'Hawker Hunter' crash in US.

DispatchDragon · Post by **DispatchDragon** » 17 Jul 2006, 23:14

I was curious about the ejection seats as well - I know the Mig21UTI and
the Gnat at Brown Field in San Diego both had fully functioning Ejector seats
in fact while I was there I talked to the owner of the 21 and what he said
was the resemblance between the two seats (the MB lightweights in the Gnat) and the Russian built seats in the 21 was quite surprising - and yes Chris he did have a class1 explosives ticket. He said categorically he wouldnt fly the 21 WITHOUT bang seats

Leif

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 18 Jul 2006, 02:24

I've talked to that gentleman. I wasn't aware he had them live (didn't think to ask actually). I'm glad that he's got them live though, those MiGs are kinda funky. The guy who flies the MiG-17 out of Front Range recently put his live. He's had a couple of close calls with the airplane and the second one was really close and he told me last year when I saw him that it was just the inal straw. He was going to do it anyway, the second one caused him to cancel the rest of his appearances and do it immediately instead of waiting until the end of the season to do it.

I know that all of the L-39s and L-29s here in Lancaster require everyone to wear chutes if their bang seats don't work and have non-explosive canopy release capability instead. I think it's an acceptable compromise since those guys don't do a lot of really high-energy maneuvering in them that would require ejection seats.