I can't believe that Keith and some of the other
former military aviators on this list haven't
jumped on this subject big time. I was not an
aviator, but I did get a lot of seat time in an
F-4 Phantom jet fighter.
The military teaches it's fliers a series of
emergency sequences they nick name "Bold Face
Procedures". Those are the last things you do
that lead up to either recovering from a very bad
situation or pulling the ejection handle. They
are all committed to memory, and fliers are
required to be able to go through any one of them
on an instance notice. Often, especially prior
to major inspections, you would see the Stan Eval
officer stop fliers walking down the hall and say
something like: "Flameout, number two!", to which
the flier would rattle off the ten or twelve
steps that were required to be done in a second
or two. They might even be seated somewhere when
asked to go through the drill, in which case,
they would close their eyes and simulate pedal
movement, pushing and pulling switches and nobs,
and checking guages with sharp, distinct head
movements as they would shout out things like:
"Pull back Power!" "Full stick!" "Hit number two
fire bottle" "Check attitude!" "Check air
speed!" "Check altitude!", etc. etc. etc.
It would seem that anybody who drives a car over
two hundred miles an hour whould develop a
similar set of action steps for spins, fires,
tire blow-out, power loss, sudden cross winds -
-
I dunno, just a whole lotta things that you would
plan for ahead of time.
My car ain't that fast, but I have practiced
grabbing the fire bottle, simulating using it as
if the car was still rolling, then unbuckle with
my left hand while still simulating using the
bottle in the right hand, and geting out of the
car. I have also rehearsed getting out of the
right side door should there ever be a reason for
that. I didn't have an inside door handle on the
passenger door until I came up with that
scenario. I've also practiced getting out of the
window.
Uhfff - lotsa work for a fat old man, but I wanna
live to race another day!
Dick J
=====
Dick J
In East Texas
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