was waiting on you, Driving :). will begin on my post AGAIN

Good boy. After you've done I'll move things along.

A bit of bad news; from tomorrow morning until Thursday evening, I will be without a computer as I'll be in Nîmes for a school trip. Very sorry, but I'll try to leave things in good order for some posting from you all before I leave.

That sucks,badly. can't wait till you get back, nothing else to do.

EDIT: Also, does anyone know if a fighter pilot can survive a crash?

just posted, feel free to tell me anything I may need to edit

The Mage said
Also, does anyone know if a fighter pilot can survive a crash?

It depends very much on the nature of the crash. There are lots of kinds of crashes, and they happen in all manner of terrains and locations, under all sorts of circumstances.
If the crash is at low speed, and under control into soft terrain (more of a crash-landing), and the aircrafts' fuel and ordnance is mostly depleted, then the pilot has a better chance of surviving - though not certain, by any means. The forces involved would likely still result in some quite serious injuries, such as whiplash and spinal injuries especially. Though even that isn't certain.
People survive amazing things. There's a flight attendant who survived a several thousand foot fall with only a broken arm, for example.
Mostly, it's the circumstances that will affect the survival chances. And 'surviving', and 'surviving to walk away with minimal or no injuries, and a continued flight career' are two different things.

Even ejecting from an aircraft can result in quite serious injuries itself - you're basically strapping your arse to a rocket being fired off, and accelerating to several hundred miles an hour in second. I believe that anyone who ejects more than three times in their career is disqualified from flight duties, due to the strain it puts on the skeleton. Also, I once heard a rumour (emphasis mine, for the inevitable gleefully pointing out how wrong/stupid I am ¬.¬) that ejecting actually ends up making you shorter, due to the compression it puts on your spine...
There's a true story on the 'net somewhere about a Strike Eagle pilot who ejected, and his seat got stuck with his head outside of the cockpit. He managed to fly back to base and even land, but had serious whiplash due to the air blasting him in the neck the whole time.

I have also heard of the ejection making you shorter. It is by no means permanent. You grow shorter through the day just walking around anyway as the earths gravity slowly compresses your spine and it resets at night. The rapid application of a dozen or so Gs on ejection would have a very similar effect.

by the way, you being a Stephen Coonts fan, you may enjoy Punks War by Ward Carroll.

Silverwind Blade said
There's a true story on the 'net somewhere about a Strike Eagle pilot who ejected, and his seat got stuck with his head outside of the cockpit. He managed to fly back to base and even land, but had serious whiplash due to the air blasting him in the neck the whole time.

I thought seats were designed to smash the canopy if the aircraft isn't fitted with an MDC in the canopy?

For those of you who don't know what an MDC is, I'm going to point at this photo of a Hawk. That strange pattern of lines on the canopy glass is a strip of det-cord designed to smash the canopy just before the ejection seat fires.

Lost Cause said
I thought seats were designed to smash the canopy if the aircraft isn't fitted with an MDC in the canopy?

I think there was some kind of serious fault, which is why it happened at all. I'll see if I can find the story, hold on.

IC post is up. It's a bit short, but it should be enough to keep you all busy at least for one post while I'm gone.

My mistake - it wasn't an F-15, but an A-6.
http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_seat/
still pretty terrifying though.

The confusion comes from a story I read around the same time (this was a couple of years ago I first came across it) about a guy who ejected from an F-15 at supersonic speed and survived, and then went back into piloting them.
http://www.ejectionsite.com/insaddle/insaddle.htm

And then there's the Israeli guy on whom a part of Solo Wing Pixy's is based on...

Wikipedia said
The 1983 Negev mid-air collision was an accident in which the right wing of an F-15D was sheared off in a mid-air collision. Pilot Ziv Nedivi managed to land the F-15 safely due to the F-15 Eagle's unique aerodynamic characteristics.

And now, I must go. See you all Thursday! Don't get up to too much without me! No parties in my OOC!

Will they still be referred to their old callsigns, now that they're in the same squadron?

No idea, and since the GM isn't here we can't get an answer.

I think they will, seeing that if they weren't it was basically a waste of time choosing them :l

I'd imagine we'll get new callsigns if and when our mashup squadron is formalized during a longer break between missions or something.

If anything, we'd be assigned into flights that allow us to keep our callsigns.

And a post from me is up. Woo. Hopefully I can get a few more kills this time :P

Also, because I don't fill the OOC with enough crap already, Cracked had one of their 'this is what this job is like' articles with a Fighter Pilot, which I figured might be of interest to folks here:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20991_5-reasons-flying-fighter-jet-way-crazier-than-top-gun.html/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

And, to quote:

It's not unusual for a pilot to suffer career-ending injuries from ejection: Roughly one-third of pilots who eject suffer compression fractures to their spine. It's typical for a pilot to be an inch or two shorter after ejecting. That's right: There's a "make me shorter" handle in your jet.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20991_5-reasons-flying-fighter-jet-way-crazier-than-top-gun.html#ixzz2wLUS8Oet

So, Silverwind, what other types of injuries could be career ending for a pilot in the Air Force?