Survival Training for When a Pilot’s World Turns Upside Down
Flagged under Military, but good reading about being ready for an emergency, for anyone, anywhere, any time….I took this training in 1985, so I could ride in jets off carriers. It is something to make you appreciate someone who keeps a cool head in a bad set of circumstances.
NAVAL AIR STATION WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. — The pilot sat strapped to a chair, held in place as if he were in the backseat of a helicopter. Beside him, on a mock wall, was a window. The window was closed.
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The pilot wore opaque goggles. He could not see the window or anything else. The chair was attached to a rotating stand in the chest-deep water of a swimming pool. A petty officer spun a large wheel, flipping the chair backward with a gentle whoosh. The pilot was now underwater, upside down.Another exercise in the test had begun.
The pilot — feet near the surface, head near the bottom, sightless — was to disconnect himself from the buckled straps, wiggle free, open the window and pull himself through and out, a series of movements intended to simulate what he might need to do in an aircraft that had struck the sea at night.
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