MIG-21 ejection video. real or not?

[tigisfat]

It appears real, but I don't know enough to be able to tell. I've never seen this before. It looks legit at first glance.


0qXxntTe79c

[deathfromafar]

It's very real. Indian Air Force. I read a report on that somewhere on the net(sorry I can't recall where) but from what I remember, he reported losing power/loss throttle response and punched out. You can hear the KM-1 seat firing a second or so after you see it's rocket motors burning and going out of sight of the camera. The pilot came down on the right side of the runway(runway heading) and you see another of the personnel run across the runway to him. He was injured but not seriously. The ensuing crash and fireball killed a number of bystanders(18 I think?).

[TARPSBird]

2009 was a bad year for MiG-21's in the Indian Air Force, they put 7 or 8 of 'em in the ground. Good aircraft but getting old, and their engines don't have a very good track record for reliability.

[safn1949]

That's why they are getting rid of them,interesting article here.http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/articles/20100427.aspx

[GT182]

Yeah, it's real. I pitty the pilot tho. He was too low to clear the ejection seat and had a real hard landing.... must have broken a few bones.

[tigisfat]

Well,

I haven't walked a mile in his shoes, and I have no idea what was going on in the cockpit,

but I do have to wonder if that situation wasn't recoverable. That plane did get going again once he was out, but on the other hand I've heard of an F-14 that caught a weak cat shot and started sinking towards the water. About an fraction of a second before it touched, the pilot and RIO ejected. There was no doubt it was going into the drink, but with the weight of those seats and pilots gone, that F-14 took off straight up like an ICBM for a thousand feet, and then came right around and barely missed the carrier.

[roger-wilco-66]

The guy that filmed this scene is lucky, I think. The least thing you would like is a jet speeding down the runway toward you and after liftoff suddenly the pilot ejects.

I agree with Tig, it looks like without the weight of the seat and the pilot, the aircraft gets slightly tail heavy and for a moment gains some altitude. Those seats have a lot of weight; I happen to own a real and complete Martin Baker GQ7/a (F104 Starfighter) seat which was my office chair for a while. That thing is awfully heavy (> 100kg ).

Cheers,
Mark