Originally Posted by
hindsight2020
Those Martin Bakers zero zeros are the best thing that's happened to the -38 since, well, forever.
Wow.
I have to vehemently disagree with that statement,... although I see your perspective.
The old T-38 seat is fine. Most of the T-38 accidents in Road to Wings would not happen today, since we learned so much about how NOT to fly the T-38.
And of those, very few,... if any,... would have had different outcomes with the MB ejection seat.
So,... how many millions of dollars did it cost the AF to "upgrade" the T-38C fleet with these seats?
Anecdotal: I'm told that the seat installation was delayed extensively due to some sort of rail corrosion,... but that the MB folks were still at the initial UPT base to get the seats. I'm sure they were being paid. If anyone knows if this is valid, chime in. If it is, that's a lot of $$ getting forked out for the delay.
Had the AF taken that money and invested it in the T-X, they would have made a better choice.
Not 1 life will be saved by this new seat, that the old seat wouldn't have saved. It will take me 10+ years to validate this statement,... so I guess it is irrelevant.
In any case,... I'm still flying an -A model, and couldn't be happier. I can see pretty well out of the backseat, unlike those pilots sitting behind the MB seat.
And I don't have to deal with the crappy -C model cockpit. The one that Boeing low-balled, and which, after the cost overruns, came out to be more than the Northrop cockpit,... which had already been installed in South American F-5's, and was pretty sweet.
Sorry,... I digress.
As you can see, I'm not a fan of the -C model. Shoot, if the AF had spent all the -C model "upgrade" money and MB ejection seat money on T-X procurement, we'd be flying the T-50 by now.
But I'll take my -A any day!!!