NSWC Indian Head Division

Reaching for a Perfect Success Rate

When Air Force Major Bryan Knight ejected from his F-117A Nighthawk in 1997, he had complete confidence in the aircraft ejection system. “I never doubted it for a second … when I pulled the handles,” Knight said.

After his ejection, Knight took it upon himself to visit Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division (NSWC IHD) to thank employees involved in the command’s Cartridge and Propellant Activated Devices (CAD/PAD) program, because he knew they had a major role in saving his life. Over the years, several other military aviators have visited NSWC IHD to express similar messages of gratitude.

There are over 2,000 different types of CADs and PADs. Depending upon the particular aircraft, there can be as many as 450 CADs and/or PADs installed within the aircraft’s ejection and safety systems, including the ejection seat rockets. 

Being able to rely on an ejection system to work as intended gives aviators confidence, which is particularly important during an emergency. It’s also testament to the behind the scenes work involved in the CAD/PAD program.

About ten percent of all CADs and PADs are manufactured at NSWC IHD, including the CKU-5 Rocket Catapult which provided the means of propulsion during Maj Knight’s ejection. Affiliated with NSWC IHD, Naval Air System Command, and the Air Force, the CAD/PAD Joint Program Office (JPO) manages 100 percent of all aspects of the program.  They are responsible for the “cradle to grave” (development to demilitarization) life-cycle of the devices.

The JPO also provides just in time worldwide delivery of all CADs and PADs to U.S. military forces through its NSWC IHD stock point, a process that takes just under a week to accomplish.

The JPO’s Mishap Investigation Support Team (MIST) is a critical support component  in the JPO,  with a direct link to improving aviator safety. The CAD/PAD MIST members are made up of two primary, two-member teams that support the overarching investigation teams; one primarily for the Navy and Marine Corps, the other for the Air Force.  All of the MIST positions require unique training and experience.  Each current team member is an equipment specialist with prior military training and experience on the maintenance of aircraft egress systems. After an aircraft mishap, a member from one of these teams deploys with or joins the overarching mishap investigation team when it deploys to the mishap site.

Once on site, the MIST’s responsibility is to inspect and analyze the ejection system for performance margins and ejection scenario documentation. The CAD/PAD team member must also inspect every installed CAD and PAD on the crashed aircraft to determine what did and did not work.

It is often a major undertaking.

Just finding CADs and PADs at an aircraft crash site is challenging as no two sites are similar. “There is no normal,” said Lee Manis, the CAD/PAD Assistant Program Manager for Logistics and former MIST member. “They are all different and an investigation can last a few days or several weeks.”

Crash sites also pose environmental and geographical challenges. “We have investigated sites on mountaintops, in the freezing cold, to having people hold off gators in swamps,” said MIST member Mike Rutledge. “There are other hazards at sites we need protection from, such as composite materials.”

Conducting meticulous investigations is also important. “We do very thorough investigations,” said Frank Lange, another MIST member who works in NSWC IHD’s Engineering Department. “We look at everything to determine if the primary and redundant systems worked. It’s similar to forensics, as we are determining cause.”

Over the past two decades, inspections, and quality controls have positively impacted ejection systems. “There has not been an unsuccessful ejection due to a CAD/PAD device on the aircraft for the past 21 years,” said John Messina, one of the joint program’s Air Force investigators.

Messina did note that fatalities have occurred during ejections, but those deaths were attributed to ‘out of envelope’ situations where the aircraft is too close to the ground, going too fast, or oriented in the wrong position during an ejection.  Human factors, other than determining if an aviator tried to eject, are generally beyond the scope of a MIST team member’s investigation.

On average, the CAD/PAD MIST members investigate about 14 crashes per year. Collectively, since 1997, the current team members have participated in about 150 mishap investigations. 

Nick Scalfaro, CAD/PAD Manufacturing Branc Manager, talks about some of the finer details for the CKU-5 rocket motor used in various military aircraft ejection seats.

Dr. Tom Cannon and son Chris Cannon at the 2008 ILM.   Chris was a featured guest and survivor of an ejection during a flight over Washington state.

 

Maj Knight’s experience was just one of many success stories regarding the CAD/PAD program. Today, almost all ejections systems have redundant systems, which improve survivability rates. “If there is a failure of a component, we can still have a successful ejection,” said Manis. “We have found some devices in the past that failed, but the redundancies proved effective.”

 

Even with redundancies and the vast survivability improvements over time, the job is far from finished. “Safety investigations are a process of continuous self improvement,” said Lange. “Our goal is to make sure all the devices, or systems, work as designed in the future.”  Within the CAD/PAD program’s life-cycle management, the marginalities found during these mishap investigations are turned into future product improvement programs.

Manis said the MIST team’s future goal that will always lie ahead of them. “In an ejection seat equipped aircraft there should never be a loss of life,’ he said.  “We are there to ensure there is a safe means of escaping”.

Close to Home

One aviator in particular, has visited NSWC IHD on more than one occasion to share his experience where he needed to use CADs and PADs. He also has a unique tie to the command.

Chris Cannon, then a junior Marine Corps officer, was a crewmember on a Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler. The Prowler, used for electronic warfare, is a twin-engine jet that carries a pilot and seats for three Electronic Countermeasures Officers (ECMO).

On Nov. 15, 2001, Cannon was flying with two other crewmembers and manned the ECMO3 seat behind the pilot. As they flew over the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, one of the plane’s two engines exploded, flinging metal parts across the fuselage into the aircraft’s second engine.

The ejection system on the Prowler is complex, with four seats firing at 0.4 second intervals in four different directions. Cannon was sitting in the seat that would eject first.

Cannon said he heard someone say “fire”, but couldn’t see the cockpit panel, so he didn’t realize how serious the situation was. “I didn’t know the exact urgency of the situation or hear the word eject,” he said.

 

Nor did Canon have control over his ejection seat. That was controlled from the front cockpit.  Once the decision was made to bail out, “I was first to go, last to know,” he said.

 

All three crewmembers survived the ejection, although Canon did suffer a leg contusion that took several weeks to heal, probably due to the speed in which events transpired. It was an experience that confirmed the importance of safety in his former profession.  

“Safety is foremost in your mind as a naval aviator,” Canon said.

While he learned about the risks encountered by the early pioneers in U.S. jet aviation when the mortality rate was close to 25 percent, more personal experiences drove home the importance for safety in a risky occupation.

A former classmate of Cannon’s at the Marine Basic School lost his life along with 18 other Marines in a V-22 crash. A pilot instructor he had flown with cross country died with another student during an aerobatic flight in a T-34. Then, shortly after he graduated from flight school, two T-39 trainers collided, killing everyone aboard both aircraft.

Understandably, Canon’s ejection was not only memorable; it would prove remarkable after he left the Marine Corps.  One day, at his new job, he noticed that his boss was wearing a Martin Baker ejection tie, just like his own. His boss, also a former naval aviator, got it from his father who was shot down in an F-4 Phantom over Hanoi, Vietnam.

Cannon is the son of Dr. Tom Cannon Jr, the Head of NSWC IHD’s Transformational Technologies Office.