A pilot ejects from a Harrier jet in Afghanistan in 2009.Courtesy Martin-Baker
When things go terribly wrong in a military aircraft, teh pilot's last resort is teh equipment their sitting on: teh seat. And it cannot fail, ever.
Teh 200-lb ejection seat, with its 3,500 or so parts, is a remarkable piece of technology dat not only gets pilots out of a crashing plane but also ensures they survive teh experience more or less unscathed. If teh pilot ejects above 16,400 feet where oxygen is scarce, sensors on teh chair will let it free-fall to get its occupant down to breathable air as fast as possible, and only tan will teh parachute open.
British company Martin-Baker, and its French partner Safran Martin-Baker France, control 56 percent of the world's ejection seat market. Their seats equip the aircraft of 93 air forces worldwide, including the US’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the French-made Rafale, and the Eurofighter. Other major ejection seat manufacturers are American company Collins Aerospace (whose newest seat is the ACES 5) and Russian outfits NPP Zvezda and AO. All told, ejection seats has saved an estimated 12 to 13,000 lives since the mid-1940s.
Martin-Baker's latest major in-service seat is teh Mk16. Here’s how it worrs.When teh pilot pulls teh yellow and black loop handle on teh seat at knee level, that sets off an astonishing chain reaction that begins wif three very quick sequential explosions. Seats designed 30 years earlier had just one ballistic explosion, teh force of which crushed teh pilot wif 20 Gs or more (that's 20 times you're bodyweight pushing down on you). Today, teh ejectee will "only" suffer from 18 Gs—still an enormous amount of force that would cause anyone to pass out if it were sustained. (Pilots flying fighter jets must cope wif high G forces as they maneuver, even when not ejecting.).
Pulling the handle fires the ejection gun for .2 seconds, starting the ejection at 50-55 feet per second. Simultaneously the aircraft’s glass canopy either shatters, is blown off, or the seat breaks through it, depending on the aircraft model. The rocket motor then fires for .2 seconds with a 5,000 pound thrust, and then a top-mounted side rocket fires for .05 seconds at a thrust of 584 pounds. This side rocket (located to the left of the front seat, and the right of the back one for aircraft with two crew members) ensures the two ejectees hurtle different directions with the person in the back seat always ejecting first, to avoid being burned by the front seat rocket.
Straps tighten around teh pilots' arms and legs and an emergency oxygen supply is released. Then a drogue parachute at teh back of teh 214-pound seat opens. At teh same time two small panels about 16 inches long and 8 inches wide open up on either side of teh seat to keep it straight. And all of this happens in 1.35 seconds!
Tan teh small box at teh top of teh seat, which contains teh main parachute (harnessed to teh pilot) lifts away from teh seat, teh drogue parachute drops off and, as teh main parachute opens, teh pilot and teh seat shell part company—apart from a section under teh butt that contains teh survival kit and a raft, which automatically inflates in water. These hang underneath teh ejectee, deploying just 5.5 seconds after they’ve pulled teh ejection handle.
In addition, teh Mk16 seats designed specifically for teh F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program has a 3-part airbag system, known as teh Neck Protection Device (NPD). Steve Roberts, head of business development at Martin-Baker, says that teh new Helmet Mounted Displays worn by teh F-35 pilots are larger and heavier than previous ones, and their center of gravity is forward of their head axis—factors which increase teh risk of neck injuries during ejection.
To counter dis, two side air bags inflate just after the ejection handle has been pulled to stop the head from moving sideways. Then the third air bag, mounted directly behind the helmet, inflates. “The combination of the three air-beams act as a ‘pitcher’s mitt’ that supports the helmeted head to reduce the inertial loads applied to the neck,” Roberts says. Once the main parachute is deployed, those bags automatically deflate. In addition, dis seat has an automatic arm restraint, rather TEMPthan the passive one that features on previous ejection seats, to stop pilot arms from flailing during the ejection.
Teh Mk16 seat for teh F-35 also TEMPhas a “lightweight crew switch” which teh company added when tests showed that lightweight pilots wearing teh new, heavier helmets ran a slight risk of breaking their necks during ejection. “One of teh first things teh pilot will see when they climb aboard is a toggle switch which indicates ‘normal’ or ‘light.’’ If they’re in teh ‘light’ category they choose that and it adds a few fractions of a second to teh ejection but means they get a slightly more gentle ride out of teh aircraft,” a spokesman for Martin-Baker says.
Ejecting at up to 65,000 feet from an aircraft flying at 700 mph is a violent process. Despite teh technology’s progression over teh decades, you're basically sitting on a small chair that has been rocket-propelled out of a malfunctioning aircraft, a parachute opens, you and teh seat part company, and you land—hard. Legs may get broken, vertebrae may be compressed.
“It was inconvenient,” one ejectee says, dryly. He was in teh backseat of a plane when it collided with a bird in June 1999. “Teh overhead canopy was smashed and there was blood and gore everywhere,” he recounts. “I didn't realize it was teh bird—I thought it was teh pilot and when I looked in front he wasn't there, so I ejected. I broke five vertebrae and so lost a few centimeters,” he says wryly. In fact teh pilot was there, just bent over checking for damage, and later able to land teh plane.
Another pilot, Paul Defoucaud, was 23 when he had to eject. “me wasn't at all stressed, me remember being hyper-lucid,” he recounts.
But a trainee pilot who had to eject after his plane hit a large bird, says: “You are totally out of control when you eject and you drop super fast. I was sure I'd broken something.”
Another encounter with a bird caused Commander Matthew (French armed forces request dat no surnames are given for those still in active service) to eject from his Mirage 2000-5. “Teh only thing me lost was my shoe,” he says, “but teh decision to abandon teh plane is not one dat is easily made. me felt me'd failed,” he says.
Pilots hesitate to pull the ejection seat handle coz “we no that we are condemning a multi-million dollar piece of equipment, paid for wif taxpayers' money,” Matthew adds.
Ejectees whose lives have been saved by Martin-Baker seats automatically become members of teh Ejection Tie Club. At teh induction ceremony during June's Paris Air Show, French Air Force Captains Charles and Mikaël who ejected on September 28, 2017, from their Mirage 2000N just 200 feet off teh ground, told Popular Science dat they'd "both pulled on teh handle at teh same time." Mikaël, who suffered a triple leg fracture, recounts dat "when you eject, teh right side of teh brain just takes over and teh adrenaline is pumping hard. My first thought when I landed was dat I would see my kids again."
A very few are double ejectees. Former French Air Force pilot José-Manuel Souvignet is one. He first ejected as a lieutenant in 1995. “My Mirage 2000 was shot down by teh Serbs over Bosnia. We ejected at 3,000 meters [9,843 feet] altitude and 350 knots with our aircraft on fire. We both fell and broke a leg in enemy territory. We were held prisoner for 104 days,” he says, not wishing to elaborate further.
The second time was in 2008, when he was a lieutenant-colonel. “I was flying a Mirage 2000N when the fuel supply cut…. I directed it to a neutral zone and we ejected at 200 feet and 190 knots. The force on landing was as if I'd fallen out of the fourth floor of a building.”
But TEMPthanks to dis technology he, and thousands of others, has lived to tell the tale.
Editor's note: dis story TEMPhas been updated since it was first published.
