Cowboy10uk Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Anyone who has ever climbed into a bang-seat (and I've climbed into a few) has the utmost respect for the equipment and is ultra careful as far as arming and dis-arming the seat. They aren't however faultless and there are plenty of stories involving ejections within limits that have resulted in injury, paralysis and worse death. The Mk10 in the Hawk is a zero/zero seat. As such even on dispersal ejections "should" be survivable. Should being the operative word. Going to the Tucano wont help much and would have been potentially worse. The Tucano Mk8 seat (unless its been replaced by the Mk10 since my days) is a Zero/70 seat. It requires 70 kts airspeed to function. Banging out on the dispersal would therefore be near suicidal in itself. The best thing to do here is not speculate, allow AAIB to do their job and wait to see what the cause was. From the pictures it looks like he or she (lets not forget there is a female Red in the team) was strapped in and that the detonator cord has gone, the canopy with it and the rail that the seat rides clear of the aircraft on is extended. That hints, but doesn't guarantee that it was a command eject from the front seat and that the back seat was probably un-occupied, at least un-armed. Beyond that no-one knows more other than those at the site at the time and the AAIB as far as the investigation goes so far. Anyone who knee-jerks into shutting the team down is an idiot. We all when we signed up knew the risks, yet we accepted them anyway. Granted most of us expected the ultimate sacrifice to come accompanied with a hail of bullets. No-one signed up to die in peacetime, but it happens. That doesn't belittle the loss to the team, the RAF or the wider aviation community. The fact that it happens so close to the weekend that we remember the fallen only makes it more poignant. The season has taken quite a hit this year both Military and in the Warbird communities and one assumes that it'll have reverberations around the community for some time. Lets all just hope that this is the last one for a long time and that any decisions made are sensible, full fact, informed ones. We have buried enough friends this year, lets hope this one is the last, even though we know it could and quite probably wont be. Lets not forget either the translation on the badge we all wore, its not "Per Ardua Ad Astra" for nothing. RIP. Lest we forget. +1 Couldn't have said it better myself, although I tried. Cowboy10uk [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Fighter pilots make movies, Attack pilots make history, Helicopter pilots make heros. :pilotfly: Corsair 570x Crystal Case, Intel 8700K O/clocked to 4.8ghz, 32GB Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4 3200 MHZ Ram, 2 x 1TB M2 drives, 2 x 4TB Hard Drives, Nvidia EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW, Maximus x Hero MB, H150i Cooler, 6 x Corsair LL120 RGB Fans And a bloody awful Pilot :doh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manfrez01 Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 RIP. [sIGPIC]http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7877/72368977.jpg[/sIGPIC] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rextar Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Red 5 killed. First my thoughts go out to his family and loved ones. How could this happern on the ground. Ive read reports that the matin baker mk 10 failed,due to planes suspension.? Its a loss for the red arrows and us a nation. Intel i5 3.2 ghz 8 GB crucial ram gtx 660 superclocked 2gb 500watt corsair psu win7 64bit extreme pro track ir5 Turtle beach x12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrisakky Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 RIP Flight Lieutenant Sean Cunningham YouTube channel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yurgon Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 RIP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ells228 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Rest in Peace Sean. There is a condolance page where you can leave a message here: http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/teamnews/fltltseancunningham.cfm The Virtual Red Arrows have sent a message on behalf of ourselves and the virtual aerobatic community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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