What it's like to eject out of a military jet | Hacker News Reader

What it's like to eject out of a military jet

popsci.com

The article only mentioned in passing NPP Zvezda, which is a Russian ejection seat manufacturer. I remember reading years ago how much trouble the company was having getting the US Defense Department to even consider using their ejection seats.

At the time I vaguely remember seeing a couple of Youtube videos showing Russian ejection seats in action. In one, a Russian fighter jet suffered a complete engine failure in a two engine plane. The remaining engine spun the plane around and pointed it straight at the ground. The pilot ejected just a few hundred feet about the ground, and survived with minor injuries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Lz-ssypaw

In the second one, two MIGs collided, slicing the nose off one of the MIGs. Both pilots ejected safely, and also only suffered minor injuries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Lz-ssypaw

> I remember reading years ago how much trouble the company was having getting the US Defense Department to even consider using their ejection seats

The US counter-intelligence chief who approved a Russian supplier in US military jets would need firing from a large cannon, largely because the Russian intelligence chief who didn't use it as an opportunity for all sorts of mischief would also need firing from a large cannon for gross incompetence.

Of course you could also simply do incoming QA.

You don’t really want to rely on suppliers with who you have regular beefs for critical infrastructures.

Check out who makes your rocket engines.

Well right now the whole rocket. The US has no other way to send men to the ISS than to ask the russians nicely.

But I don't think they are thrilled about that.

Yeah?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Right, that's a horse that has been beaten to death by now.

The point is: if you are unable to do incoming QA on a device as important as an ejection seat on whose functioning your pilots lives will depend then you should not be building aircraft to begin with.

We're talking about a very clever adversary here though. If QA was was enough to catch every instance clandestine sabotage/spying there would never have been any incidents of successful covert action by foreign intelligence services.

You can inspect something all you want but there's always the risk your adversary has developed something sneaky you haven't thought of yet and aren't looking for.

Ejection seats are about as functional as it gets. Any part that can't be readily explained by physics or requirements has no business being there.

I know about all the 'cool' spy stories, the IBM typewriter one is still the best example (much better than The Thing, in spite of Theremin being lightyears ahead of the game) because it shows that when you are actively looking for something you might still overlook it.

But the point is: typewriters and Great Seals do not have a whole lot in common with fighter plane ejection seats.

The computer, gyroscopes and accelerometers are all required for the seat to adapt properly to different situations. Maybe even a connection to the plane's telemetry data, too.

Are you sure you couldn't fit a mic in there with the air pressure gauge? A radio with the computer? Because I'm not.

Forget about microphone. How about a small radio receiver inside the explosives that the seat has. If the correct signal come, the ejection seat fire. No more worries that the place is coming to attack you ;-)

> But the point is: typewriters and Great Seals do not have a whole lot in common with fighter plane ejection seats.

Correct, plane ejection seats are orders of magnitude more complicated.

You appear to be suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect regarding security and QA both.

There are numerous ways to hide backdoors or some other equipment that would benefit the enemy.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

We did that. The Thing (0) hung in the US ambassador to the Soviet Union's office for 6 years, exposing his every conversation to the enemy. It was carefully inspected before and during that whole time, yet they fooled us. Don't underestime your opponents intelligence. They might be smarter than us. Reminds me of the Bruce Schneier quote, "Anyone, from the most clueless amateur to the best cryptographer, can create an algorithm that he himself can't break."

(0) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

At some point (and for quite some time) Russian seats were the only ones that could save pilots when used on the ground.

I would not want to be in the position of ejecting. The stories I hear about bones breaking and even fatalities caused by the system seems like a risk in itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCORwUxlNQo - XB-70 mid-air collision ejection story

> ...Today, the ejectee will "only" suffer from 18 Gs...

Related: I'd like to extend this to also include atmospheric re-entry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCxNIaBC_r8 (bonus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bkY7-9c8s for channeling Rocky and Bullwinkle)

Diagram of re-entry window: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_entry#Notable_atmo...

There used to be ejection seats in early space shuttles (https://youtu.be/CwLx4L5NRU0?t=419). After the mishaps with SS there was discussion about reintegrating ejection mechanisms, but it'd add weight, cost a lot to redesign, etc. This documentary talks about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja4ZlswGvpE

I was at an Air Show at the old Willow Grove NAS in Pennsylvania when I was a kid and there was a Navy S3 Viking Jet set as a ground display. They were allowing people time where you could get into the cockpit. A 7 year old kid was in one of the front seats and activated the ejection mechanism and was killed after being ejected and landing on the nearby tarmac.

As I remember, the other people in the plane at the time were injured due to burns and other debris but survived. We were about 150 feet away from the planes on display and I remember hearing how loud and sudden the explosion was. Not sure what happened my Dad said looks like an ejection seat just went off.

I sometimes think back to that day and always do whenever I hear about or come across stories ejecting from an aircraft and how terrifying it must have been to that kid.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19800707&id=...

Thanks for that.

It's weird, I haven't been able to find any other information about it. It's not even listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and....

Jesus. I wonder how that was allowed to happen.

I was gonna ask how to other people in the plane avoided being ejected and dropped too, but apparently the Viking was set up so the rear seats could eject independently of the front seats; this was so the plane could be recovered if the rear crew ejected in a situation that the pilots, with their greater awareness and control, felt was still survivable. If either of the pilots pulled the ejection handle, though, all four seats would be ejected. I guess there were two people in the front, and the kid was alone in the back.

So I guess it could have been worse. I hesitate to use the word "lucky," though...

What it's like to eject into a thunderstorm: https://www.damninteresting.com/rider-on-the-storm/

What it's like to be ejected involuntarily, at 3.2M and 78000ft/23.8km altitude: http://www.chuckyeager.org/news/sr-71-disintegrated-pilot-fr...

Nice. Has that feel of Tom Wolfe’s ‘the Right Stuff’

The web page on the Ejection Tie Club, with member stories: http://martin-baker.com/ejection-tie-club/

>I was drifting backwards into the power lines and could only see each power line as it appeared from behind me ...

>I was given a physical examination at the Air Force hospital and told that I must be under observation by medical personnel for 24 hours. I told the doctor that I was going to the officers’ club for a drink, if he wanted to observe me there.

Ejectee #2176

I also think it's interesting to think about when you might need to eject on the ground without moving (zero-zero). It's harder than you think, since you have to gain enough altitude to get time for the chute to open.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_seat#Zero-zero_ejecti...

Fascinating engineering.

> Pilots hesitate to pull the ejection seat handle because “we know that we are condemning a multi-million dollar piece of equipment, paid for with taxpayers' money,” Matthew adds.

I wonder why planes as expensive as these don't have some sort of a remote-pilot feature that could kick in in case of emergencies like this - once the in-seat pilot has ejected, at least a best effort attempt at landing the plane could take place.

I would assume the best effort attempt has already been made before ejection.

But then why would the pilot hesitate to eject? They likely want to eject before they blackout, which is why I can imagine there could be a small chance to save the plane at human-intolerable g-forces.

They hesitate because in a fast moving emergency you can never be sure whether you have done everything or not. You have to decide in a split second. I also don't think a lot of problems are because of high g forces. Most problems are probably because of stall or other misjudgments.

Looks like there is a lot of chances they made a mistake then, and so an autopilot landing might actually work.

Ejections usually happen after the aircraft becomes unflyable. Birdstrike is a common cause, see this example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2zB7Z-b6Kc

The jet ingests a bird shortly after takeoff, causing engine damage and shutdown. Pilots try to restart the engine, after unsuccessful attempts they point the aircraft towards the nearest open field and eject. There wasn't much else to do. At low altitude, low speed, and without engine power and a place to land, the jet was going to crash one way or another.

Not always, though!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

Poor pilot was likely gifted a new callsign after that one.

A “best effort attempt at landing” could land the plane in enemy territory though, essentially giving them a plane to study and reverse engineer.

Better to let the pilot survive and the plane be destroyed.

The idea is that ejection should only happen when there's no possibility of recovering. If it's still possible to attempt a landing then the pilot shouldn't eject.

I suspect that's why so many of the ejections in the article were at low altitudes.

“It was inconvenient,” one ejectee says, dryly. He was in the backseat of a plane when it collided with a bird in June 1999. “The overhead canopy was smashed and there was blood and gore everywhere,” he recounts. “I didn't realize it was the bird—I thought it was the 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 the pilot was there, just bent over checking for damage, and later able to land the plane.

So it's possible one person ejects, but not the other? Also from the description of the seat wouldn't you know if the guy in front of you had ejected? The seat is really big. And what if you suspect the other person is unconscious? How do you pull the chord on his behalf?

I believe most ejection cable aircraft have a switch for changing between "eject both of us", and "eject just me". The actual ejection is set off by a rather large, difficult to use on accident, bar/lever. By default set to "eject just me". IIRC the sr-71 even had an indicator light showing if the other guy had ejected.

Why are they breaking legs/vertebrae upon landing? I assume it's due to the velocity in which they hit the ground - but having parachutes I'm not sure why.

Anyone have insight?

I think it's the set of compromises. You'd want a round parachute because the pilot might be unconscious for some or all of the descent - but that makes it harder to control the horizontal velocity.

I'd also think that an ejection being unplanned matters. Skydivers and paratroopers can try to plan their drop zones, while pilots can't. (There's a famous story of an ejection from an SR-71 where the Pilot wasn't sure which of about 5 different states he was in.)

Pilots are probably also a lot less experienced with landings than skydivers would be.

As I recall from my 1 solo-ish skydiving experience: The standard rectangular parachutes let you move at a max of 20mph (or km/h?). And that's relative to wind. If the wind is 21mph, you can't go against it as an amateur.

I figure the round chutes are even worse at this, so you could be forced in one direction against your wishes.

From what I can see here: the chute deploys as soon as you eject at some hundreds of mph. It's probably big and therefore not very controllable.

Finally, I think you land in the seat, so it's hard to control your landing.

I believe the chutes are set not to deploy above 15,000 feet. Also, many of the ejector seat have a seat-man separator motor so you don't land in the seat.

I think just the ejection force can break bones if you are unlucky. A friend of mine had to punch out of a Harrier at low altitude. When he got out of the infirmary months later he was 2cm shorter from vertebrae compression than when he joined the RAF.

Having jumped out of a plane exactly once, the speed at which you approach the ground is actually still pretty fast even with the parachute purpose-made for beginners. I imagine also being strapped into a 200lb chair complicates landing gracefully as well.

The seat is designed to fall away after the parachute deploys.

AFAIK traditional (WWII) and most military type of "round" parachutes come down "fast", much faster that what you may be used seeing in modern videos with "sport" rectangular/directional parachutes, where they can "brake" and practically land while practically at a standstill.

Paratroopers have some intensive training, and the standard is to land with a sort of somersault, see this (British Army) video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu2f1u928xk

exactly to minimise the risk of fractures, see also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_landing_fall

Probably pilots (that may have additional issues with the G suit and the seat) cannot in many case do the same.

And also many "normal" users may fail at making a "good" landing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachuting#Most_common_injuri...

I was a civilian student sport parachutist in the late 80’s before square canopies were in widespread use. We used Vietnam-vintage ejector-seat round parachutes that were modified to include a ‘double-L’ hole on the rear panels [0]. This created forward motion and gave some steerability, albeit at the cost of increasing the sink rate. We always landed with a parachute landing fall because the downward speed was a potential ankle-breaker. Basically you kept your feet and legs together, and as you came in the inevitable lateral motion automatically dragged you over sideways, and you could roll back on to your feet. I landed about 70 jumps, and by the time I stopped I could achieve good accuracy in low wind conditions (landing within a yard or two of a target after deploying at 2500 feet).

[0] http://www.parachutehistory.com/round/combo.html

I think ”Legs may get broken, vertebrae may be compressed.” doesn’t just refer to the sentence immediately preceding it (”you and the seat part company, and you land—hard”), but to the entire paragraph, starting with ”Ejecting at up to 65,000 feet from an aircraft flying at 700 mph is a violent process.”

Does it happen to anyone else that the page loads, everything appears, then it all disappears and you're left with a blank page?

EDIT: Given the upvotes, I guess it has happened to others. It seems to be because of the adblocker. I run uBlock Origin. If I deactivate it, the page doesn't go blank.

Not for me (Firefox+NoScript) but it does ask me to allow 50 marketing cookies.

It asked me to accept 50 marketing cookies + 10 statistics... Didnt bother to proceed past that window.

I white-listed popsci.com and 2o7.net and the content stayed up.

The sites where the content flashes and then disappears are the ones that annoy me the most. Then I know you're capable of showing me the content with my current settings, you're just too incompetent or don't want to.

I happened to be on a slow internet connection, and I've been able to refresh the page, and then stop the page as soon as the content appears but before it disappears again.

Can't seem to view this site without accepting 50 different marketing cookies. No thanks.

> To continue enjoying the free content made available to you on this website, you must indicate that you understand and accept Bonnier Corp.’s use of cookies by selecting the "Allow all cookies" button below.

What. This is not how GDPR popups are supposed to work...

If only they had a button 'no marketing', the essential cookies all seem ok.

That's what I expected to find when I clicked on "Details". But no, the screen only informs on the tracking being done. There's no option but to accept all cookies wholesale.

Why do they even have the annoying screen at that point, if they're not going to get valid consent anyways?

I’ve not opened it, but I’m willing to bet they’ve already cookies you by then as well.

Looking at old Popular Science magazines, I actually don’t mind ads in the magazine. The whole advertisement business in the era of internet has rotten to the point where you can’t go anywhere on the internet without some fucking analytics script ID’ing you.

Fuck advertisement. It’s the cancer of modern society. We need a drastically different model of product/service discovery. I don’t want to see ads when I’m doing something important, I want to see ads when I am need for buying something specific. Back in the day, you could just browse a thick book of Yellow Pages look under the section V: “Vacuum repair services”. Doing the same on the internet will show me ads about buying a vacuum cleaner in every social media platform. I don’t want to be friends with people that are in the advertisement industry.

On the plus side, those "follow you around" ads make low-profit content profitable because they can still serve profitable ads.

I know that, before ads followed you around like this, I only published content in high-profit industries (finance, telecom services) because otherwise it was unprofitable.

Site doesn't work.. Just redirects to a GDPR page, where you can't do anything.

Same experience for me.

Anyone have an archive link?

http://web.archive.org/web/20190902014433/https://www.popsci...

Thanks. The archive works in Chrome, but not in Firefox.

It's weird, I use FF 68 and it works for me.

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