The pilot is OK. An aerial video showed a parachute lying in a field (a 28 ft round low porosity nylon 4 color parachute).
I was an F-4 and F-16 parachute rigger, and an F-16 fuel system specialist, in an Air National Guard unit back in the day. My old unit had 2 F-4’s collide once on landing causing one a/c to crash wherein the crew punched out. One a/c bounced on top of another a/c (basically ran over the top of it) causing the bottom a/c to crash into the ground. The safe a/c had low fuel and was about to flame out so when the air controllers gave the OK to land the bird with low fuel basically took a shortcut to get down as soon as possible and ran over another a/c that it did not see. It did run out of fuel halfway down the runway and had to run off the runway to get out of the way of the other birds coming in from behind. Turns out that I had helped to pack the seat drogue chute on one of the parachute ejection systems (Martin Baker).
When our unit switched to F-16’s, one particular bird had the EPU (Emergency Power Unit) fire in flight for a brief moment, which meant that on landing it had to be quarantined while we donned haz. mat. suits and checked for the presence of hydrazine. The test was positive so we had to pull the hydrazine cask to swap it out with a full one, and decon. some surfaces and equipment, and purge some lines.
Good times.
A park in Anaheim CA has a plane in it. Boysen Park. The plane was initially installed in the playground as is. Kids could climb through the tailpipe of the plane and into the cockpit, which was still outfitted with its controls and instrumentation. Years later, city officials determined that the mechanisms for the ejection seat were even still intact!
Soon after, the plane began to show its age. Wiring became exposed and rivets came loose, creating a safety hazard. Work crews covered the plane in gunite so that it could keep its shape while becoming a safer place to play.
Thanks for the report on the pilot. Sounds very exciting. I would love to learn to fly, but I would probably crash. KEK!
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