[ILDiver]

On the seats... We had a landing gear failure on a QF-106. The Major could not put the gear down and the drop tanks were welded on, so no chance to belly land. This was about 1993, an F-106 seat had not been fired in a LONG time. He flew around for a little while waiting for the squadrons drone recovery boat to get out of the bay. The boat was used to pick up smaller drones after a shoot. Anyway, he ejected fine, but those seats were living on some serious extended service life.

The QF-106's were grounded for 30 days to be looked over. Then one flew a small manned flight late afternoon after they were cleared. The next morning 2 Lt Colonels went out for a flight. The pair of 106's rolled down the runway. The lead bird had one of his main landing gear come off about 50' off the runway and strike the wing, dumping fuel and causing a big fireball. Bird #2 calls out, your on....bird one ejects. The second LtC is now in formation with an unmanned fireball. There was a row of 106's on the far side of the field then a gap, and then the Alert aircraft. The wreckage hit the field in that gap. LtC said the chute opened at power line height and he got one full swing and slapped into the ground.

Funny part was that a buddy of mine was a cop at the alert facility that day and went out to where the chute landed. LtC was talking to my friend, leaning against the truck. 5 min. later the EMTs show up, get out a gurney, back board, get everything squared away. Asked him how he was. He has a sprained ankle. They strapped him to the board, put the neck brace on him. I know they have to do what they have to do, but it was funny.

BTW, good point on the downward drift of the 18 just before impact.