Tu-154M as F-5 ejection seat test bed (Iran)

[Dizzyfugu]

This is SO weird, I had to post it!


Linked from airliners.net

Found it thorugh a recent post at flightglobal.com.

"Just when we thought that Iran couldn't do anything else crazy linked to its aged fleet of Northrop F-5 fighters (following its foray into developing the V-tailed "Saegeh" version), a newly published image has raised many eyebrows here on Flightglobal.

Hosted on the Airliners.net site, the picture shows a modified Tupolev Tu-154M, formerly flown by Iran Air Tours, with an F-5 cockpit section now grafted onto the front-top of its vertical stabiliser. Image supplier "Iranian Spotters" describes the combo as intended to support tests of an Iranian-made ejection seat, and says the same aircraft will also carry out future work carrying indigenous unmanned air vehicles."

[PR19_Kit]

I hope the ejector seat tester has some good ear defenders, that's got to be LOUD perched up there so close to the engines! 

Of course he can always escape if it gets too loud, unlike normal airliner passengers......... 

[NARSES2]

That's so crazy if someone on here had built it even we would have "sectioned" them 

[Geoff]

Anybody riding it is sectionable IMHO

[The Rat]

That's so crazy if someone on here had built it even we would have "sectioned" them 

Truth is stranger than fiction. 

[kerick]

Whether its a test pilot or a crash dummy, how do you get it up there? Seems like a waste of time.

[rickshaw]

Whether its a test pilot or a crash dummy, how do you get it up there? Seems like a waste of time.

A very long ladder?

I suppose they should be thankful they didn't follow the lead of Convair who used Bears to test the ejection seats on the B-58!   

[Alvis 3.14159]

I think I'm going to hand in my "What-If" certificate. When Iranians build 1:1 Whiffs, far far weirder than anything my little kitten mind can imagine, it's time to take up knitting.

Alvis Pi

[NARSES2]

Whether its a test pilot or a crash dummy, how do you get it up there? Seems like a waste of time.

A very long ladder?

I suppose they should be thankful they didn't follow the lead of Convair who used Bears to test the ejection seats on the B-58!   

Seriously ? 

[Geoff]

I think I'm going to hand in my "What-If" certificate. When Iranians build 1:1 Whiffs, far far weirder than anything my little kitten mind can imagine, it's time to take up knitting.

Alvis Pi

Serious respect from the Wiffers for the Iranians then.

[PR19_Kit]

Whether its a test pilot or a crash dummy, how do you get it up there? Seems like a waste of time.

Presumably the same ladder that they use for maintenance on the tailplane?

Having the test cockpit up there makes some sort of sense as it's in free stream air-flow with no vortices to spoil the simulation of what it would be when it's a 'real aircraft'. Having said that it must have been a real bitch re-stressing and modifiying the fin to take the extra loads.

[Dizzyfugu]

Whether its a test pilot or a crash dummy, how do you get it up there? Seems like a waste of time.

That was something I also wondered about? Maybe there's a 1-person-lift inside of the fin...

[rickshaw]

I suppose they should be thankful they didn't follow the lead of Convair who used Bears to test the ejection seats on the B-58!   

Seriously ? 

Serious.  They used live bears which had been drugged to test the ejection seats.   Must have made recovery interesting if the bears were waking up by the time you reached them.   

[172flogger]

Questions? Answer:
In soviet Tu-154 you can go from the cabin to tail fin inflight!
Check this video from 30:50 and from 37:48 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-3ANr1JQlw

[172flogger]

...but you must look like real soviet hero: