Ping :(
Very sorry. Another American pilot died in Ukraine training as well. prayers for their families.
Regular pilots wear a ‘G’ suit to help minimize the effects of high Gs. The Thunderbird pilots do not wear G suits because they fly so close to each other they are afraid if the suit suddenly inflated it might push them into another aircraft.
Takes amazingly fit people to sustain such high Gs without a suit. Sometimes it is a little too much even for them.
RIP.
Accident was last April. Report released today.
Woke up with one second to go and tried to correct. Awful. Longest second of your life.
Prayers for his family and friends. Such amazing people they are.
I know I will probably get flamed for this but does the navy and Air Force really gain that from the loss of equipment and life supporting these types of shows!!!
One would think that these days there could be some kind of last ditch autopilot override function that could take over in case loss of consciousness is detected...
When my instructor at NAS Pensacola gave me my first demonstration of a loop, he pulled 5-3/4 G in the pullout. This was in the old T-34B, sitting upright with no G-suit.
After we were straight & level he asked if I’d had any problems.
“I got tunnel vision, Sir. All I could see was the G-meter, in spite of doing the M-1 maneuver.”
He replied, “Well, I blacked out!”
:-)
Ping.
About 30 years ago an F-15 pilot flying out over the Atlantic off Langley AFB lost his situational awareness and had to pull about 15 g’s staying out of the water.
If I recall the story correctly, the airplane was scrapped and he spent several days in the hospital while the doctors pushed his internal organs back into place.
In 1981 I took my teen sons to see the Thunderbirds at Hill AFB Utah (their Dad was TDY). Close to the end of the show, the opposing solo T-38 lost power and crashed a short distance from the end of the runway. He had time to punch out, but did not because spectators were on the road below. When we saw the smoke, I knew what happened. It was heartbreaking when the “missing man” formation flew over. Capt. David Hauck was lost that day.
RIP
Why Blue Angels Pilots Don’t Wear The G Suits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGQlG_PE44
They fly with the arm holding the stick resting on a thigh, which works kind of like cheek weld and gives them finer granularity with their control touch. The pressure trousers randomly in- and de-flating would screw with their cheek weld.