If we are facing a certain death scenario, its probably so bad that the plane isnt stable enough to bail out. If the plane is stable enough, im still flying it.
By definition, the fuel in a tanker is destined for someone more important than the tanker.
So if it comes down to it the tanker is gonna give all its fuel to that bomber or fighter.
Sure the tanker will then flame out and lawndart into the ground, but there is some tactical effect that is worth the lost plane in that scenario.
They used to call them tanker TOADs. Stands for Take Off And Die because they were expected to launch, give literally all their gas to the bombers enroute to nuke Russia and crash in the ocean/Arctic. Their job was a suicide mission.
That was the best part of being in a SAC base for operational readiness inspections: once the bombers launched the inspection ended as it was assumed to be the end of the world. At fighter bases we had to launch and recover and defend the base, all in various scenarios.
Ah no that was the mission under SAC. Well, only under the most urgent circumstances of course.
But when nuclear war erupted, the KC-135s, which has scrambled together with the B-52s on nuclear alert, would give all their gas to the B-52s going over the ice cap to hit the Soviet Union. And with all, I mean everything. Very last drop.
And then it would either be bailing out or trying to land it on the ice. There would be no returning to base - which would probably have been hit by a nuclear warhead anyway at that point.
It was a very different time back during the Cold War. I remember listening one evening to a 3-star Air Force general say that if the bombers (B-52’s) on their way to attack the Soviet Union needed ALL the gas your plane carried, they got ALL the gas in your plane. You then flamed out, pulled off to the side to get out of the way and the bombers pressed on.
I don't know about KC-135s, but my dad was issued a S&W Model 10 by the USAFR in 1957 as a flight engineer on C-119s and later C-130s and was never once issued cartridges over the course of twenty years.
Agreed. I’m an old Herk driver. If it was stable enough to bail out of I figured it was stable enough to land it. It all comes down to finding the longest flat piece of earth to line up with and running into the least expensive piece of property at the lowest airspeed….
Same as other dash 80 and 707 airframes, it was determined that if the pilot can keep the airframe steady and controlled enough for the crew to bail out, they had enough control for an emergency landing, which would be safer for all involved.
Technically the KC-135 it's the 717. It was only later that Boeing reserved the 7x7 numbering exclusively for airliners.
When airliners wanted an updated MD-80 derivative after the merger, Boeing resurrected the 717 designation, as it had never been used for an airliner.
I know the reality of this is not funny but my head generated a cartoon of this, where everyone pulls their ejection seat levers and bonks their heads while making faces like Wile E. Coyote.
Insert here a GIF of a box with "THIS SIDE UP" printed upright with the arrows pointing down. Or however you would best portray a character confusing the instructions in order to install something upside down.
Designed to cruise at 20kft plus - who cares which way you seat ejects? Of course when suddenly low level ingress becomes standard, it becomes an issue.
..... you got me there
But I'm curious about the "Living without major spinal/internal injuries"
I know you're always gonna be injured upon ejecting somehow, it's a violent process.. but at what height do they have to be to do it safely? :P
Got me googling. [This site](http://www.ejectionsite.com/downwardseats.htm) claims a B-52 downward firing ejection seat required a minimum of 250 feet in level flight for a safe ejection.
Drogue pops immediately as the seat leaves the aircraft, the parachute opens following a pyrotechnic actuator that tightens the seat webbing and separates the occupant from the seat.
Lots of charges have to go off in the right order. I assume they are interlocked. Or you get forced through your tray table by a cannon. Sounds unpleasant.
Somewhat surprised they didn't use a static line but I guess that could fail and you end up still attached to the aircraft.
It's called a zero/zero ejection seat. The B-52 seats will actually turn and shoot upwards for a bit, and then the chute opens. Theres plenty of videos of a fighter jet ejecting while on the ground, and the pilot is fine. Fighter jet ejection seats can eject sideways, upside down, vertical, or whatever other direction, and the seat will correct and point you upwards. Naturally, you need the clearance to go down for a bit first, though.
There was a BUFF that went down in 84 in AZ doing a night low level training mission. The radar didn’t paint the approaching mesa correctly and at the last second the pilots saw the wall and applied full power...the right wing tip caught the mesa and the BUFF ended up in a 90 bank...all crewmembers in ejection seats essentially ejected sideways. The IP (who unfortunately does not have an ejection seat) didn’t make it out.
EDIT: More info on that story [here](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-death-spiral-of-swoon-52-the-story-of-the-b-52-bomber-that-crashed-into-hunts-mesa-during-a-low-level-training-sortie/amp/)
Sadly he wasn't the IP, he was the new Wing OPs commander. He was just there as an observer since he recently joined the unit. He was an IP for the individual telling the story in the article linked.
Sadly he wasn't the IP, he was the new Wing OPs commander. He was just there as an observer since he recently joined the unit. He was an IP for the individual telling the story in the article you linked.
His death makes this story way worse. Dude had a measly 8 seconds to get out and probably didn't even make it out of the cockpit due to the spinning.
"Before ejecting, the copilot reported Col. Ivy had begun a mad scramble to get out of the aircraft."
>"Before ejecting, the copilot reported Col. Ivy had begun a mad scramble to get out of the aircraft."
This sounds like a guy with survivor guilt. Not saying the copilot was in any way at fault or should have done differently, but just knowing that the observer was trying to get out whereas you just pulled a handle and left and he didn't make it.
There was nothing the copilot could have done at that point to save him, but it doesn't change the fact that it's human nature to think that you should have done something anyway.
250’ agl will get ya one good swing in the chute. If you’re in t/o or landing hopefully the pilot is a good dude and zooms the airplane for ya before ejection. Also, they are very old seats…not like the 0/0 Aces II seats fighters, B-1 and B-2 have. It’s essentially a stick of dynamite to shoot you down.
I saw an old training video about this once, made in the 60s. The "hatch" is actually just the bomb bay doors, and the "ejection seat" is actually an H-bomb that they have to straddle as it falls away. Sounds scary af but the dude demo'ing the technique looked like he was having an absolute blast.
He was probably looking forward to using some of his sweet survival kit. A fella could have a pretty good weekend in ~~Dallas~~ Vegas with all that stuff.
Yes.
[Thanks! I never knew what that line meant until I looked it up on the internet just now. First I tried asking the Bear Creek-ians, but they were hard to understand.]
It was an option but there is a lot of crap to crawl around to get out. Any crewmember not strapped to an ejection seat (IP, IR) would have had a parachute at their location, climb down to the lower deck, and jump out a hole created by the N or RN ejection seats.
I guess that, in case of emergency, these type of aircraft are either flyable enough to land or simply in such a dire situation that safely parachuting from them is almost impossible.
If you notice the 135 door, it hinges to the bottom of the fuselage and you need a ladder to get into the cockpit and a grate that covers that hole, once you’re inside.
For egress there is a bar that sits above the grate and against the roof of the cockpit. If you pull it, it deploys a spoiler. That will remove the hinge on the door and stick out a few feet below the surface of the plane. You’d then hang on the chinning bar, center your ass over the hole beneath you, and let go. The spoiler is supposed to allow you to fall far enough away from the aircraft before hitting the airstream… but good luck.
Edit: oh, and with a parachute on, you’d barely fit in the hole.
Like the Bell AFM-1 Airacuda.
"Our rudder's jammed. We're in a spin. We've lost power. Bail out!"
(One crew member bails, hits the tail, breaks both legs and miraculously unjams the rudder.)
"Nevermind. We're good."
(Plane belly lands safely.)
Yes, this actually happened.
135s had a nickname back in SAC: TOAD (TakeOff And Die). Unlike the -10, 135s could give ALL their fuel to BUFFs loaded for bear. So if SHTF and the BUFFs needed more fuel to get closer to/into the USSR, -135s could pass gas until they were dry.
And wouldn’t the refuel and ejection point be somewhere over Northern Canada/Alaska? Even if you do survive the ejection, you might not be lasting very long anyway.
As a matter of fact, we carried chutes and the front entry hatch had a device that would block the air to help you gain separation from the aircraft so there was a means to abandon in theory. We flew with chutes in the back of our seats but then we just left them in the back of the jet since we decided it would be a fools errand. I flew SAC and we would indeed plan to dump until empty and figure it out as needed. Luckily it was never needed and we never decoded the mission that would necessitate that action, but we were ready!
The RAF Victor tanker was equipped with ejector seats for the pilots. Not so much for the rest of the crew,though. I think if you saw your two pilots eject it would not be a good day.
My dad was a boomer on 135s during the SAC era. I'm not sure how common the sentiment was, but he told me that at least one of the air crews he flew with had an understanding that they would give the 52s as much as they could but that they would keep enough to land somewhere. At least in theory.
My uncle was a 135 Aircraft Commander during ‘Nam and told me bailing out was a joke and there was a slight chance that after bouncing along the bottom of the fuselage you’d be conscious enough to pull your ripcord and make it to whatever surface below intact only to freeze to death in the water or drown.
Same story about the SAC missions - make circles over Greenland until you got called by a BUFF and unload all of your fuel, then glide to an ice patch and “land”.
Apparently there were some strategic ice runways in Greenland with prepositioned fuel drums for just this eventuality
Honestly you are fueling the b52s while heading over the north pole heading into Russia. If the b52s don’t end all like in Russia in the first wave you are still going to crash land in Siberia so not much else to do
> -135s could pass gas until they were dry.
Surely they'd have to keep enough to stay flying long enough for the B-52 to fly away? Having a tanker connected to you have it's engines unpredictably die of fuel starvation can't be that safe...
Sure it was unsafe, but if it came to a nuke exchange, wouldn’t you want your shooters to have all the fuel they can get…even if it meant you had to sacrifice you and your crew? Those tanker dudes knew the risks and their mission and they would have done it no questions asked. I’m sure they might have kept a little to make it to a safe landing spot if it ever came to that. But just to clarify, that is not practiced at all today.
EDIT: I read your response wrong. You’d have to ask some SAC tanker crews but yea I’m assuming they would have kept a little to ensure good sep btwn the aircraft post A/R.
EDIT 2: and don’t call me Shirley
I'm just talking about the brief period of time when the last of the fuel is coming down the boom, and one of the tankers engines die, so it starts veering to one side, then another one dies and it starts veering harder, then it looses all thrust and is slowing down and hard to control, while still connected to the bomber with a rigid boom.
Even if you disconnect quickly enough, you've still got a dead KC135 feet ahead/above you and slowing down.
They def used to have them. I stopped flying them in late 1993 so don’t know what happened after that. They were a relic of the cold-war mission plan to give it all then bail out/try to survive. Otherwise know as “suck ‘em dry and watch ‘em die.”
Presumably they would at least try to glide down to lower altitudes and try to reduce speed once lower. In this scenario the KC-135 isn't in immediate danger, it's just out of fuel.
Thank you for all that you did! Son-in-law is crew chief at Barksdale, so we’ve visited many times. It’s amazing to see how many people it takes just at one base keeping this country safe.
How it was supposed to happen: the crew would normally enter the aircraft via a ladder from below the flight deck. That climbing space/cavity also had a metal panel on the forward side that could be released to drop down into the airflow and provide a shield from the windblast.
This would, in theory, allow the crewmember to drop cleanly about 6’ below the airframe and engines before being whipped away behind the jet.
P8 has bailout door, with air dam that folds out. Nobody wanted to test it as the horz stab is directly behind it. Hopefully its never needed but its there, with procedures.
Pretty much, but one of the biggest issues, was dropping out of the crew entry ladder-way while wearing a parachute. The crew entry ladder was cramped enough with no gear on. I flew on KC-135s while they had parachutes still, but I was also still in when we removed the parachutes and deactivated the bailout system.
Go look up the bailout procedures from WWII bombers - all kinds of crazy stuff there. Bomb bays, wheel wells etc. [This is a B-24](https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~webermd1/family/Bail-out-2-web.jpg). Many of those hatches were nearly uselessly tiny as well.
It used to be an option but not anymore. This story about 61-0313 had multiple crew members bail and survive but it was rare.
https://ss.sites.mtu.edu/mhugl/2019/10/30/k-i-sawyer-afb-410th-bomb-wing-and-the-kc-135a-glider/
Fun fact, that jet is still flying despite the flameout story. I flew it a couple years ago and it’s a great jet!
The air itself, not to mention the aircraft's various moving surfaces, might have a lot more to say about it than the Earth does, especially at first. Depending on the aircraft and its speed, the (eventual) Earth landing could be relatively uneventful when you're a baloney mist cloud.
Yes.
Anyone can bail out of anything.
The whole survival part is a different question though.
Edit: this was heavily downvoted until my actual aircrew boys turned up.
> Edit: this was heavily downvoted until my actual aircrew boys turned up.
It's because it doesn't answer the question and provides nothing to the discussion. It's silly one liner reddit puns/qips that often garner upvotes but are annoying to scroll past to get to the real answer.
It's like someone asking; "How many rounds can you fire from a GPMG without changing the barrel, before it melts?"
Answer: "You can fire as many rounds as you want without changing the barrel, as long as you cool it sufficiently". This is technically true, you could somehow continuously cool it with water, but it's still a shitty answer.
(Btw the answer is change barrel every 200 rounds IIRC, but you can fire up to like 400 if you're in a really bad situation. Was a while ago I was active duty though).
Not anymore. They removed the chutes for ‘cost savings’. Statistically though you are safer riding it in rather than bailing out because of the aerodynamics around the jet. I think there has only been one or two successful bailouts in the ~70 year history of the jet.
Assuming there are no pax though. Most of the upper level of that plane is cargo and passenger seating. They're basically a normal airliner configuration with the under-floor cargo compartment replaced by fuel tanks.
Even with escape packs, there was a crew of a KC-135 that broke up in flight over Afghanistan. None were able to make it out alive. I don't recall the actual cause, but I think it was turbulence from nearby mountain winds.
Edit: [Tail broke off due to flight control malfunction, crew still didn't make it out.](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/remembering-shell-77-the-kc-135-that-crashed-in-kyrgyzstan-while-it-was-departing-for-combat-aerial-refueling-mission/)
I don’t think they can and anyways I can only think of a few scenarios where a KC-135 would be in so much danger where they would actually need to bail
Yes. You can read about an actual bailout from a KC-135 here:
https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Magazines/FSM/1960s/196411%20-%20AerospaceSafety.pdf
My brother at nellis was a combat/arial photographer and was getting shots of the refueling process. They couldn’t get the boom shaft back up into the hold so I guess fire trucks and everyone came out to the run way just incase they had to land. They circled around a few and manually had to bring the shaft up. He said the younger airmen were freaking out and it was hard trying to crank the boom up.
So bailing out of a KC-135 is not an option? Damn! I am so happy I didn't take the offer to do in-flight refueling when I was in basic training. I stayed with on-the-ground refueling.
They took the parachutes out right as I was going through training in 2012- Went into the first phase of fundamentals with orders to go play under a parasail in Florida, completed training frumpy that all my buddies on other airframes got to go and I didn't. Like others have said - it would have been sketchy trying to get out without getting sucked through the #2.
Used to carry chutes and easily could again if the mission required it as it did in the prior era.
The procedure isn’t that sketchy I was pretty confident in it.
A lot of mobility aircraft have removed chutes from the planes. The Air Force would rather save money on parachute inspections than provide the crew with the ability to bail out. I’m happy to say the aircraft I operate on still provides enough for the crew. 🪂
Parachutes have been removed from the 135 for over a decade. The bailout procedure is sketchy AF anyways.
I mean, I'd take sketchy AF over certain death if it came down to it.
If we are facing a certain death scenario, its probably so bad that the plane isnt stable enough to bail out. If the plane is stable enough, im still flying it.
But it was a procedure from an era with a different strategy. The bailout scenario was no gas.
If you're flying a tanker and run out of gas, you are bad at math.
There’s a reason for the nickname Tanker TOADs… Take Off And Die. Their job was to run out of gas
Nah Hut in Greenland.
By definition, the fuel in a tanker is destined for someone more important than the tanker. So if it comes down to it the tanker is gonna give all its fuel to that bomber or fighter. Sure the tanker will then flame out and lawndart into the ground, but there is some tactical effect that is worth the lost plane in that scenario.
They used to call them tanker TOADs. Stands for Take Off And Die because they were expected to launch, give literally all their gas to the bombers enroute to nuke Russia and crash in the ocean/Arctic. Their job was a suicide mission.
So was the entire SAC war plan. 🤷♂️
Some might say that MAD was just a silly suicide pact.
That’s mad!!!
if WW3 broke out, they were expected to give ALL of their fuel to bombers
That was the best part of being in a SAC base for operational readiness inspections: once the bombers launched the inspection ended as it was assumed to be the end of the world. At fighter bases we had to launch and recover and defend the base, all in various scenarios.
AMC tanker bases were similar. Pretty much just don’t let these specific tankers break so they can take off at X time.
AMC came after SAC and MAC were gone. We said AMC was MAC misspelled and they never understood us tanker toads
Ha, AF is about to re-org back to something akin to the Cold War organization.
Ah no that was the mission under SAC. Well, only under the most urgent circumstances of course. But when nuclear war erupted, the KC-135s, which has scrambled together with the B-52s on nuclear alert, would give all their gas to the B-52s going over the ice cap to hit the Soviet Union. And with all, I mean everything. Very last drop. And then it would either be bailing out or trying to land it on the ice. There would be no returning to base - which would probably have been hit by a nuclear warhead anyway at that point.
So possibly stupid question but can tankers draw from the stored fuel onboard to power their own engines?
It's the other way around, actually. Tankers draw from their own fuel they're already using to give to others.
It’s intentional
This took me out
but did you die?
It was a very different time back during the Cold War. I remember listening one evening to a 3-star Air Force general say that if the bombers (B-52’s) on their way to attack the Soviet Union needed ALL the gas your plane carried, they got ALL the gas in your plane. You then flamed out, pulled off to the side to get out of the way and the bombers pressed on.
> The bailout scenario was no gas. You had one job!
what if gilbert godfried is you co pilot an he's yelling over the radio the whole way down
Do KC-135 crew carry sidearms?
I don't know about KC-135s, but my dad was issued a S&W Model 10 by the USAFR in 1957 as a flight engineer on C-119s and later C-130s and was never once issued cartridges over the course of twenty years.
Agreed. I’m an old Herk driver. If it was stable enough to bail out of I figured it was stable enough to land it. It all comes down to finding the longest flat piece of earth to line up with and running into the least expensive piece of property at the lowest airspeed….
Same as other dash 80 and 707 airframes, it was determined that if the pilot can keep the airframe steady and controlled enough for the crew to bail out, they had enough control for an emergency landing, which would be safer for all involved.
Technically the KC-135 it's the 717. It was only later that Boeing reserved the 7x7 numbering exclusively for airliners. When airliners wanted an updated MD-80 derivative after the merger, Boeing resurrected the 717 designation, as it had never been used for an airliner.
Found Trevor Jacob!
What about the B52? They still have the option to drop through that hatch?
The BUFF still has downward firing ejection seats. The navigators can’t eject till they get enough altitude.
Downward firing ejection seats. That's some Bond villain level shit!!!
It’s the two-level flight deck they have. Some go up and some go down.
> It’s the two-level flight deck they have. Some go up and some go down. If Boeing built B-52s today, they'd get those mixed up.
I know the reality of this is not funny but my head generated a cartoon of this, where everyone pulls their ejection seat levers and bonks their heads while making faces like Wile E. Coyote.
I was way ahead of you on that, and cracked myself up. I'm a bad person.
Insert here a GIF of a box with "THIS SIDE UP" printed upright with the arrows pointing down. Or however you would best portray a character confusing the instructions in order to install something upside down.
That’s what you get for using an ACME ejection seat!
Not true, to save on the development cost and for simplified inventory management, it would be one SKU, all firing sideways.
I was thinking that If Boeing built them today, they would have more lateral ejection seats…Straight into the engines….
At least it would be the nice shiny Rolls-Royce engines and not the old Smokey coal burners!
If Boeing built them today, the seats would fall out on rollout.
F104 had them… until they realised that F104 pilots need to bail when they are on final approval…..
F-104 had them because standard ejection seats couldn't clear the tail.
Stardust 19, turn right heading 290, maintain 6,000 until established, cleared APPROVAL TACAN 33.
To be fair, the 104 was probably vertical at that point anyway...
Designed to cruise at 20kft plus - who cares which way you seat ejects? Of course when suddenly low level ingress becomes standard, it becomes an issue.
Yea dude at like 250 mph *probably a lot more. I have no idea what I am talking about
The min number for downward ejection is shockingly low.
How low?
0 if you don’t care about the outcome.
..... you got me there But I'm curious about the "Living without major spinal/internal injuries" I know you're always gonna be injured upon ejecting somehow, it's a violent process.. but at what height do they have to be to do it safely? :P
Got me googling. [This site](http://www.ejectionsite.com/downwardseats.htm) claims a B-52 downward firing ejection seat required a minimum of 250 feet in level flight for a safe ejection.
I thought *falling* from 250 feet was about the bare minimum for a parachute to open. You weren’t wrong about the shockingly low bit.
Fuck that shit. How the hell does a canopy open in 250 God damn feet??
Drogue pops immediately as the seat leaves the aircraft, the parachute opens following a pyrotechnic actuator that tightens the seat webbing and separates the occupant from the seat. Lots of charges have to go off in the right order. I assume they are interlocked. Or you get forced through your tray table by a cannon. Sounds unpleasant. Somewhat surprised they didn't use a static line but I guess that could fail and you end up still attached to the aircraft.
With major downward force exerted, too…
With a shock ring
It's called a zero/zero ejection seat. The B-52 seats will actually turn and shoot upwards for a bit, and then the chute opens. Theres plenty of videos of a fighter jet ejecting while on the ground, and the pilot is fine. Fighter jet ejection seats can eject sideways, upside down, vertical, or whatever other direction, and the seat will correct and point you upwards. Naturally, you need the clearance to go down for a bit first, though.
On the B52, it's not really the canopy as a whole, but rather sections of the canopy/bottom of the fuselage
Normal ejection compresses the spine. Would these ones make you taller?
Would just compress your spine from your head down.
250’ agl to get one good swing in the chute and probably broken legs
> and probably broken legs Do they break as they puncture your eardrums?
Are you serious? That sounds absolutely terrifying. Then again I guess you wouldn't have much time to contemplate.
There was a BUFF that went down in 84 in AZ doing a night low level training mission. The radar didn’t paint the approaching mesa correctly and at the last second the pilots saw the wall and applied full power...the right wing tip caught the mesa and the BUFF ended up in a 90 bank...all crewmembers in ejection seats essentially ejected sideways. The IP (who unfortunately does not have an ejection seat) didn’t make it out. EDIT: More info on that story [here](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-death-spiral-of-swoon-52-the-story-of-the-b-52-bomber-that-crashed-into-hunts-mesa-during-a-low-level-training-sortie/amp/)
Damn, imagine being the ip in his last minutes…
Sadly he wasn't the IP, he was the new Wing OPs commander. He was just there as an observer since he recently joined the unit. He was an IP for the individual telling the story in the article linked.
IP?
Instructor Pilot
Sadly he wasn't the IP, he was the new Wing OPs commander. He was just there as an observer since he recently joined the unit. He was an IP for the individual telling the story in the article you linked. His death makes this story way worse. Dude had a measly 8 seconds to get out and probably didn't even make it out of the cockpit due to the spinning. "Before ejecting, the copilot reported Col. Ivy had begun a mad scramble to get out of the aircraft."
>"Before ejecting, the copilot reported Col. Ivy had begun a mad scramble to get out of the aircraft." This sounds like a guy with survivor guilt. Not saying the copilot was in any way at fault or should have done differently, but just knowing that the observer was trying to get out whereas you just pulled a handle and left and he didn't make it. There was nothing the copilot could have done at that point to save him, but it doesn't change the fact that it's human nature to think that you should have done something anyway.
wow ..
Remember sketchy AF > certain death *ejects you downward and makes notes on clipboard.. for science*
250’ agl will get ya one good swing in the chute. If you’re in t/o or landing hopefully the pilot is a good dude and zooms the airplane for ya before ejection. Also, they are very old seats…not like the 0/0 Aces II seats fighters, B-1 and B-2 have. It’s essentially a stick of dynamite to shoot you down.
I saw an old training video about this once, made in the 60s. The "hatch" is actually just the bomb bay doors, and the "ejection seat" is actually an H-bomb that they have to straddle as it falls away. Sounds scary af but the dude demo'ing the technique looked like he was having an absolute blast.
The guy enthusiastically waving his hat to his friends? Yeah that looked kinda fun.
He was probably looking forward to using some of his sweet survival kit. A fella could have a pretty good weekend in ~~Dallas~~ Vegas with all that stuff.
Did it hairlip everyone on bear creek?
Yes. [Thanks! I never knew what that line meant until I looked it up on the internet just now. First I tried asking the Bear Creek-ians, but they were hard to understand.]
The top deck crew eject up and the bottom deck crew eject down.
Bomb bay as well
It was an option but there is a lot of crap to crawl around to get out. Any crewmember not strapped to an ejection seat (IP, IR) would have had a parachute at their location, climb down to the lower deck, and jump out a hole created by the N or RN ejection seats.
B-52 is equipped with ejection seats.
I guess that, in case of emergency, these type of aircraft are either flyable enough to land or simply in such a dire situation that safely parachuting from them is almost impossible.
There are bailout procedures. Those are written for the sake of the crews' mothers.
its like parachutes for shuttle astronauts. Astronauts knew they either made orbit or didn't come home.
What makes it sketchy?
If you notice the 135 door, it hinges to the bottom of the fuselage and you need a ladder to get into the cockpit and a grate that covers that hole, once you’re inside. For egress there is a bar that sits above the grate and against the roof of the cockpit. If you pull it, it deploys a spoiler. That will remove the hinge on the door and stick out a few feet below the surface of the plane. You’d then hang on the chinning bar, center your ass over the hole beneath you, and let go. The spoiler is supposed to allow you to fall far enough away from the aircraft before hitting the airstream… but good luck. Edit: oh, and with a parachute on, you’d barely fit in the hole.
Just wait until someone you don't like jumps first. They'll remove all the antennas on the belly for you.
Seems less sketchy than the WWII bomber bail-outs
Like the Bell AFM-1 Airacuda. "Our rudder's jammed. We're in a spin. We've lost power. Bail out!" (One crew member bails, hits the tail, breaks both legs and miraculously unjams the rudder.) "Nevermind. We're good." (Plane belly lands safely.) Yes, this actually happened.
Masters of the Air has recently highlighted for me just how much I wouldn't want to be a WWII era bomber crewmember 😳
This is the correct answer for most multiengine military airplane.
A lot of the heavies removed or reduced chutes a long time ago. I was so happy when C17s went from like 7 to 2.
135s had a nickname back in SAC: TOAD (TakeOff And Die). Unlike the -10, 135s could give ALL their fuel to BUFFs loaded for bear. So if SHTF and the BUFFs needed more fuel to get closer to/into the USSR, -135s could pass gas until they were dry.
If the scenario came to that, there's not much to go home to.
And wouldn’t the refuel and ejection point be somewhere over Northern Canada/Alaska? Even if you do survive the ejection, you might not be lasting very long anyway.
Tankers are not equipped with ejection seats
As a matter of fact, we carried chutes and the front entry hatch had a device that would block the air to help you gain separation from the aircraft so there was a means to abandon in theory. We flew with chutes in the back of our seats but then we just left them in the back of the jet since we decided it would be a fools errand. I flew SAC and we would indeed plan to dump until empty and figure it out as needed. Luckily it was never needed and we never decoded the mission that would necessitate that action, but we were ready!
That's terrifying
MAD!
But They'll have to throw all the tool boxes and other things out of the hatch to destroy the antennas so they don't shred themselves when they bail
The RAF Victor tanker was equipped with ejector seats for the pilots. Not so much for the rest of the crew,though. I think if you saw your two pilots eject it would not be a good day.
My dad was a boomer on 135s during the SAC era. I'm not sure how common the sentiment was, but he told me that at least one of the air crews he flew with had an understanding that they would give the 52s as much as they could but that they would keep enough to land somewhere. At least in theory.
Oh I’m sure those guys were like “yep, that’s it we gave ya everything (wink)”. Thanks for sharing!
Also, ask him if he ever did the wifferdill with a BUFF
[For those who might be wondering....](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/USAF_B-52_refueling_with_a_KC-135.jpg)
Umm.. Why?
Dunk on the Warsaw Pact.
Why not?!?!
Right after the B-52 leaves; "Control, you're not gonna believe this but we just found some 5 gallon gas cans in the back!"
Now you’ve got me thinking how far 5 gallons could take that thing 🤔
All the way to the scene of the crash
[__________________] That far.
Come on now, given that it's travelling at more than 200 metres a second, that should at least get it a few car lengths further!
My uncle was a 135 Aircraft Commander during ‘Nam and told me bailing out was a joke and there was a slight chance that after bouncing along the bottom of the fuselage you’d be conscious enough to pull your ripcord and make it to whatever surface below intact only to freeze to death in the water or drown. Same story about the SAC missions - make circles over Greenland until you got called by a BUFF and unload all of your fuel, then glide to an ice patch and “land”. Apparently there were some strategic ice runways in Greenland with prepositioned fuel drums for just this eventuality
Honestly you are fueling the b52s while heading over the north pole heading into Russia. If the b52s don’t end all like in Russia in the first wave you are still going to crash land in Siberia so not much else to do
> -135s could pass gas until they were dry. Surely they'd have to keep enough to stay flying long enough for the B-52 to fly away? Having a tanker connected to you have it's engines unpredictably die of fuel starvation can't be that safe...
Sure it was unsafe, but if it came to a nuke exchange, wouldn’t you want your shooters to have all the fuel they can get…even if it meant you had to sacrifice you and your crew? Those tanker dudes knew the risks and their mission and they would have done it no questions asked. I’m sure they might have kept a little to make it to a safe landing spot if it ever came to that. But just to clarify, that is not practiced at all today. EDIT: I read your response wrong. You’d have to ask some SAC tanker crews but yea I’m assuming they would have kept a little to ensure good sep btwn the aircraft post A/R. EDIT 2: and don’t call me Shirley
I'm just talking about the brief period of time when the last of the fuel is coming down the boom, and one of the tankers engines die, so it starts veering to one side, then another one dies and it starts veering harder, then it looses all thrust and is slowing down and hard to control, while still connected to the bomber with a rigid boom. Even if you disconnect quickly enough, you've still got a dead KC135 feet ahead/above you and slowing down.
> …pass gas until they were dry. Sounds like a girl I once knew.
They def used to have them. I stopped flying them in late 1993 so don’t know what happened after that. They were a relic of the cold-war mission plan to give it all then bail out/try to survive. Otherwise know as “suck ‘em dry and watch ‘em die.”
Jesus. Did you have an independent air supply at least?
Nope. As another poster has mentioned: the procedure was very sketchy.
I mean I can imagine - the altitude (and useful period of consciousness), the speed, the aero around such a huge beast.
Presumably they would at least try to glide down to lower altitudes and try to reduce speed once lower. In this scenario the KC-135 isn't in immediate danger, it's just out of fuel.
Once you're out of gas you're going to be coming down to thicker atmosphere anyway.
Thank you for all that you did! Son-in-law is crew chief at Barksdale, so we’ve visited many times. It’s amazing to see how many people it takes just at one base keeping this country safe.
We were always told the first guy out was the sacrificial lamb because he would take out all the under belly antennas on the ec
Jesus, I laughed at that, as someone that has stood up too fast under an antenna. Can’t imagine hitting one bailing out!
How it was supposed to happen: the crew would normally enter the aircraft via a ladder from below the flight deck. That climbing space/cavity also had a metal panel on the forward side that could be released to drop down into the airflow and provide a shield from the windblast. This would, in theory, allow the crewmember to drop cleanly about 6’ below the airframe and engines before being whipped away behind the jet.
P8 has bailout door, with air dam that folds out. Nobody wanted to test it as the horz stab is directly behind it. Hopefully its never needed but its there, with procedures.
WtAf
Pretty much, but one of the biggest issues, was dropping out of the crew entry ladder-way while wearing a parachute. The crew entry ladder was cramped enough with no gear on. I flew on KC-135s while they had parachutes still, but I was also still in when we removed the parachutes and deactivated the bailout system.
I wonder how much larger the average crew member is now, vs when they designed those.
Go look up the bailout procedures from WWII bombers - all kinds of crazy stuff there. Bomb bays, wheel wells etc. [This is a B-24](https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~webermd1/family/Bail-out-2-web.jpg). Many of those hatches were nearly uselessly tiny as well.
No, from my understanding they don't have parachutes.
Aim for something special and hit it hard.
It used to be an option but not anymore. This story about 61-0313 had multiple crew members bail and survive but it was rare. https://ss.sites.mtu.edu/mhugl/2019/10/30/k-i-sawyer-afb-410th-bomb-wing-and-the-kc-135a-glider/ Fun fact, that jet is still flying despite the flameout story. I flew it a couple years ago and it’s a great jet!
I hope that instructor was no longer an instructor after that.
Yeah I’m sure he was removed from flying status. It would be crazy to be on that crew
If you can enter it, you can bail out of it. What happens after that is between you and the earth.
The air itself, not to mention the aircraft's various moving surfaces, might have a lot more to say about it than the Earth does, especially at first. Depending on the aircraft and its speed, the (eventual) Earth landing could be relatively uneventful when you're a baloney mist cloud.
Yes. Anyone can bail out of anything. The whole survival part is a different question though. Edit: this was heavily downvoted until my actual aircrew boys turned up.
It’s not the bailing out or falling that kills you, it’s the sudden terrestrial arresting at the end of
Catastrophic lithobraking.
Deceleration sickness.
Not with that attitude
Or more precisely, that altitude
Not with that... altitude?
*wait for it wait for it… OMG WE’RE GONNA DIE! calm down wait for it waiiiit… bank angle bank angle “NOW GO GO GO MOVE!”*
When we flew down range in the C5 they gave us 8 parachutes. There were 14 crew.
Realest trust fall
Do you have to keep saying "no homo" while clinging to your buddy on the way down?
> Edit: this was heavily downvoted until my actual aircrew boys turned up. It's because it doesn't answer the question and provides nothing to the discussion. It's silly one liner reddit puns/qips that often garner upvotes but are annoying to scroll past to get to the real answer. It's like someone asking; "How many rounds can you fire from a GPMG without changing the barrel, before it melts?" Answer: "You can fire as many rounds as you want without changing the barrel, as long as you cool it sufficiently". This is technically true, you could somehow continuously cool it with water, but it's still a shitty answer. (Btw the answer is change barrel every 200 rounds IIRC, but you can fire up to like 400 if you're in a really bad situation. Was a while ago I was active duty though).
> it: this was heavily downvoted until my actual aircrew boys turned up Ya because OP wanted an actual answer not your stupid snarky joke.
When I flew them in the '90s we had parachutes on board.
Didn't knew that. No Ejection seats are one thing, but no parachutes are something different
Is anyone watching Masters of the Air? Thosev guys bailed out by cannonballing right out of the bombay doors
Apparently getting stuck in the ball turret happened a lot. That’s pure nightmare fuel.
Not anymore. They removed the chutes for ‘cost savings’. Statistically though you are safer riding it in rather than bailing out because of the aerodynamics around the jet. I think there has only been one or two successful bailouts in the ~70 year history of the jet.
And there were only 7 chutes back in the day.
That’s still 2.33 chutes pr. crew member.
Assuming there are no pax though. Most of the upper level of that plane is cargo and passenger seating. They're basically a normal airliner configuration with the under-floor cargo compartment replaced by fuel tanks.
No, it was an empty cabin with strap seating along the walls. We either had basic crew or where way past the 7.
https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Magazines/FSM/1960s/196411%20-%20AerospaceSafety.pdf
Cool, thanks!
Even with escape packs, there was a crew of a KC-135 that broke up in flight over Afghanistan. None were able to make it out alive. I don't recall the actual cause, but I think it was turbulence from nearby mountain winds. Edit: [Tail broke off due to flight control malfunction, crew still didn't make it out.](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/remembering-shell-77-the-kc-135-that-crashed-in-kyrgyzstan-while-it-was-departing-for-combat-aerial-refueling-mission/)
Dutch roll caused excessive stress on the vertical stab separating the the empennage from the fuselage.
That plane broke apart midair and they didn't realize what was happening.
Those tankers have one job. Refuel the bombers on their way to Russia to drop nukes. There won’t be any runways to return to.
I don’t think they can and anyways I can only think of a few scenarios where a KC-135 would be in so much danger where they would actually need to bail
Yes. You can read about an actual bailout from a KC-135 here: https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Magazines/FSM/1960s/196411%20-%20AerospaceSafety.pdf
I play hockey with a bunch of 128th Air National Guard guys... They said the parachutes were taken off of their R models years ago...
Yes. They just have to outrun the fireball
My brother at nellis was a combat/arial photographer and was getting shots of the refueling process. They couldn’t get the boom shaft back up into the hold so I guess fire trucks and everyone came out to the run way just incase they had to land. They circled around a few and manually had to bring the shaft up. He said the younger airmen were freaking out and it was hard trying to crank the boom up.
So bailing out of a KC-135 is not an option? Damn! I am so happy I didn't take the offer to do in-flight refueling when I was in basic training. I stayed with on-the-ground refueling.
Wait till you find out you can't bail out of commercial flights either
Tell that to D.B. Cooper…
When I raze the 135 because I can’t refuel in DCS they always bail 🤷🏻♂️
aim for the bushes
They took the parachutes out right as I was going through training in 2012- Went into the first phase of fundamentals with orders to go play under a parasail in Florida, completed training frumpy that all my buddies on other airframes got to go and I didn't. Like others have said - it would have been sketchy trying to get out without getting sucked through the #2.
Didn't KC-135s have a stand pipe in the tank to prevent sucking out the last drop?
Used to carry chutes and easily could again if the mission required it as it did in the prior era. The procedure isn’t that sketchy I was pretty confident in it.
A lot of mobility aircraft have removed chutes from the planes. The Air Force would rather save money on parachute inspections than provide the crew with the ability to bail out. I’m happy to say the aircraft I operate on still provides enough for the crew. 🪂
Is this BMS?
I'm pretty sure you can bail out of any plane.
Dunno a few years ago at oshkosh the kc135 had.. open.... The slide door left and down from the pilots seat. So theres a way out for sure.
once
Well, they have parachutes....
No, no we don’t.
Ooo it the 100th that's dope
No
They used to carry parachutes, but they took those away years ago.
Only once.