CF-18 crash pilot applauds ejection seat

we had a saying in the forces, pray to god but fly a Martin Baker. This was a new version of the seat as well, if Bews would have riden the MB roller coaster in the old version he may have been seriously injured or worse. That was outside the seats survivability envelope I think.

I heard from an "expert" at the radio today that the two propellers of the seat eject the pilot at 800 km/h

I didn't know the number of G but that should be quite high !

The guy also shared the pilot's condition and his neck, back, knees hurt because of the ejection. I believe that

Most of the times I've seen video of pilots ejecting, I find that they wait pretty much at the last possible moment to eject. Now... I understand that they are trying to get the plane under control or at least get it away from ground personnel/civilians... but f**k guys.

The only times I've seen ejecting way early, it seems, they where Russian pilots... or am I just imagining things.

Yeah the pilot ejected at the very last fraction of second. I guessed they are trained to try everything to get the plane back and only eject at the last second.

Imagine a plane that is upside down for whatever reason. You can't eject at 800 km/h towards the ground. I guess they are trained very well to do the good thing then the worst happens.

It think an ejection seat puts out something like 10gs within a split second or so. The pilots are close to an inch shorter after hitting the silk that way too.

when I was in the air force they said the mb was a zero zero seat

Pilot Capt. Brian Bews can be seen in his ejection seat just after punching out of his CF-18 fighter jet at the Lethbridge County Airport on Friday, July 23, 2010. The planes canopy can be seen in the upper left corner of the frame.




more pics

Hell of a series of pics!

Yeah they are very clear. The one on Hyack's post clearly shows the 2 propellers of the seat. Wow.

I heard on the radio tonight that the company that built the ejection seat have a "club" for everyone on survived a crash with the help of their seat. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin-Baker):

"The Company also sponsors an "Ejection Tie Club," producing a specialised tie, patch, certificate, tie pin and membership card for those whose lives have been saved by a Martin-Baker ejection seat." "Since the first live ejection test in 1946, over 7,280 lives have been saved using a Martin-Baker ejection seat."

7,280 ! That's a lot !

Martin - Baker Ejection Tie Club

20g's you won't fracture your back at 10 and yes you won't find a current seat that isn't 0-0 rated. For the non-aviator or aviation buff, that means 0 altitude and 0 airspeed.

I would too.