Thunderbird F-16 cockpit video of ejection at Mountain Home AFB crash.

[CMC Airboss]

Watch Capt. Strickland's left arm in the video. On the pullout from the loop, his throttle hand moves the thottle several times and his head is pointed toward throttle.  He puts his left hand on the ejection handle then quickly raises it to the throttle to key the mic "Six out."  His left arm goes back to the ejection handle and brings his right hand on top.  He then straightens his head back on the headrest just as the canopy flies off.  Go through the video frame by frame and you can see all of the movements.  He knew through the last quarter of that loop that the airplane wasn't producing enough power to maintain the G's he needed to pullout.  

MiG

[Scootter]

Originally posted by Gunslinger

Secondly you could still hear engine sounds coming from the airplane....I'm not an engine guy but I do know that could be the APU goin or the engine itself but with just no thrust

F-16 has an EPU (emergency power unit) not an APU and it needs to be started and spooled up to power the elect bus. I really dont think he had time for all that (or need).

Not my first choice but he had some sort of power problem, I do see flame from the pipe in the first pic but that may be from the engine fraging.

He may also not have had room to pull up from loop, but jeeze he is a T-bird pilot you would think he's kind good at this stuff.

Not enough info. to tell what happened, but I bet he kissed the support guys on the mouth and they used his wallet at the bar that night.

I wonder if the folks in the tower got time off to change their shorts after that one.

 
SSGT.
USAF 1980-1984
CRASH/FIRE/ RESCUE