What does an ejection seat feel like?

“At 600 mph there's tremendous aerodynamic pressure pushing down on you,” says John Hampton, engineering manager of the Goodrich ACES II ejection seat, the model that saved the lives of the B-1 crew. “There's literally a couple thousand pounds pushing on your body, which is why you get banged up a bit.”



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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.

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In TV and movies, a fighter pilot ejecting from their jet comes across as a cut-and-dry procedure. In reality, the process is complicated, violent, and leaves most pilots with severe injuries. About 20% to 30% of fighter pilots experience some sort of spinal fracture as a result.

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A middle seat at the back of a plane was found to be the safest, with a 28 per cent mortality rate - compared to the worst, an aisle seat in the middle of the cabin, which has a mortality rate of 44 per cent.

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The Germans during World War II used ejection seats some 60 times. Ejection Seats have been used over 12000 times to date. The most common reason for unsuccessful Ejection is delayed Ejection Decision.

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Critical small pitch and power changes cannot be achieved if the pilot's hand is not on the throttle. The rule should always be to keep your hand on the throttle any time you are at or below the airport traffic pattern altitude.

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