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by Steve44 1283 days ago
That looks like a problem with the thrust balance. It pitches forward after the bounce, likely excessive aft thrust or loss of lift fan thrust, which damages the nose wheel.

Once on the ground at a jaunty angle the aft thrust spins it anti-clockwise, then it looks like some thrust transfers to the lift fan which spins it clockwise for a bit.

Quite a wild ride for the pilot, and a very good example of a zero-zero ejection seat doing its job.
1 comments
bilekas 1283 days ago
> zero-zero ejection seat

Can you explain this a bit more ? Does the zero-zero take into consideration the orientation of the pilot ? So as to avoid ejecting into the ground for example.

Edit: Rephrase Question

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Steve44 1283 days ago
A zero-zero seat means it can safely be used at zero speed and zero altitude. It needs to give enough height and separation to allow the parachute to open, not just get the pilot out of the aircraft.

As far as I'm aware all modern seats can do that. Earlier ones for example could eject at low altitude it there was enough air speed to open the chute and slow the pilot down before landing.

Regarding the other part of your question, I believe some seats can change direction dramatically in flight. For example if the aircraft is in a steep bank the seat can steer to give more height, but I don't know much about those.

https://martin-baker.com/about/ has some information about seats and their history.

edit : In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbMg2pQW924 you can just about see the seat begin to change angle from horizontal to vertical. It's very fast but does seem to be there.

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ratg13 1283 days ago
Yes, it’s even probable that the plane was the one that ejected the pilot and not vice versa.

You can see how it’s right when the aircraft regains a flat plane that the ejection happens.

It’s likely a safety mechanism that was triggered.

The headline is poorly worded.

The first sentence of the article is more accurate in stating ‘a pilot was ejected’

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tiahura 1283 days ago
From: https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/650320-f-35-acciden...

"The Martin-Baker Mk16-US16E ejection seat as fitted to the F-35B does indeed have an active automatic ejection system which fires the seat when certain criteria are sensed. These are low speed, low altitude and adverse pitch rate.

The same seat fitted to the F-35A and F-35C does not have this system."

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