Safety A Big Concern In Maintaining Ejection Seats
By ANN Special Contributor Mike Barton
It takes less than a
second.
In that time, quicker than a heartbeat, the rocket-powered seat
in a military jet can exit at a speed from zero to 160 mph. Think
of it as something akin to being kicked in the rear by a speeding
bullet train – like Superman speed. The force of this
explosion is designed to carry a crewmember safely – a
relative term here – but quickly out of the cockpit of a
doomed aircraft. There’s really very little about an ejection
that is safe, but it beats the daylights out of the
alternative.
Now put that same ejection seat into an aircraft undergoing
maintenance inside a depot hangar. Working near it, instead of a
crewmember, you might have an electrician or a metal worker or an
avionics tech or, in short, anyone who performs maintenance on
aircraft here. In fact, this person could be you. You would not be
tightly strapped into the seat like a pilot would be. You probably
wouldn’t be wearing a helmet. You certainly wouldn’t be
expecting a sudden and short ride. And, of course, there would be
the hangar ceiling to think about.
To the untrained eye, most military aircraft look pretty tame
when they’re crouching quietly on the deck. But when Paige
Ackiss and Rick Haskett look at one of these aircraft, they see a
sleeping tiger. Ackiss and Haskett are members of the Ordnance and
Survival Equipment Shop here, an 11-member team of ordnance
professionals led by Supervisor Phil Day. Their mission, in simple
terms, is to prevent you from blowing up yourself, or someone else,
when you work on or around these aircraft.
Ackiss and Haskett perform that mission as the depot’s
Egress/Explosive Safety training leaders. It is their job to train
personnel here to recognize the tiger too. They do this through the
Egress/Explosive System Checkout Program, designed to teach
recognition of the many and various explosive devices and systems
on all military aircraft worked on here. The training is divided
into two courses – a two-hour initial training class for
first-timers, and a shorter refresher course. The refresher is
required every six months, and for those personnel who have been
out of the maintenance cycle for 90 or more days. Instruction
begins in the classroom with a lecture supported by graphic
displays, equipment samples and a video that candidly demonstrates
the results of explosives testing. Afterward, the class moves onto
the flight line for a look at real explosive systems on the beasts
themselves.
Last year, Ackiss and Haskett provided awareness training to
approximately 800 personnel, some more than once for a total of
more than 1,500 students. The training, designed to cover every
type of aircraft worked on here, helped personnel to perform over
2,600 accident-free ordnance evolutions. The classes are scheduled
several times a month, often enough to cover every person who goes
anywhere near these hazards, whether it is fixed or rotary winged
aircraft.
There are many good reasons for going through this training.
Aside from the fact that NAVAIR regulations require it and a depot
instruction reinforces it, Ackiss and Haskett know that you have to
use the “loaded gun theory” when you work around these
potentially dangerous systems. You must treat them as if they are
armed until you see proof that they are safe.
The two training leaders also know that time is a factor. Few
people really want to spend the hour or two it takes to go through
the classes. But compare that to the possible results of not doing
it. Compare that to the second or two it takes to injure or kill
yourself or a fellow coworker because of one simple mistake.
They want to arm you against that mistake. It doesn’t
matter whether you work on jets,
propeller driven aircraft, or helicopters. They teach their
students that in normal operation, any aircraft here can be loaded
with various types of explosive charges in places that have nothing
to do with dropping bombs or shooting down bad guys.
The most obvious, of course, is the ejection seat. Others,
placed strategically around the aircraft include pylons rigged to
eject bomb racks and storage tanks. There are canopies rigged so
that the Plexiglas is destroyed or the entire canopy is
ejected
completely off of the bird. There are explosive-armed anti-fire
systems, pyrotechnic devices designed to cut through cables on
cargo systems and winches, and a compressed nitrogen system
designed to force the landing gear down in the event of in-flight
hydraulic failure. Add to that devices that can be triggered by
careless cellular telephone or communication radio use and you have
a very dangerous combination.
It’s all there, just waiting for the careless or the
unwary … and it doesn’t know the good guys from the
bad. All it needs is a second of your time.