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Interesting tidbit: This guy ejected from his plane and was blown around in a thunderstorm for 40 minutes before landing to the ground

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boards of FL

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rankin

In the summer of 1959, Rankin was flying from Naval Air Station South Weymouth, Massachusetts to Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina.[3] He climbed over a thunderhead that peaked at 45,000 feet (13,716 m), then—at 47,000 feet (14,326 m) and at mach 0.82—he heard a loud bump and rumble from the engine. The engine stopped, and a fire warning light flashed.[1] He pulled the lever to deploy auxiliary power, and it broke off in his hand. Though not wearing a pressure suit, at 6:00 pm he ejected into the −50 °C (−58 °F) air.[1] He suffered immediate frostbite, and decompression caused his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth to bleed. His abdomen swelled severely. He managed to make use of his emergency oxygen supply.[1] Five minutes after he abandoned the plane, his parachute hadn't opened. While in the upper regions of the thunderstorm, with near-zero visibility, the parachute opened. After ten minutes, Rankin was still aloft, carried by updrafts and getting hit by hailstones. Violent spinning and pounding caused him to vomit. Lightning appeared, which he described as blue blades several feet thick, and thunder that he could feel. The rain forced him to hold his breath to keep from drowning. One lightning bolt lit up the parachute, making Rankin believe he had died.[1] Conditions calmed, and he descended into a forest. His watch read 6:40 pm. He searched for help and eventually was admitted into a hospital at Ahoskie, North Carolina.[1] He suffered from frostbite, welts, bruises, and severe decompression.


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Guest


Guest

damn. and i'm complaining because it rains every day and i can't mow my freaking lawn.....????

mother nature is awesome, and those who disrespect her are not paying attention.

i've been through hurricanes, tornados, blizzards, sand storms, and almost every kind of bad weather you can fathom. but i cannot imagine what that guy went through and survived to talk about it.

Guest


Guest

you're right tb... unimaginable. he had to think he was going to die for that entire time... just that would give most of us a heart attack. I've never been in an earthquake... that I was aware of that is.

ZVUGKTUBM

ZVUGKTUBM

In 1983, while returning from Tyndal AFB to Whiting Field in a TH-57 with a student one night, I tried to beat a thunderstorm by flying beneath it. Stupid move on my part. We tried to get past it by skimming the tree-tops at 300 feet MSL, but I eventually had to turn back and go around it from another direction, which I was able to do. Then, the next week I read about an airliner that had crashed after takeoff at New Orleans International Airport a few months earlier, the victim of being being caught in a microburst from a thunderstorm. We could have been slapped into the trees below us by one of those, and I never repeated that dumb move ever again.

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Guest


Guest

I didn't work on ejections seats, but the seat kit and parachute, and oxygen syestems that were attached to 'em. Modern ejection systems have features like auto oxygen switchover (emergency O2 is contained in the seat pan) and an actuator that opens the chute at 14k feet ( the altitude at which enough breathable oxygen is present). If the aircrew is knocked unconscious on ejection, he also has a salt water activated life preserver that inflates, and a parachute that detaches on contact with salt water - keeps him from being pulled under when the chute fills with water.

(edit) and that was 20 years ago! Colonel Rankin was pretty much just strapped to a bigazz rocket chair!

TEOTWAWKI

TEOTWAWKI

I was bringing my dive boat back in through a storm when a couple guys signaled me for help on a small sailboat. They got hit with one of those jolts from a microburst and it knocked one of the men over the side. His little finger got caught in a v formed in the fiberglass and jerked it clean off. I Took the injured guy on board and radioed for an ambulance at the Navy pier. With the sailboat in tow I had an exciting time getting through that mess. I would far rather be in a boat than a plane though and I wouldn't fly in a chopper on a sunny clear windless day..

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