Posted on 03/29/2019 6:19:55 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The US Air Force ordered immediate inspections of its entire fleet of B-1 bombers Thursday over safety concerns related to its "drogue chute system" which is used to right the aircraft's ejection seat prior to the seat's main parachute deploying.
While none of the planes are being allowed to fly, the order is technically not an official grounding of the fleet, as each individual aircraft will be allowed to immediately return to flying operations upon inspection.
"The safety stand-down will afford maintenance and Aircrew Flight Equipment technicians the necessary time to thoroughly inspect each aircraft," the Air Force's Global Strike Command said in a statement.
"As these inspections are completed and any issues are resolved, aircraft will return to flight," the statement added.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Well, I’m glad it isn’t more serious.
“Safety concerns” — that’s rather laughable given that it is the world’s #1 killing machine. Kind of like the argument for “safe bullets.”
Cheap Chinese replacement part?
A quick internet search seems to indicate that a crew has only had to eject one time; of the 6 crew on the plane, 3 survived. (Two of the dead didn’t have ejection seats.)
Really? Didn't have ejection seats or weren't strapped into them?
“All of the U.S. B1 Bombers had been grounded for the last several months as their ejection seats were reviewed. Several planes did have some minor maintenance issues, but all of the planes are back on duty.”
Air Force Ping.
The plane apparently has 4 ejection seats. Two of the six were apparently in jump seats.
But, given the limited number of crashes and use of ejection seats, one has to wonder if it is even cost effective to have them in planes of that class. I do see their use in fighters, particularly carrier based.
IIRC, the B1 has a capsule ejection and the incident you mention was on a B-1A, which had individual ejection seats.
The B-1 has 4 ejection seats.
I recall a crash out around Pecos from a Dyess Crew where the Terrain Following system failed. I believe they hit the side of a cliff and no ejection seats were used as it happened too quickly.
There was a crash just north of the runway at Dyess AFB in 1988 if I’m not mistaken. All four ejection seats worked.
If you google it you can see there’s been a handful of crashes with successful ejection seats use.
The original B-1A had a heavy 6 seat ejection capsule. The B-1B has four individual ejection seats.
The B-1B has four individual ejection seats. The B-1A, that was cancelled by President Carter, was designed with the capsule ejection system.
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