B-1B, Ellsworth, all eject

Whoa damn. I can't remember now......capsule (a la F-111) was just B-1A right, with B-1B being conventional individual seats?

Save a fuel starvation event (or I guess ice+loss of control), this must have been a pretty badly crippled plane. Either way, glad to hear they made it out safely
 
Conditions at Ellsworth about 10 minutes after the crash:

KRCA 050000Z AUTO 00000KT 1SM R31/4500VP6000FT BR VV001 M04/M06 A2989 RMK AO2 SLP168 PWINO TSNO VISNO RWY13 $
 
Since everyone made it out ok I feel like it’s ok to say “Damn that sounds expensive.”
 
Whatever the cause good to see the crew made it out.
 
35 AoA said:
Whoa damn. I can't remember now......capsule (a la F-111) was just B-1A right, with B-1B being conventional individual seats?
Click to expand...
It's conventional seats in all operational production runs. Only (some, not all) the -A model prototypes were fitted with the capsule, but it never saw the light of day in production. It's a good thing too, the -111 capsule was a death trap straight out of a Squid Games episode or SAW movie.

I say that about the option for individual seats, and I'm immediately reminded of a former coworker (probably walking around the DFW AA crew rooms these days counting his blessings, and his $$$$ lol) who got himself a DFC for saving his crew, when he opted to land a Bone with active, unsuccessfully mitigated, wing fire indications in the cockpit, and after his verbal command for ejection yielded one of his navs having a failed seat attempt. Situation which prompted him to stay with the jet (everybody opted to stay at that point) and give him a fighting chance. The beesh of it is, during the mx post-mortem, turns out all the seats would have failed to launch, yikes. Our legacy bomber capitalization situation is a disgrace, right along anything that isn't fEeF gEn.

This is great to hear about this crew having successful seats and infusing some needed confidence in these aging undercapitalized life support systems. The batting average for the Bone ejections was certainly in dispute in recent years.
 
hindsight2020 said:
This is great to hear about this crew having successful seats and infusing some needed confidence in these aging undercapitalized life support systems. The batting average for the Bone ejections was certainly in dispute in recent years.
Click to expand...
That thought entered my mind when I first heard about the mishap. It's not a sure thing all four seats are going to go when called upon, and that they did is a wonderful outcome.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Its replacement, in good USAAF tradition, might be named "Hang the Expense"

42-39867 | American Air Museum

www.americanairmuseum.com www.americanairmuseum.com
Click to expand...
The saga of Frank Velesh and the several B-17s named Hang The Expense is one of my favorite crew stories of WWII and the storied 100th BG.

www.mnflyer.com

Minnesota B-17 Pilot Had Unique War History

Frank Valesh had a career in military aviation that was brief, interesting, and frequently violent. From September 1943 until August 1944 Valesh flew B-17s for the U.S. Army's Eighth Air Force in Great Britain. His bombers all had the same nose art featuring a human female with an impossibly...
www.mnflyer.com
 
3393RP said:
The saga of Frank Velesh and the several B-17s named Hang The Expense is one of my favorite crew stories of WWII and the storied 100th BG.

www.mnflyer.com

Minnesota B-17 Pilot Had Unique War History

Frank Valesh had a career in military aviation that was brief, interesting, and frequently violent. From September 1943 until August 1944 Valesh flew B-17s for the U.S. Army's Eighth Air Force in Great Britain. His bombers all had the same nose art featuring a human female with an impossibly...
www.mnflyer.com
Click to expand...

1704551032104.jpeg

One of the damaged ones he flew home.
 
35 AoA said:
Whoa damn. I can't remember now......capsule (a la F-111) was just B-1A right, with B-1B being conventional individual seats?

Save a fuel starvation event (or I guess ice+loss of control), this must have been a pretty badly crippled plane. Either way, glad to hear they made it out safely
Click to expand...

Any deets yet?
The VV100 that someone noted above makes me wonder if it was a weather accident; they couldn't find asphalt so instead of losing plane + crew, they decided to only lose plane? Heard of such, in WWII.
 
I drove past Ellsworth about 30 minutes before this crash. Crazy. Didn't even know it happened.
 
Alignment was good. Just a little below glide path.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top