I have long wondered about the thing that looks like an antenna above
the pilot's seat on the plexiglass of fighter planes.

I was going to say what type of antenna structure it might be, but I
know that I don't have a clue.

Anyone here know that is allowed to talk about it?

tom
K0TAR

It could be one of two things that come to mind right now.

The first thing is a set of bus wires to feed the internal
heating grid for de-icing the canopy. The other wires that
do the actual heating would be too small to see.

The second thing that I can think of is the possible method
that is used to get the canopy out of the way for an ejection.
I believe, and could be wrong, that some of the canopies do not
actually slide to the back to allow ejection but the canopy itself
is shattered by an internal linear explosive that allows the crew
to leave the plane without contacting the canopy.


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"Tom Ring" wrote in message
.. .

I have long wondered about the thing that looks like an antenna above
the pilot's seat on the plexiglass of fighter planes.

I was going to say what type of antenna structure it might be, but I
know that I don't have a clue.

Anyone here know that is allowed to talk about it?

tom
K0TAR

I have a cousin who is a former AF pilot (but he flew transports & helos ...
no fighters). He is traveling now and I will see him on Friday. He may
know.

Tom:

Unless I miss my bet, it seems you are referring to what looks like wire
embedded in the top of the canopy, but is really small diameter detonation
cord (det cord) and it is used as one of the first events in an ejection
sequence.

In the type I am describing, the transparent canopy is shattered by the
explosive in the det cord, the slipstream carries away all the small bits of
plexiglass and the ejection seat containing the pilot follows a few
microseconds later. In some types, the whole canopy is blown clear of the
aircraft before the seat goes. An example of this can be seen in the
picture of the ASAF Thunderbirds F-16 ejection at
http://www.ejectionsite.com/ a search on ejection seats might make for some
interesting reading.

Hopefully, I'm not leading you on a wild goose chase.

Regards,
Lee

Tom Ring wrote:


I have long wondered about the thing that looks like an antenna above
the pilot's seat on the plexiglass of fighter planes.

I was going to say what type of antenna structure it might be, but I
know that I don't have a clue.

Anyone here know that is allowed to talk about it?

tom
K0TAR

I found an example. This is not a picture of the real plane, but is a
drawing of an F35 JSF canopy.

http://files.turbosquid.com/Preview/...3cd43Large.jpg

tom
K0TAR

Hi

Its a detonation cord to fragment the canopy in case of ejections..

Regards


Tom Ring wrote:
Tom Ring wrote:


I have long wondered about the thing that looks like an antenna above
the pilot's seat on the plexiglass of fighter planes.

I was going to say what type of antenna structure it might be, but I
know that I don't have a clue.

Anyone here know that is allowed to talk about it?

tom
K0TAR

I found an example. This is not a picture of the real plane, but is a
drawing of an F35 JSF canopy.


http://files.turbosquid.com/Preview/...3cd43Large.jpg

tom
K0TAR

JWCook wrote:

Hi

Its a detonation cord to fragment the canopy in case of ejections..

Regards



Thanks. Now if I could find a video of it going off....

tom
K0TAR