Probably because otherwise the impact causes a rupture and you bleed out too quickly to survive.
Whoever was maintaining that gear failed miserably.
This factoid sounds very suspect. Doesn’t most people who need to activate an ejection seat survive spleen or no spleen? Deaths may occur of course, an ejection is not without risks, but if everyone or nearly everyone with a spleen dies then my understanding of the risk associated with an ejection is seriously miscalibrated.
Also the group of “active military pilots who had their spleen removed” must be a small group, likewise “military pilot who needed to activate an ejection seat” is a small group (but probably a bigger one than the spleenless group). So one would expect that there is almost nobody in the intersection of these two rarefied sets.
Obviously this is all very handwavy reasoning, so who knows. But if you have a source that would be highly appreciated.
It is not uncommon for an ejection to end a pilot’s tactical jet flying days for medical reasons.
I agree with you on that. But the question here is risk of death, not risk of injury.
I don’t have reliable statistics but found this[1] article which says about ejections: “If you look at statistics around the world, the survival rate is greater than 92 per cent.”
1: https://amp.smh.com.au/education/how-dangerous-is-it-to-ejec...
This exact thing happened to a friend of mine. Combat-rated Harrier pilot in the RAF. Had to punch out after a bird strike. Came out of the infirmary 4 months later, 1/2 inch shorter, flying career over.
It seems like a majority of ejections shouldn't be benefited by half a second less time to achieve clearance (or the jet itself could detect altitude and adjust the speed to increase survivability).
I'm guessing this is also a function of trying to achieve lateral separation from the ensuing fireball in a crash but it surprises me rates are so high for injury.
Then you don't have to use enough force to avoid the tail in every case, but merely enough force to avoid the tail in this case, which will normally be far less.
The big benefit of solid fueled rockets is that they are very reliable, and require no maintenance. They are basically a big “candle” composed of a mix of fuel and oxidizer. You can lit it a day after it was made or twenty years later it will work the same.
The liquid fueled options have valves and other moving parts which can jam, corrode and degrade with time. So it would require frequent maintenance and would still be likely less reliable than the solid fueled variety.
Devs, you have to think like the 90s. You are shipping software on a CD or floppy l, with no updates ever. Ever.
You get it right, or you may bankrupt the company.
That is an ejection seat, and the simplier the design, less to QA! And on top of this?
The hardware under your software is possibly decaying, and your software still must work.
Sort of like designing software for an apollo mission.
Spinal injuries are likely and ejections frequently end the flying career of pilots for medical reasons.
What does this have to do with the claim in question?
They claimed “people who survive flight ejections and hitting water at high speed tend to have had their spleens removed”
This implies that if you look at the group of people who survived a flight ejection (over water and hit the water at high speed) you would find that most have no spleen. Do you find this plausible?