Yup! You see, ejection from an F-4 permanently compresses your spine.
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If you have to eject from a fighter plane, you will come away from the experience significantly bruised and battered, possibly with fractured bones and torn ligaments. But despite the risks of ejection seats, they do save pilots' lives.
The turbulent process of ejecting puts pilots at serious risk of injury. Once those rockets fire under the seat, they blow a person up and out of the cockpit with enough force to seriously bruise both shoulders on the harness straps and possibly break collarbones.
Ejecting from a plane takes no more than four seconds from the time the ejection handle is pulled. The exact amount of time depends on the seat model and the crewmember's body weight. Pulling the ejection handle on a seat sets off an explosive cartridge in the catapult gun, launching the ejection seat into the air.
Six pilots have ejected at speeds exceeding 700 knots (1,300 km/h; 810 mph). The highest altitude at which a Martin-Baker seat was deployed was 57,000 ft (17,400 m) (from a Canberra bomber in 1958).
Your spine gets compressed as your butt moves upward while your head (and helmet) push downwards with an apparent weight of 50 pounds. There is a real risk of ruptured vertebral discs, even broken neck or back from being seated incorrectly, particularly with older model ejection seats.
They're not just for the air!The main purpose of an ejector seat is to let a pilot escape in mid air. But some pilots have found themselves trapped underwater and managed to escape using the ejector seat!
The word heavy means a larger aircraft type, with a Maximum Takeoff Weight of 160 tonnes or more. These aircraft create wake turbulence from their wings and require extra separation between following aircraft, and the use of heavy reminds other pilots of that fact.
Depending on Operator SOPs, a call of STOP (ABORT', REJECT) to reject a takeoff, based on stated criteria, will usually be able to be made by either pilot. However, in some cases, the actions following such a call will be only for the pilot in command to take, regardless of which pilot is PF.