Pretty impressive.

[img]http://www.martin-baker.com/Newspix/JSFTEST.jpg[/img]

[url]http://www.martin-baker.com/news_press.html[/url]

MARTIN-BAKER EJECTION SEAT SAVES 7000th LIFE, 12/06/2003

ISSUED BY: Martin-Baker at the Paris Air Show, Le Bourget

Martin-Baker is very pleased to announce that an historical milestone was reached on Wednesday 11 June 2003 when the Company received news of the safe escape of Lieutenant Commander Robert Schwab RN from a Sea Harrier FA2 off the coast of Devon, England, using one of the Company’s ejection seats. Lt. Cmdr. Schawb was conducting an air test at 28,000 feet when the aircraft became uncontrollable and entered a spin. As the aircraft descended, still spinning, through 10,000 feet Lt. Cmdr. Schwab ejected using his Martin-Baker Mk.10H ejection seat and was reportedly recovered from the sea uninjured. This is Lt. Cmdr. Schwab’s second ejection, the first being in 1984 when he escaped from a Hawk trainer that was sliding along the ground after the collapse of its landing gear.

Joint Managing Directors, John and James Martin, the twin sons of the Company’s founder Sir James Martin, were delighted to receive news of this latest safe ejection. James Martin, commenting on this unique achievement, said “The entire workforce is immensely proud that the ejection seats which they produce, have safely returned so many aviators to their families. During 55 years of continuous ejection seat manufacture, we have supplied over 92 air forces, and produced 70,000 ejection seats. We never lose sight of the fact that one in ten of the ejection seats that we manufacture will be used to save a life ”.

Martin-Baker is the World's longest established and most experienced manufacturer of ejection seats and related equipment that safeguards the aviator throughout the escape, survival, location and recovery phases.

The Company has pioneered ejection seat development since 1944, and in 1946, conducted the first live demonstration ejection from a specially converted Gloster Meteor fighter. On 30th May 1949, test pilot J. O. (Joe) Lancaster, now living in retirement, became the first to make an emergency ejection, using a Martin-Baker seat, from an Armstrong Whitworth flying wing experimental aircraft. In the intervening 54 years Martin-Baker has continued to lead the way in ejection seat technology by introducing many advances in crew safety that provide the very best chance of survival for the aviator who is forced to abandon his or her aircraft. The Company’s more recent ejection seat designs use an on-board electronic sequencer, to sense various factors such as speed and altitude to optimise control of the operation of the seat Emergency ejections have been made under conditions ranging from ground level to the highest at 57,000 feet and from a standstill to the fastest at over 800 mph.

The latest Mk.16 range of seats has been competitively selected for the Raytheon T-6A, Korean Aerospace’s KT-1 and T-50, Pilatus PC-21, , Northrop T-38 and F-5, Aermacchi M –346, Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Martin-Baker is now developing the next generation ejection seat for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the U.S., U.K. and other services. This new seat will once again establish an even higher safety benchmark for the pilots of tomorrow.

What a ride that would be.

Anybody here ever have to eject?

Ditching a plane looks like no fun to me.

On the other hand, why have the Brits needed to eject 7000 times? Number seems a little high, perhaps they ought to invest a bit more time in the design of their aircraft.

With 7000 lives saved, that means that 1 out of every 10 of them has been used (not counting the people who didn't survive the ejection).

Military aviation is a very dangerous business...

It's not just the Brits who use Martin-Bakers, they are used world wide.  F-4's used 2 per bird, so that airframe alone accounted for about 10,000 ejection seats.  If the EA-6B's and S-3's use M-B seats, then that would be 4 seats per airframe.

The Marines in Seat Shop had a saying, "Meet your Maker in a Martin-Baker".

Anyone know why the pilot's shoes have red and white tape?

Doublefeed:

I got your pun but in almost every military fighter/attack/trainer airplane I know of, the minimum UNCONTROLLED ejection altitude is 10,000 ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. They didn't arbitrarilly pick 10,000 AGL for no reason.

You can generate TREMENDOUS sink rates in departed or uncontrolled high performance aircraft. The altimeters can unwind almost faster than you can interpret them. You WILL be a smoking hole about 15 feet into solid bedrock in a matter of SECONDS!(I've seen the pictures). Consequently, the rocket motors (in most ejection seats) have to help overcome the downward velocity vector.The pilot must have time to undergo the pre & post ejection sequence of body position, ejection initiation (single/crew), canopy jettison, ejection seat motor burn,lap belt firing, man-seat separation, drogue chute deployment, canopy inflation, and the post ejection procedures used by pilots to prepare for parachute landings in trees, water, power lines, etc. Even at that, you may only get one good swing of the chute, near the fireball, before you hit the ground.

I have personally known 4 of my close buddies who have successfully ejected to fly another day...and sadly a few more who did not/could not eject for various reasons (excessive lateral g forces, LOC, target fixation, mid-air's, other CFIT/unknown)

Military aviation is a little less dangerous business thanks to the Martin Baker family of escape systems and the employees of that fine company.

My guess is that the pilots boots are painted different colors so the engineers can study the body dynamics (flailing, rotation, etc) just as auto safety engineers use markings on crash test dummies for slo-mo analysis. The photo looks like it may be a little dated.

Regards

In the F-4 world we'd say, "Meet your Maker with Martin-Baker."

In the early 80s there was an F-4 GIB who wanted to get comfortable while taxiing in after landing, so he unbuckled his harnesses.  Unbeknownst to him, while they were doing their yankin' n' bankin' fighter pilot stuff a bunch of his loose junk (a camera, nav charts, etc) got jammed between the top of the seat & canopy.  When he opened the canopy for some fresh air the seat fired and he wasn't attached to it.  Bad news.

And there's this nightmare from hell as well:

[url]http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_seat/[/url]

[img]http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_seat/close_up.jpg[/img]

[b]WOW ![/b]

[img]http://www.gallagher.com/ejection_seat/coming_in_for_landing.jpg[/img]

[b]Ride'm Cowboy ![/b]

7,000 ejections = a LOT of abandoned airplanes!

Just for discussion regarding the 10,000 hard deck, I played with some numbers ballparked for an out of control jet.  This doesn't include factors such as angle of descent & so forth.  It's just to show how fast things are happening and why you have to make critical decisions quickly in those circumstances.

Traveling 400 mph = 586.7 fps
Traveling 500 mph = 733.3 fps

Considering that in your car traveling at 60 mph you're covering 88 fps, you can see why you have to stay WAY ahead of a jet.

What's the whole story on the pilot sticking out of the A-6?

Follow the link in my post.  The whole thing is detailed there.  Short version:  Seat fired accidently and jammed halfway out while in flight.  Damn near killed the BN and would have if the sequence had completed in that state.

Airwolf...thanks. In my pre-coffee state, I failed to see the link.

I seem to recall that ejection seat technology was part of the Rolls-Royce jet engine deal to the Russians. The Russians maybe not the inventors of the seat, but perfected it first. They still make the best seats in the world as demonstrated by that air show ejection.

That is a still capture from test. The pilot is a dummy. red and white on the feet show up better on high speed video. For instance if the seat went into a spin or something the colors would make it easier to track rotation.
--RR

Edited to add- It should be noted there several companies involved in the development and manufacture of these mechanisms. As with most high level aerospace assemblies various components are contracted out. For instance my company makes the rocket motors and propellants for these devices. There are also propellant driven belt retractors and seat separation retractors. The primary contractor is usually the one getting all the credit for the team effort.

Currently the EA-6B community is still using the same MB seat featured in the photos of the partial A6 ejection.  Not sure what model the S3 is using but it is a MB seat.  The F14, F18 and T45 are also using one of the newer MB seats called the NACES. (Naval Aviation Common Ejection Seat).

Supposedly when you punch out and live...Martin Baker sends you a neck tie.  My buddy punched out a few months back.  The whole crew made it but nobody has a tie yet.

My job in the Air Force was Life Support----Ejection seats,Parachutes,Survival Kits,Survival in a hostile environment etc etc.The good thing about the seats is they WILL get you out of the plane.The bad thing is in about 50% of the ejections you end up with a fuc* up back.