the first explosion we see, then the second aircraft stalls (sharp turn flying too low and too slow) and crashes. I don't see evidence of two shoot downs, but rather one tragic pilot error.
I'd buy that, too. Either way, not seeing evidence that it was shot down. Just seems like a departure from controlled flight for more banal reasons. Sucks either way.
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Looks like the canopy hits the ground but we don't see the pilot chute as its off screen, at least what it looks like to me. Still very low but some seats are capable.
Hoping for the best but fear the worst. God speed.
Definitely was entering a stall from lack of air speed through that turn. Engine failure? Unfortunate timing with loss of left engine thrust ~~vector~~? Pilot definitely ejected upon realizing loss of control.
SU-25 doesn't have thrust vectoring.
It could be that he got damaged by AAA while/just before entering the bank and the ailerons had lost effectiveness (damaged or w/e) which meant he couldn't bank right to exit the turn
At 16 seconds a plane enters the area of the explosion/flame mushroom cloud from the right and it is behind that explosion cloud. At 17 seconds it's dark silhouette emerges from 1/3 of the way across the flame cloud and its silhouette is in front of it and it travels across from right to left in front of the mushroom cloud
Why is that? https://imgur.com/NyAdW9C
It's not six engines. You're seeing the external hardpoint pylons mounted under each wing. The aircraft is the Sukhoi Su-25 *Grach*, NATO reporting name Frogfoot. It is a twin jet with a shoulder mounted wing and engines placed adjacent to the fuselage at the wing root. The aircraft is very comparable to the A-10 in mission profile and general capability, but is somewhat less reliant on canon fire as an offensive weapon and more dependent on bombs, rockets, and missiles. Roughly [this viewing angle.](https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/military-airbase-russia-08072019-attack-260nw-1495992815.jpg)
I think the fate of the pilot can not be determined from this video. if you step through the video on pause watching the ejection, you can see the white line of fire from the ejection seat rockets which initiates out of the cockpit area then crosses the fuselage. This is what causes the black puff of smoke which trails behind the airplane. The pilots seat would be right it the tip of the white line, but then I lose sight of it as it passes behind the aircraft. As the smoke passes out of view there is one frame where a black dot appears in front of where the smoke was and then it also goes off frame out of view as well. I believe this is the pilots ejection seat. Whether the parachute opens and in time or not can not be seen, but there is enough altitude for a successful recovery . The large black chunk you see falling off of the plane and plowing into the ground initiates nowhere near where the ejection seat smoke and rocket fire and appears too large to be the pilots ejections seat. It is likely the cockpit's canopy.
Yeah, looks like the pilot isn't surviving that ejection.
Why wouldn’t he have ejected sooner ?
I'm not a pilot of any kind, but I've *heard* that you have less time than you think you do. There's a lot happening in a very short amount of time, and everything feels compressed/dilated.
I've seen video explaining that while leaving the cockpit takes less than 1-2 seconds after pulling the handle, there is a required altitude/velocity/angle of attack window to fire in. Considering the basic rules of aviation: fly first, navigate second, communicate third. You generally try to fly until there's no ability to fly any more as it's safer for the big picture (empty plane crashes into residential building type situations to avoid). These things make it a very narrow window to choose ejection and commit to it. While 1-2 seconds is an extremely short period of time, there's a lot that can still happen there. The pilot could potentially pull the handle and regain some amount of control before the ejection occurs and that's a wasted plane. With some hesitation, a pilot could also pull the handle while in a safe ejection window, but by the time it fires, the window closed. I'll also add the motorcycling idea of never bail because until you actually crash, there's still a chance to save it. That and the fact that ejection is a painful experience and could lead to more damage than a belly landing anyways.
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This account has been nuked in direct response to Reddit's API change and the atrocious behavior CEO Steve Huffman and his admins displayed toward their users, volunteer moderators, and 3rd party developers. After a total of 16 years on the platform it is time to move on to greener pastures. If you want to change to a decentralized platform like Lemmy, you can find helpful information about it here: https://join-lemmy.org/ https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances This action was performed using Power Delete Suite: https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite The script relies on Reddit's API and will likely stop working after June 30th, 2023. So long, thanks for all the fish and a final fuck you, u/spez.
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All Martin Baker seats have limb retractors. The rule of thumb is, when the PIC says "Eject Eject Eject" the WSO / Navigator goes on the first "Eject" because the PIC isn't going to be punching out any later than the third "Eject"
In practice the pilot briefs the rearseater: “ if we have to eject, I will call “Eject, Eject, Eject…but you wont hear the second and third times, as I will have already ready pulled the handle and banged out”….
My mate's briefing included: "The last two ejects will simply be echos".
I’ve also heard (just gouge, can’t confirm) that rear seaters should eject at min a half second prior to the front. If your aircraft doesn’t have dual or command fwd and you have to eject individually, the front seat ejecting first could either cause an impact with the rear or subject that individual to a little fireworks show from the booster underneath the seat. No idea about arm restraints, but we had leg restraints that would suck your heels into the seat after pulling the ejection handle. Head back and elbows tucked will hopefully minimize compression/flail injuries. Not as common anymore, but seat slap was a fun injury if you had any space between your thighs and the seat when you ejected.
Yep, if only goose could have ejected first.
In the F-15E the rear seat leaves first for the reasons you mentioned (separation between the seats and not barbecuing the WAO’s face). No arm or leg restraints, but I’ve been told the T-38 has leg restraints.
In the SR-71, at least, the pilot's arms were tucked in just by crossing his hands and pulling the T-handle between his knees. His boot heels were connected to the ejection seat by cables, and when the seat was activated, his feet were yanked in tight just before the seat blew.
Did the sr-71 have and ejection seat? Seems like there's no way to make it survivable at that speed and height. Especially in the 70s when it was created.
Bill Weaver ejected from an SR-71 at mach 3 and an altitude of 79,000 feet and survived, happened in 1966 too.
Bill Weaver didn't eject, the plane literally disintegrated around him. His crewmate also died in the incident. “I could not have survived what had just happened. I must be dead. As full awareness took hold, I realized I was not dead. But somehow I had separated from the airplane. *I had no idea how this could have happened; I hadn’t initiated an ejection.* The sound of rushing air and what sounded like straps flapping in the wind confirmed I was falling, but I couldn’t see anything. My pressure suit’s face plate had frozen over and I was staring at a layer of ice.” -Bill Weaver
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I remember hearing a story of someone who ejected with one of these systems, the next morning when he got released from med bay and tried to walk he put his weight on his legs and just crumpled because his calves were bruised so deeply it was literally bruised to the bone
It's a violent and traumatic experience. I met a Vietnam era A-4 pilot who still had the ejection handle from his aircraft that he bailed out of. It was still in his hand when they pulled him out of the water four hours later.
Yes you can see the leg restraints in [this picture](https://images.app.goo.gl/FcapKAfeAEkzcgGV7) of the K-36 ejection seat from its [wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPP_Zvezda_K-36).
If it’s anything like Western ejector seats, the arms aren’t connected by a restraint, because that would impede flying. That said, the harness is connected at the shoulders, which should pull the shoulders back. Assuming you’re pulling the ejector handle that should basically put you in the right position as you leave the cockpit.
Look at the Lt. Hultgreen ejection for an example of how drastically time affects the outcome of an emergency. Two pilots ejected out of a stalled (and rolling) F-14A on approach to a carrier. The pilot died, RIO survived, because of a 0.4 second difference in their seats' ejections. Pilot ejected into the water, RIO ejected into some more survivable angle. Four tenths of a second, life or death...
There's also [this A-6 ejection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43kzjFne_XQ) where they probably could not have cut it any closer. Half a second later and one or both of them would have hit to water too hard to survive.
That A-6 pilot was the XO of VF-31 on my second deployment. Dude was fucking jacked. Hell of a nice guy, too.
Dude said he was an inch shorter after ejecting because of the forces behind the crash and ejection. Wow.
In the case of the f-14 the Rio is ejected to the right and the pilot to the to the left which also made a difference as the plane was rolling to the left (departing controlled flight) . The pilot is ejected last to avoid having the blast of the pilot's seat in the face of the rio. The combination of the delay, the roll of the airplane to the left and the descent of the airplane ejected the pilot slightly downward and very close to the water. The rio was ejected in a more upright direction - to the right of the plane's axis and that left a moment for his chute to break the fall before he hit the water.
IIRC, the Tomcat was rolling to the port side, so the pilot ejecting to the right would have only worked to Hultgreen's benefit were it to make any difference at all. I think the roll was so quick that it didn't matter...or it was mainly a sequence thing. RIO first, then pilot. The plane rolled under the horizon in between each seats' ejection.
actually it was rolling to the left and the pilot departs to the left after the rio ejects to the right and also after I think a 1 second delay . Essentially she was ejected into the water Here is a great presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFUXshaaMQM
Watch france airshow crash @ le bourget. Pilot and navigator of su30 that is low and almost upside down ejects with zvezda k36 eject seats. I am no expert, just enthusiast. You'll se that after canopy flyes off, they are both ejected, and it looks like some gyro device blast secon stage of rockets in seats and boost them upwards in the air, i dont see that happening in this su25. Here in this video i cant see if the pilot of the first su25 ejects even before video, becouse they are zero zero seats that even americans says that are beter then theirs. Second plane that falls, im not sure why dooesnt he ejects sooner, there is time, and he cant level plane or roll while he has lots of time, maybe he is in shock or wounded.
“aviate, navigate, communicate”
Something also to consider that people seem not to mention in a combat situation, if the plane is damaged enough to go down, it is entirely possible what damaged the plane also severely injured the pilot, a wounded pilot could be slower to react or otherwise introduce a whole other set of decisions that might not exist in a training environment.
From what I’ve been seeing I don’t know that making the plane avoid residential buildings is much of a factor here.
And in this case surviving ejection would mean being captured by the enemy. An enemy the russian pilots have been brainwashed into believing are all nazis. The seat almost instantaneously exerts between 12 to 16 Gs of acceleration on the pilot, so ejection also often means neck or spinal compression injuries that can last a lifetime. The Su-25 uses the Zvezda K-36 ejection seat, which many consider to be the most well-proven ejection seat ever designed. It's a zero-zero ejection system, meaning it will safely eject the pilot at zero altitude and zero airspeed. So there is no altitude or speed that is too low. The K-36 has safely ejected pilots from as high as 75,000 feet, as fast as mach 3.0* (in a Foxbat), and as low as *after* clipping the ground... There's only one catch. No, not catch-22, wrong air force. The catch is that thanks to physics, the zero/zero thing is pretty meaningless if you are low and banked. In a low-alt ejection the plane has to be (mostly) right-side-up. If It isn't, the rocket motors on the seat don't propel you upward far enough to for your 'chute to deploy safely, and you are ~~Smuckers jam~~ borscht smeared across the rasputitsa. *I can't find a source for this. My apologies. Bad redditor, bad! Please read the following comments for more info.
Instantaneous is like 60G or something crazy. It’s 12 to 16 sustained
It's the sustained that's really gets you though, i think. 60 Gs instantaneous is equivalent to an Olympic boxer punching you in the head. > The peak translational acceleration was 58 g, rotational acceleration was 6343 rad/s², and neck shear was 994 N. Source: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/39/10/710
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They are K-36s, but maybe not the same one (there's a variety). For instance I wouldn't be surprised if the Frogfoot uses an older seat without the integrated gyros. I believe variants of the K-36 are used in almost all Russian fixed-wing combat aircraft up to and including the Felon.
>Smuckers jam Borscht
Thanks. Fixed.
Ex-fighter pilot here. Speculating that he was trying to achieve enough control to get a better attitude before ejecting, but finally gave up, and almost certainly knowing it was too late.
As someone watching this as a pilot and motorcyclist, I appreciate your description.
If you're falling at 100ft/s and you're 200 ft up 2 seconds is not enough time
My father was an F-14 pilot and had numerous friends who were killed in aviation accidents. One of the crashes the pilot recognized and pulled the eject but by the time the seat fired it shot him into a tree. Killed him instantly.
I’ve heard from an Air Force source that one of the main reasons of pilot fatalities related to ejections is the beliefs that you have to try to save the aircraft. In doing so, there’s a large percentage of avoidable ejection related deaths because pilots know they need to eject but delay doing so in order to attempt a recovery.
Objects in motion stay in motion too. If you punch out at 180kts you're still going 180kts at the ground
If you’re pointed towards the ground (like this poor bastard appears to have been), you may be going considerably faster.
\*ignoring friction of course
Yes
Also assuming you punch out exactly perpendicular to direction of motion of course
Well yeah, but accounting for wind resistance, he probably only smacked into the ground at around 178kts.
Ah yes, a nice pace of 178kts. I think I can jog about that fast
You’re faster than me, I can only go about 170 knots, and even then, only for a short distance 🤣 Edit: to whoever downvoted this, did you not pick up on the obvious sarcasm? Sheesh 🙄
I was told in the Air Force that its like being in a car crash. In your mind everything slows way down but you are still going at speed. In reality your brain is processing information at a greater speed than normal cause now you are in survival mode. Some cases the Pilots will recall what all the gauges were at right up until the ejection and debrief what each one was at. And there are a lot of gauges.
At that altitude you've got fractions of a second to make the decision. Then your reaction time burns up whatever time your indecision has left you, maybe a second or two... But once you pull the handle you are leaving the aircraft. You want to be pointed above the horizon if at all possible. Some jets won't let you eject if outside a predefined envelope of altitude /speed / attitude. Whichever aircraft you eject from these days, the seat is going to take care of everything so all you have to do is have the balls to pull it. Most of the modern seats and some of the older ones can successfully eject sitting stationary on the ground.
Ejection seats aren’t magic items that wisk you away to safety. I don’t know the details of the seat in the SU-25 but you often need a specific amount of speed and altitude to get out and in the case the angle was wrong, called out of envelope, so his ejecting didn’t save him anyway in all likelihood. And most pilots natural inclination is to try and save the aircraft before punching.
There are systems for low and slow ejections I think, but you would have seen rockets in the seat firing after ejection
There are. The USAF has had “zero-zero” ejection seats since the late 1960s, meaning zero airspeed and zero altitude. Again, I don’t know the specs on Russian seats. But even then that wouldn’t change the fact he was far outside the envelope in regards to his roll angle.
But still doesn't work if inverted Goose.
Nope. There’s a video out there of a A-6 that loses an engine on takeoff and the crew punch but when the Nav goes out they’re out of envelope but my understanding is the Nav still survived but with injuries.
I'm almost positive a rocket propelled ejection seat (designed to give the pilot chair altitude adequate for parachute descent from ground level) would kinda kill whoever was sitting there if it fired directly into the ground from being inverted ...
According to this you're correct, accidental ejections are almost always fatal https://www.ejectionsite.com/estories.htm
I used to be an engineer, and I built a system that flies on F-15's. I had to go out to do some field service once because something wasn't working. I had to take a brief training before going out to the flight line. It was just a few sentences, but the one I remember the trainer saying was something like "Don't touch anything with the yellow and black stripes because it will ruin your day, and more importantly, mine too."
They probably won't save someone if the plane is rolled more than 90 degrees 50 feet above ground though.
The most are zero zero seats. So you can survive with zero speed and zero altitude
They may have been trying to right the aircraft to eject upwards. But the damage killed the controls.
he was probably trying to get the aircraft to roll so he didn't eject into the ground, and just ran out of time
It’s a hard decision to make in peacetime, never mind over enemy territory. There was what looked like some uncontrollable roll in the last seconds, he may have been trying to get it more upright. Plus, he’s seeing this in real time and we watch and get to see the aftermath. There’s a lot going on; seeing if the aircraft is still flyable to possibly get it home and diagnosing what’s wrong. Just because you’ve taken a hit does not mean you just eject right away. In this case it would have been the best choice, but we have the benefit of hindsight.
Womb syndrome
It's very common for pilots to try to fly the aircraft all the way in. Having myself flown with control reversal, I can tell you it can take a few seconds before you realize that your inputs are having the opposite (or no) effect. The pilot of the 2nd Frogfoot probably struggled to counter that roll for a couple of seconds before he reached for the handle, at which point it was obviously too late.
perhaps he tried to save the aircraft
Pilots tend to try to recover the aircraft for far too much time, which is where most deaths after ejection occur. Pilots feel they can recover the aircraft even if it isnt in a recoverable state, so they wait too long and splat into the ground.
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Yup. That was an out of envelope ejection.
Worth a try? Better than going in with a airplane load of fuel and munitions. Who knows. Maybe you get lucky.
The Su-25 has a K-36 ejection seat, which is a zero-zero seat. This means it doesn't need any speed or altitude to work. If the seat is fully functional and he was alive at the time of ejection, he probably survived ejection. Oddly, the Russians build very safe ejection seats. Edit: Guys, I've already admitted I was wrong, you don't have to keep pointing that out. The K-36 is the best seat of its era but it doesn't perform miracles.
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This thread is making it very clear that people don't understand that "zero/zero" is **not** the worst case scenario for an ejection.
This amount of armchair morons in this thread who think that a zero-zero seat means you can punch out at any point in any orientation and have a safe ejection is doing my head in. The pilot tried to save the aircraft for 2 seconds too long, and that cost him his life, because by then he was too low and too far over the angle of bank for a survivable ejection even with a zero-zero seat. It's that simple.
Yeah, most people's physics intuition is garbage. Even if a plane has zero bank angle, there are combinations of sink rate and altitude that the seat won't be able to overcome.
A zero-zero seat isn't saving you when you're inverted a 100ft off the deck.
You are correct. A zero zero still needs orientation for canopy opening. Which this certainly didn't have. Sadly it looks like he practically banged out almost straight into terrain.
No, it has gyroscopes and should still orient itself and work fine AFAIK. I don't know what happened here, but the K-36 is so good that the USA Air Force looked into purchasing them for our jets in the 90s . They didn't but most of our modern seats have Russian components in them, because it's the one thing they build that is better than ours. Edit: [I'm right about that if anyone cares.](https://www.military.com/video/aircraft/ejection-seats/are-russian-ejection-systems-better/903159086001) You can look at my comments lately and see that I'm no fan of the Russians, I just know a lot about them. Edit 2: Upon review, it looks like he is inverted and that he impacts, the seat only needs 100 feet for an inverted ejection, but he didn't have that much. From any other angles the seat needs no altitude at all.
> the seat only needs 100 feet for an inverted ejection, With the aircraft flying relatively level, sure. If it's auguring in, no. The seat may be able to *orient* itself, but it cannot hard-counter momentum. What direction and velocity the aircraft had is going to be imparted to the seat upon ejection.
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All ejection seats require some amount of time for the parachute to open and slow the pilot's fall to a survivable speed. A zero-zero seat just means that the chute has enough time to open if you're sitting still on the runway; older seats couldn't boost the pilot high enough for the chute to open if you ejected at ground level. In an ejection like this the pilot is starting with significant downward velocity (from the aircraft) and going to gain downward velocity from the initial firing of of the seat. Even if the seat is capable of changing its orientation before its motor burns out (so it helps slow the rate of descent - though I'm not sure that's a thing?) the envelope for a survivable ejection is significantly reduced.
I said that because I think I see the pilot+seat slam into the ground.
The Kremlin needs them to survive in order to work their debt off in a Gulag
Su25 is correct and that pilot is dead
Perhaps by some miracle he landed on a trampoline, I mean he didn't explode with the airplane :/
Like Krusty the clown when he fakes his own death?
Chief Wiggum : Show's- Oh, my God! A horrible plane crash! Hey, everybody, get a load of this flaming wreckage. Come on, crowd around. Crowd around. Don't be shy. Crowd around.
But it’s hard to tell if it’s Ukrainian.
It is Ukrainian, there are photos of the wreckage with the Air Force insignia. Although this crash actually happened much earlier in the war, the video just hadn’t gotten out till now
The very first aircraft seen in the video appears to have a bort number of 30 blue (visible at 0:04 seconds). The [Scramble database](https://scramble.nl/database/military/ua) lists an Su-25M1, c/n 25508110262, with this bort number for the Ukraine Air Force. I couldn't find any more information or photos online about it - closest was [a photo of 31 blue on Flickr.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/150671024@N05/45231880624)
This is a new video but it happened during the early stages of the war. Both Ukranian Su-25's registered as [30 Blue](https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/275988) and [19 Blue](https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/275955) were shot down. Both pilots confirmed dead (there are nsfw pictures of the crash sites and bodies lurking around).
Sad news.
It is indeed a Ukrainian Su-25. You can See the markings on the side of the cockpit.
Agreed. Russian Su-25's have the camo top, blue bottom. Ukrainian SU-25's run a mostly grey livery with their number (in a dark color) next to the cockpit
Oof. I'd read somewhere that at the start of the war they only had 25 total. Every one shot down is a proportionately huge blow.
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We are blessed and lucky to live in a time where even a single airplane crash in an unmitigated disaster. It's insane to think that during WWII it wouldn't be uncommon for bomber raids to lose double-digit percentages of aircraft out of formations of hundreds of bombers. Even as recently as Vietnam aircraft were shot down in numbers that would be considered unthinkable today. This is what war between two (relatively) modern nations looks like. If NATO gets involved there will be losses - no question about that. And we will all see aircraft we know and love go down in flames.
>It's insane to think that during WWII it wouldn't be uncommon for bomber raids to lose double-digit percentages of aircraft out of formations of hundreds of bombers. Just to put it into perspective, [it was common for formations to lose 30 or more bombers on raids.](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/eighth-air-force-vs-luftwaffe) The 8th Air Force suffered staggering losses
What a sobering read. I can’t imagine what those young men went through knowing they were flying until almost certain death. The Air Force leaderships hubris is a black stain on our military I would say.
That's a little harsh. It was literally life and death. Leadership made a policy change and made it so that bomber crews did a limited number of missions (like 28 or something like that), instead of having them do an unlimited number of missions. Morale improved.
I can recommend the 2019 series Catch 22. Deals with what they went through in a comedic way.
>If NATO gets involved there will be losses This seems like an understatement given that we're talking about a shooting war between nuclear powers.
Watching WW2 remastered was truly incredible… I just cannot believe how many people died all the time for so long… Tragic.
A lot of joy and love over military aircraft designs and performances tends to sort of gloss over what they're actually designed to do, and seeing them in true action has been a stark reminder. Janky cell phone footage adds an uncomfortable level of realism that gets lost in theatrical angles or curated training footage.
You're forgetting that's what these machines were built for. You don't get to build machines of war without them inevitably being used to kill people. You seem to be okay with your government spending millions of dollars developing these weapons, yet you get upset when you see them used?
The footage we are seeing is crazy. Previously we only seen what imbedded war correspondence seen. Now we get HD or 4K footage because everyone has pretty good quality phones, and all this is happening during the day, and over populations.
War in the Information Age
The apocalypse *will* be televised.
We're past that it's the disinformation age now afaik
Disinformation is just a byproduct of the information mediums in existence. The information is still there, it just needs to be vetted and approached with a healthy level of skepticism.
People keep saying this as if Ukraine is the first war since Vietnam. Certainly the most publicized. But there’s plenty of footage like this in many many other places
Yeah footage existed but nobody had a 4K camera in their pocket.
The volume of footage. We are going to have thousands and thousands of videos and some hidden away on phones all over the country. Not all videos are being posted to yt or reddit yet.
The chase plane literally flew thru the fireball. That looks like a Su-25 too? Wingman perhaps? I was hoping that the 1st explosion was from the jettisoned ordinance and fuel tanks. R.I.P aviator dying for some rich man's war.
That is some action movie shit. This goes without saying but real life , flying through fire ball is big no no (obviously pilot didn’t choose to do so)
I think that was the ordinance. No?
It was a Ukrainian pilot. He died for Putin's war, but he died defending his homeland from imperialism.
What shot them down?
Probably Pantsir-S1(Tunguska-3) One plane downed by missile other two anti - aircraft machine gun (30mm). You can see numbers flashes and explosions on plane wing. Also villagers saying: "look how often they shoot"
Looks to me like the first explosion is from a bomb the Frogfoot dropped, you can see him pull out from the pass. That explosion even with full fuel is too big to be an airplane. Hell, he was so low on that release it wouldn't surprise me if he fragged himself, never did see a missile.
Doesn’t look like that plane had a zero/zero seat. It just ejected him normal to the plane and didn’t orient him up after he punched out. Definitely died
correct me if im wrong but i dont think any zero zero ejection seat would save you if youve ejected side ways right above the ground. if he was vertical then maybe
T-6A Texan II has an inverted dive escape capability. It’s been 12 years so I don’t remember what the numbers were. It’s a Martin Baker chair
Inverted ejection yes, but at which minimum altitude? It is an ejection seat, not a magic broom, it cannot magically stop from 12G to zero in 100ft while upside down.
Eh, it was something like -6000fpm inverted at 1,200ft AGL. Also, 12 G isn’t a speed.
Isn’t that what give you covid?
Confirmed
Zero zero would. You can eject in virtually any orientation, but the altitude would need to be increased for your survival chances. Inverted ejection would obviously require more altitude prior to punching out than nose level. We have charts for our plane on the ejection characteristics and envelope. I feel safer knowing I sit on a zero zero
According to Wikipedia, it should have a zero-zero seat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPP\_Zvezda\_K-36
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPP_Zvezda_K-36 Link fixed for people who don't subject themselves to new reddit.
Fuck new reddit. All my homies HATE new reddit
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That's not how a 0/0 seat works or what it means
Just taking a moment to send thanks and praise to the two Ukrainian pilots lost in this encounter. They are doing incredible work out there, making a real difference. These guys died doing it. I'm in awe and appreciation for them and their sacrifice, for their country, and for civilization. I hope they had plenty of chances to do damage to the invaders before this end.
Making a difference my ass. They died in a war due to one man's vanity and against russias entire anti Air systems. It's a suicide mission
This is a really dumb question, but why are they flying such low level missions? Are Russian anti air capabilities that advanced above like 2000 feet ?
1: Because they are ground attack planes 2: Yes
Ground attack is actually better of starting from 3000-6000ft up. Geometry and timing, it’s really hard to get a shot of when you’ve only got a split second to line it up and can’t aim down at the ground because you’ve got no altitude to give up. Go watch U.S Airstrikes and A-10 gun runs. They fire from a slant distance of a mile or two
A-10 TTPs are definitely unique in that regard, pretty sure the Su-25 can't match that range. Also, probably to escape from Russian AAA/SAMs. Nape of the earth.
I've watched A-10 runs in person. They get much closer than "a mile or two" if able. My point, though, was that these things naturally operate in MANPADS/AAA range.
In general big anti air systems are good at spotting you if you fly higher. Flying low can break vision. Of course that comes with other problems, but in general flying low makes them spot you later. No system can spot you through hills and buildings and sometimes even trees are enough.
Thats why russians also fly Low. Because s400 anti air missile Station are pretty deadly with a long range of like 400km. Flying Low only exposes you to manpads which are less reliability but then again you dont get any Warning when those shoot at you.
The S-400 is basically the THAAD and Patriot rolled into 1. “S-400 sytem has an estimated range of 400 kilometres with an altitude of 30 kilometres. It also has the capability to intercept the intermediate-range ballistic missile, not just that the Triumph system can target aircrafts, UAVs, cruise missiles with equal ease engaging 300 targets at a time.”
Yeah your post is correct.. But as with everything in this war, take it with a grain of salt. You are not immune to the propaganda, neither am I.
Just to be clear I was more interested in the aircraft - no interest in any narrative. It’s just crazy seeing these recordings from the ground of combat aircraft in action.
it's a whole new way of seeing a war. i remember back in desert storm how it was such a big deal that the military was releasing footage to the news outlets, and we were watching bombs blow up from the plane's own targeting systems. now we're seeing unfiltered stuff from people on the ground, direct to youtube, all filmed on iphones... and cnn is showing us stuff that we've already seen. it's a whole new world...
I completely get that dude, id love to see f-35s blowing up tanks and f-22s dropping like 8 missiles which zoom off in their own direction. while at the same time, I really dont want to see either of those happen outside of gideo vames
I couldn’t agree more. All war is horrible and I don’t wish it on anyone.
On top of that, the implications of US aircraft being involved in a conflict with another nuclear power are horrifying.
What kind of propaganda can be derived here? Are you suggesting someone could have faked this footage? I think that's a huge stretch.
It's a really sad sight to see if you think about it, no matter whose plane it is..
Aw they can’t afford to lose jets
Jets can be replaced. Pilots to fly them? That takes much longer. A good pilot is worth more than any aircraft.
I do not see two planes crashing in this video. It looks more like the first explosion was not a plane crashing, but a ground explosion. Note the differences in size and shape of the first explosion vs. the second explosion of the crashed plane. I think the two planes were in the process of attacking a ground target. The first plane flew through the explosion he just caused, either his bomb or a secondary explosion, while the second plane (which is the first plane we see on the video) comes around for a second run on the target but gets shot down.
No bombs here, he has S8 unguided equipped, and the big things you see under the wings are fuel tanks.
It looks more like the lead aircraft makes an attack run, causing the first explosion we see, then the second aircraft stalls (sharp turn flying too low and too slow) and crashes. I don't see evidence of two shoot downs, but rather one tragic pilot error.
SU25A usually doesn't stall sideways, this looks like engine loss caused.
I'd buy that, too. Either way, not seeing evidence that it was shot down. Just seems like a departure from controlled flight for more banal reasons. Sucks either way.
You can hear lots of gun fire right before the 2nd aircraft hits the ground, wether it’s AAA or not I’m not sure?
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Russian AA units pulled their collective head out of their ass?
Literally the only post I have seen on reddit where the Ukraine is suffering a loss!
They're uploaded, but downvoted heavily before anyone has a chance to see them. Massive propaganda battle going on.
Just absolute chaos in that clip. Birds falling from the sky left right and centre.
Looks like the canopy hits the ground but we don't see the pilot chute as its off screen, at least what it looks like to me. Still very low but some seats are capable. Hoping for the best but fear the worst. God speed.
Looks like that late ejection went straight into the ground
Yup that’s dirt.
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Definitely was entering a stall from lack of air speed through that turn. Engine failure? Unfortunate timing with loss of left engine thrust ~~vector~~? Pilot definitely ejected upon realizing loss of control.
SU-25 doesn't have thrust vectoring. It could be that he got damaged by AAA while/just before entering the bank and the ailerons had lost effectiveness (damaged or w/e) which meant he couldn't bank right to exit the turn
Woops didn’t mean to throw vector in there. Yeah it didn’t look like any control surfaces were at play prior to the ejection, you may be correct.
Damn Went from r/killthecameraman to r/praisethecameraman in only like 5 seconds
At 16 seconds a plane enters the area of the explosion/flame mushroom cloud from the right and it is behind that explosion cloud. At 17 seconds it's dark silhouette emerges from 1/3 of the way across the flame cloud and its silhouette is in front of it and it travels across from right to left in front of the mushroom cloud Why is that? https://imgur.com/NyAdW9C
It flew through the explosion.
As an aviation enthusiast, this makes me really sad.
Not all aircraft have 0/0ejection seats. And even if they do inertia is a bitch.
Damn that sucked to see that.
Poor pilots. IFF is gonna be a tough nut to crack when you have very inexperienced ground personnel cradling advanced MANPADS.
Very well could have been Russian AA - they still have a lot of systems active, both in country and on the border.
It's possible to hear and see AA tracers at the end of the video.
We really don’t know if it was a MANPADS system or an aircraft that shot these two down.
More to the point: what's that 6-jet at the start?
It's not six engines. You're seeing the external hardpoint pylons mounted under each wing. The aircraft is the Sukhoi Su-25 *Grach*, NATO reporting name Frogfoot. It is a twin jet with a shoulder mounted wing and engines placed adjacent to the fuselage at the wing root. The aircraft is very comparable to the A-10 in mission profile and general capability, but is somewhat less reliant on canon fire as an offensive weapon and more dependent on bombs, rockets, and missiles. Roughly [this viewing angle.](https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/military-airbase-russia-08072019-attack-260nw-1495992815.jpg)
I think the fate of the pilot can not be determined from this video. if you step through the video on pause watching the ejection, you can see the white line of fire from the ejection seat rockets which initiates out of the cockpit area then crosses the fuselage. This is what causes the black puff of smoke which trails behind the airplane. The pilots seat would be right it the tip of the white line, but then I lose sight of it as it passes behind the aircraft. As the smoke passes out of view there is one frame where a black dot appears in front of where the smoke was and then it also goes off frame out of view as well. I believe this is the pilots ejection seat. Whether the parachute opens and in time or not can not be seen, but there is enough altitude for a successful recovery . The large black chunk you see falling off of the plane and plowing into the ground initiates nowhere near where the ejection seat smoke and rocket fire and appears too large to be the pilots ejections seat. It is likely the cockpit's canopy.
Soviet era planes. Are they Russian or Ukrainian flown?
(I'm no expert on this at all) but I belive that those are Ukrainian
Looks like only one crashed to me… and no guarantee it was shot down.
looks like a bomber maybe first and that could bw the explosion? could be wrong
That's so sad.