Liberty Bell 7 latch on

I read a quote from Gunter Wendt (sp?) (I think) saying that when
Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew, the helicopter had not latched on. Of
course at some point it did latch on. Did the copter latch on before
or after the hatch blew?

I read a quote from Gunter Wendt (sp?) (I think) saying that when
Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew, the helicopter had not latched on. Of
course at some point it did latch on. Did the copter latch on before
or after the hatch blew?

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew before the helecopter latched on. By the time
helecopter did latch on the spacecraft was already taking on water, it might
have begun submerging already, in any case by the time they latched on the
added weight of the water was too much for the helecopter.

-A.L.

In message , MasterShrink
writes
I read a quote from Gunter Wendt (sp?) (I think) saying that when
Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew, the helicopter had not latched on. Of
course at some point it did latch on. Did the copter latch on before
or after the hatch blew?

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew before the helecopter latched on. By the time
helecopter did latch on the spacecraft was already taking on water, it might
have begun submerging already, in any case by the time they latched on the
added weight of the water was too much for the helecopter.

Didn't I read somewhere that the warning light was actually a false
alarm? The pilot couldn't ignore it, of course :-(
--
"Roads in space for rockets to travel....four-dimensional roads, curving with
relativity"
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia.fsnet.co.uk is welcome.
Or visit Jonathan's Space Site http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk

Jonathan Silverlight wrote in message ...
In message , MasterShrink
writes
I read a quote from Gunter Wendt (sp?) (I think) saying that when
Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew, the helicopter had not latched on. Of
course at some point it did latch on. Did the copter latch on before
or after the hatch blew?

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew before the helecopter latched on. By the time
helecopter did latch on the spacecraft was already taking on water, it might
have begun submerging already, in any case by the time they latched on the
added weight of the water was too much for the helecopter.

Didn't I read somewhere that the warning light was actually a false
alarm? The pilot couldn't ignore it, of course :-(

it was a "chip light" meaning a possible gear box failure. a
very serious emergency to a rotor wing or turbo-prop. the maint.
inspection after the flight showed it to be normal wear. anyone who
flys turbo-props or royor-wings has had one. it has to be taken as an
impending failure of the system. most (as in this case) prove to be
false.

On 20 Aug 2003 04:07:01 GMT, (MasterShrink) wrote:

I read a quote from Gunter Wendt (sp?) (I think) saying that when
Liberty Bell 7's hatch blew, the helicopter had not latched on. Of
course at some point it did latch on. Did the copter latch on before
or after the hatch blew?

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Maybe I missed something. I thought I read here recently that Gus was
absolved of blame because blowing the hatch would have injured his hand,
yet his hand was uninjured.

Either I misunderstood, or the hatch wasn't to be "blown"- but rather opened
manually in a less dramatic fashion. Or maybe egress required an injury? That
seems odd...

Dale

Then again, maybe it's just late here

In article , Dale wrote:

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Maybe I missed something. I thought I read here recently that Gus was
absolved of blame because blowing the hatch would have injured his hand,
yet his hand was uninjured.

Either I misunderstood, or the hatch wasn't to be "blown"- but rather opened
manually in a less dramatic fashion. Or maybe egress required an injury? That
seems odd...

To get out, you hat to blow the hatch; AIUI there was a handle you
pulled to do this, on the hatch. However, the "blowing" was quite
violent; most Mercury crew reported minor hand injuries - losing the
skin off the knuckles, that sort of thing, nothing severe or more than
annoying. It was as much a result of a slightly overzealous design than
anything else, IIRC.

Grissom had no hand injuries, which tended to corroborate his story that
the hatch "just blew"; if he had fired it, even accidentally, it'd
probably have left evidence in the form of hurting his hand.

--
-Andrew Gray

In article , Andrew Gray wrote:

To get out, you hat to blow the hatch; AIUI there was a handle you

This should read 'had'; to the best of my knowledge, the headgear of the
capsule crew had no part in egress operations... g

--
-Andrew Gray

In article ,
says...
In article , Andrew Gray wrote:

To get out, you hat to blow the hatch; AIUI there was a handle you

This should read 'had'; to the best of my knowledge, the headgear of the
capsule crew had no part in egress operations... g

Well, only in that the checklist had the Mercury pilot removing his
helmet before egress...

--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for | Doug Van Dorn
thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup |

In article ,
says...
In article , Dale wrote:

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Maybe I missed something. I thought I read here recently that Gus was
absolved of blame because blowing the hatch would have injured his hand,
yet his hand was uninjured.

Either I misunderstood, or the hatch wasn't to be "blown"- but rather opened
manually in a less dramatic fashion. Or maybe egress required an injury? That
seems odd...

To get out, you hat to blow the hatch; AIUI there was a handle you
pulled to do this, on the hatch. However, the "blowing" was quite
violent; most Mercury crew reported minor hand injuries - losing the
skin off the knuckles, that sort of thing, nothing severe or more than
annoying. It was as much a result of a slightly overzealous design than
anything else, IIRC.

There were three ways to get out of a Mercury after it came back down.

1) Blow the hatch. The hatch could leap a good four or five feet when
this happened.

2) Support crew outside of the capsule could open the hatch with a
wrench. It was always possible to remove the hatch with a wrench --
that's how they got the guy out of the capsule when launches were
scrubbed.

3) The pilot could remove the main display console, set it in the
capsule beside the couch, open the apex hatch and wiggle out through the
top. This contingency was there in case you landed off-target but in the
water, and needed to get out of the capsule and into a life raft.
Opening the side hatch while the capsule was floating in the water would
usually result in it swamping and sinking (as happened to Grissom's
capsule), but you could get out of your capsule through the top hatch
without threatening to sink it. The only pilot who used the top hatch
was Scott Carpenter, BTW. When rescue forces found him, he was in his
life raft, tethered to the capsule, reading over his mission notes.



Grissom had no hand injuries, which tended to corroborate his story that
the hatch "just blew"; if he had fired it, even accidentally, it'd
probably have left evidence in the form of hurting his hand.

That's the best proof that Gus never used the actuator handle to blow the
hatch.

--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for | Doug Van Dorn
thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup |

Doug... wrote:

In article ,
says...

In article , Dale wrote:

After. What the planned procedure for the recovery was the helecopter would
latch on, signal Grissom and then he would blow the hatch.

Maybe I missed something. I thought I read here recently that Gus was
absolved of blame because blowing the hatch would have injured his hand,
yet his hand was uninjured.

Either I misunderstood, or the hatch wasn't to be "blown"- but rather opened
manually in a less dramatic fashion. Or maybe egress required an injury? That
seems odd...

To get out, you hat to blow the hatch; AIUI there was a handle you
pulled to do this, on the hatch. However, the "blowing" was quite
violent; most Mercury crew reported minor hand injuries - losing the
skin off the knuckles, that sort of thing, nothing severe or more than
annoying. It was as much a result of a slightly overzealous design than
anything else, IIRC.


There were three ways to get out of a Mercury after it came back down.

1) Blow the hatch. The hatch could leap a good four or five feet when
this happened.

2) Support crew outside of the capsule could open the hatch with a
wrench. It was always possible to remove the hatch with a wrench --
that's how they got the guy out of the capsule when launches were
scrubbed.

3) The pilot could remove the main display console, set it in the
capsule beside the couch, open the apex hatch and wiggle out through the
top. This contingency was there in case you landed off-target but in the
water, and needed to get out of the capsule and into a life raft.
Opening the side hatch while the capsule was floating in the water would
usually result in it swamping and sinking (as happened to Grissom's
capsule), but you could get out of your capsule through the top hatch
without threatening to sink it. The only pilot who used the top hatch
was Scott Carpenter, BTW. When rescue forces found him, he was in his
life raft, tethered to the capsule, reading over his mission notes.

No, there was a fourth way.

4) The hatch could also be blown by someone on the outside, by removing
a small panel and pulling a small handle or lanyard. This was probably
in case the astronaut was having some kind of extreme medical emergency
and could neither blow the hatch himself nor could he wait for them to
open the hatch bolt by bolt with the wrench. Unlike the plunger handle
inside the spacecraft, the lanyard didn't need anywhere near as much
force to pull it.

Suspicion has often centered on that lanyard, because on Grissom's
spacecraft it was secured fairly simply and the outer panel and the
lanyard could have come loose somehow. Subsequent spacecraft had a more
secure lanyard.


Grissom had no hand injuries, which tended to corroborate his story that
the hatch "just blew"; if he had fired it, even accidentally, it'd
probably have left evidence in the form of hurting his hand.


That's the best proof that Gus never used the actuator handle to blow the
hatch.

On that, I agree with you.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.