Bang Seats - how/what/when/who?

[Saracenman]

so come on then Senior Armourer - what about indulging us in your favourite subject - Martin Baker seats

I'm sure that most of us know a little about them, but there are so many things that still puzzle me - how high, how far, how FAST etc

moreover, just why ARE Martin Baker THE best? i know that virtually every nation on the planet use MB - so what about the former Soviet Union - what did they have and how do they compare?

if they're good enough for Murkins to use, they must be damned good!

are there any civvy a/c (other than 558! ) that are fitted with them?

bean spillage humbly requested please Mayfly

sm

[Old Rigger]

SM try these for your own reading and viewing pleasure:

http://www.martin-baker.com/Home.aspx

or this one:

http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/milestones_in_ejection_seat_hist.htm

and Russian ones:

http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/russia.htm

http://www.janes.com/articles/International-Defence-Review-98/USAF-TESTS-LIGHTWEIGHT-RUSSIAN-EJECTION-SEAT.html

There are stories around one I remember, I think a hunter, the tradesman was working in the cockpit and inadvertently operated the firing mechanism, he managed to squeeze into the space around the stick. There are others but cannot remember the details.

[Mayfly]

Is it that obvious -

seats these days [& remember its 20 years since I left the RAF so they have moved on] are what is know as zero/zero meaning they will function correctly, providing the occupant is within the weight limits, at zero speed - zero altitude. The older ones that I am conversant with required a forward speed of 90kts straight & level, to work correctly, as 558s do.

Most JPs certainly have live seats, infact the CAA made it known a couple of years ago that any aircraft fitted with ejection seats it was their desire for them to be live - a complete change in thinking coz when 558 left service the general feeling was the CAA would not allow her to fly because she had ejection seats.

Not too sure about Russian seats there is obviously evidence that their seats work well but if they are anything like the rest of their kit I would expect them to be very basic - mind you they're not comfortable anyway & are renowned for causing bad backs whether you are an ejectee or not.

MB is certainly the world leader - I think thb they broke new ground, got the military contracts, gave good service so have never really had serious competition.


OR it happend before my time in the RAF I was told it happend at Coningsby but I don't recall them being based there, & the guy managed to squeeze into the 'footwell' some feat by any standards not only is their very little room but it only takes 1.25 secs to the occupant to free of the a/c & seat & be free floating on his chute

[Old Rigger]

I think after the russian airshow accident, that interest in their seats grew, apparently they are mechanical mechanisms for operating the various stages and i think I read somewhere that they have got auto eject capability, which if memory serves is how those two survived, but memory might have not be quite correct and I could not be bothered to search at the moment.

I used to love watching the Typhoon videos of seat testing, very much what can be seen on the MB site.

[Mayfly]

I expect they did, there are all sorts of delayed time release units that make sure other things operate in sequence. Command ejection, if switched on means, only one occupant needs to initate ejection the other will go automatically & the seats are biased one to each side to prevent a mid air between the seats

[Saracenman]

blimey - i never realised about the zero/zero bit! i knew that they were designed to do their thing at very LOW height, but not whilst on the ground going nowhere!

but what about the upper speeds that jets travel at - surely at high Mach numbers, the seat itself will still be travelling at supersonic speeds even after it's left the aircraft. can pilots/navs survive that?

interesting also about the CAA's change of attitude - presumably JPs weren't grounded completely because of the seats were they? did they not continue to fly but with disabled seats? presumably no Vulcan crew would ever contemplate flying 558 without fully operational bang seats would they? or was that just the CAA saying no?

questions questions!

sm

edit - are Russian seats derived from the early tests that the Krauts did with pneumatic systems?

[Mayfly]

seats have moved on a lot since I worked on them as I said but they do have a range within which they work, I think there was a phantom guy that ejected at around 540kts & survived but tbh I don't have a memory for such things.

The CAA were quite happy until the last couple of years for JPs to fly with inert seats & I think they still allow them to fly with inert seats but the preference is to have them live - not sure what changed the thoughts. DT always said he wouldn't fly 558 without live seats it wasn't the CAA who said about the seats & 558, but the general opinion within the aviation world.

There was work & testing with pneumatic systems - the very first 'test' MB did was for an arm with a hook on the end that attached to the removable seat. The arm literally compressed a spring, the idea was to withdraw a pin the spring would expand throwing the arm upwards & with it the seat. all very basic but where todays seats started out

[Spitfire]

blimey - i never realised about the zero/zero bit! i knew that they were designed to do their thing at very LOW height, but not whilst on the ground going nowhere!

but what about the upper speeds that jets travel at - surely at high Mach numbers, the seat itself will still be travelling at supersonic speeds even after it's left the aircraft. can pilots/navs survive that?

interesting also about the CAA's change of attitude - presumably JPs weren't grounded completely because of the seats were they? did they not continue to fly but with disabled seats? presumably no Vulcan crew would ever contemplate flying 558 without fully operational bang seats would they? or was that just the CAA saying no?

questions questions!

sm

edit - are Russian seats derived from the early tests that the Krauts did with pneumatic systems?

When I was at college in Oxford (oh alright - the Polytechnic ) back in 1971 we used to drive over to Chalgrove - the Martin Baker test airfield - and watch them firing seats off stationary flat bed lorries - some with dummies and some with actual blokes - so I knew about zero/zero even then - it was incredible the height they got - and the speed is amazing too.

But I too would be interested to find out what the maximum safe eject speed would be - I mean could a bloke survive a mach 1.5 ejection - and would the seat even fire or is it limited to a max speed? I also take the point about where the seat would go - but if I remember rightly there were different charges to seperate the bloke from the seat once in the air so presumably all that is calculated to save the bloke from a seat impact.

As SM says - questions questions

[Saracenman]

bloodyhell - that sounds more a ride you'd find at Alton Towers, than a safety mechanism!

I'd pay a couple of quid for that!

[Old Rigger]

SM, I think there was a mention of that in one of the links to the Germans.

Pam, I actually think some of the Russian seats have some form of device that automatically ejects the crew without their input (if memory is correct. I think it would be quite scary if it got it wrong) as against command ejection which still needs one of the crew to pull the handle , which if memory serves on the Tornado the Pilot ejects the Nav goes as well and goes first so Pilot does not cross over the top and if the Command ejection lever is set to both and the Nav ejects he goes first followed by the pilot.

[Mayfly]

all the connections between seat & occupant are done automaically, there is a backup of manual separation if required. I shall have to get DTs aircrew manual out & refresh myself. It's very difficult to explain what happens & when without a trainning aid or pictures.

They stopped using real people some time ago for health & safety reasons & quite right to. Not a sensible thing to do for fun when you can use dummies

edit OR they may well have, I would be interested to know just how it is initated tho'

[Old Rigger]

High speed:

Operating ceiling 55,013 ft (16,768 m)
Minimum height/speed Zero/zero in near level attitude
Crew boarding mass range 61.0 to 133.5 kg
Crew size range Eurofighter specific crew size range
Maximum Speed for ejection 600 KIAS
Parachute type GQ Type 5000

This is for the Mk16A-1 fitted to to Typhoon

Link is in the MB one previously posted.

Added rest in link explains how a seat works:

http://www.martin-baker.com/getdoc/848c206d-6dc7-4afc-b8f3-ec2f09cd75a3/US16E---JSF.aspx

[Dan4th]

Speaking of Ejection Seats, I wonder if
Martin Baker designed THIS one???????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPfAUnDP9GE

Danf.

[Saracenman]

ha! actually, Wedgy lent me his complete set of Bond DVDs - they all have the special features too. in the making of Goldfinger one, they said that the Aston's ejection seat was real - designed by their clever FSX chaps at Pinewood apparently.

and they DID fire the stuntman out of the car as well - it wasn't a dummy!

sm

[Xplumberlives]

There are stories around, one I remember, I think a hunter, the tradesman was working in the cockpit and inadvertently operated the firing mechanism, he managed to squeeze into the space around the stick. There are others but cannot remember the details.

The FABLE you recall involved a LIGHTNING and during the post incident enquiry the poor fellow was asked to enter another cockpit and recreate his extremely crampt solution. He was unable to fit into the tiny space available and the conclusion drawn was that without the adrenaline rush, his body could not distort itself sufficiently to get out of the way of the seat travelling up the main gun.

The second conclusion drawn was that adrenilaine is brown and smelly and always comes from behind you!

[Mayfly]

another fabled incident was the guy who tripped the drogue gun & fired the barrel through his upper arm - the only reason he didn't bleed to death evidently was bacause the drogue chute packed the wound..............

[Xplumberlives]

Thanks M.F. I had forgotten that one!

[Ducati Boy]

There are stories around one I remember, I think a hunter, the tradesman was working in the cockpit and inadvertently operated the firing mechanism, he managed to squeeze into the space around the stick. There are others but cannot remember the details.

As a very young LAC, on my first week, in my first posting, I was in a Hunter cockpit kneeling on the bang seat working on some gunsight kit behind it when I dropped a spanner behind the seat. I knew what the plumber Sgt would do to me if I asked him to take out the seat, so I had a very careful feel around until I found the spanner.

Now, the incident with the guy who managed to survive the seat firing, had happened not long before and was very much in my mind at the time and I was still quite nervous around ejector seats. Apparently, he had known what was happening because he heard a loud ticking sound, seconds before it fired and managed to push back out of the way. A very lucky guy and presumably quite small, not six foot one like me.

Anyway there I am, one arm under the seat, spanner in hand, when a very loud ticking started up. Without thinking, I dived straight over the side, landed flat on my back, completely winded and in some distress. That's when I found out about the leckie who had, if memory serves me, been checking part of the starter circuit relays. When he realised what I had done he nearly died of laughing. For some time after I had to put up with the plumbers counting "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand" whenever I passed by.

[Old Rigger]

When I was on 18 Sqn Chinooks at Gutersloh, a Tornado landed having lost a panel in flight, it was towed into our hangar and as ex Tornado I was requested to check the aircraft for damage. When I climbed up the steps to get onto the LH intake I glanced into the cockpits out of habit and all the seat and MDC pins were still in the stowage, when I pointed out to the guy in charge and more importantlythe guy sat on brakes they where not happy. I called the aircrew back and they arrived rather sheepish and I asked them politely to apologise to the brakeman specifically, which they did .

[Mayfly]

There are stories around one I remember, I think a hunter, the tradesman was working in the cockpit and inadvertently operated the firing mechanism, he managed to squeeze into the space around the stick. There are others but cannot remember the details.

As a very young LAC, on my first week, in my first posting, I was in a Hunter cockpit kneeling on the bang seat working on some gunsight kit behind it when I dropped a spanner behind the seat. I knew what the plumber Sgt would do to me if I asked him to take out the seat, so I had a very careful feel around until I found the spanner.

Now, the incident with the guy who managed to survive the seat firing, had happened not long before and was very much in my mind at the time and I was still quite nervous around ejector seats. Apparently, he had known what was happening because he heard a loud ticking sound, seconds before it fired and managed to push back out of the way. A very lucky guy and presumably quite small, not six foot one like me.

Anyway there I am, one arm under the seat, spanner in hand, when a very loud ticking started up. Without thinking, I dived straight over the side, landed flat on my back, completely winded and in some distress. That's when I found out about the leckie who had, if memory serves me, been checking part of the starter circuit relays. When he realised what I had done he nearly died of laughing. For some time after I had to put up with the plumbers counting "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand" whenever I passed by.

Oh how we plumbers love our little jokes, mine you I expect there were 3 of them 1 to count 1000, 1 to count 2000 & 3rd to count 3000.............

[Spitfire]

But what happens to the plane after they ejected

OOOoooppppsss - left too early boys

See post below SM for URL - YT link embedding was not allowed

[Saracenman]

not working mate - what's the link to it?

[Spitfire]

Here's the URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvEDNdyFBU

[Ducati Boy]

When I was on 18 Sqn Chinooks at Gutersloh, a Tornado landed having lost a panel in flight, it was towed into our hangar and as ex Tornado I was requested to check the aircraft for damage. When I climbed up the steps to get onto the LH intake I glanced into the cockpits out of habit and all the seat and MDC pins were still in the stowage, when I pointed out to the guy in charge and more importantlythe guy sat on brakes they where not happy. I called the aircrew back and they arrived rather sheepish and I asked them politely to apologise to the brakeman specifically, which they did .

Mick, me thinks the brakeman should have checked before he got in to any aircraft with a bang seat Lucky they didn't fire the MDC if the cockpit was closed
I think a few more people might have been on my arse kicking list too!

Mayfly: Probably need more than three plumbers to count to three thousand, they don't have many fingers you know on account of wearing them out from dragging on the ground

[Mayfly]

When I was on 18 Sqn Chinooks at Gutersloh, a Tornado landed having lost a panel in flight, it was towed into our hangar and as ex Tornado I was requested to check the aircraft for damage. When I climbed up the steps to get onto the LH intake I glanced into the cockpits out of habit and all the seat and MDC pins were still in the stowage, when I pointed out to the guy in charge and more importantlythe guy sat on brakes they where not happy. I called the aircrew back and they arrived rather sheepish and I asked them politely to apologise to the brakeman specifically, which they did .

Mick, me thinks the brakeman should have checked before he got in to any aircraft with a bang seat Lucky they didn't fire the MDC if the cockpit was closed
I think a few more people might have been on my arse kicking list too!

Mayfly: Probably need more than three plumbers to count to three thousand, they don't have many fingers you know on account of wearing them out from dragging on the ground

OR tbh climbing in the cockpit without checking is such disreguard for basic safety an arse kicking should have been only the start of it

DB I wondered how long it would be for you get a Thwackkkkkkkk

not too big but enough to make you feel at home......

PS.... got any plasters