Kevin

Know about the two 'poles' that extend to stabilize the seat and
establish a direction in the prevailing air direction. After ejection
and stabilization some rockets fire to boost the seat to enough
altitude for seat separation and chute to open prior to pilot hitting
ground.

Know that the Russian seat was looked at closely for the F-22 but
someone (political) sold the idea of home grown vs imported.

We have all seen the Russian seats work. Farnsboro/Paris Air Show.
Worked fine (super to be exact).

On air speed to eject. Air Force found out that going Mach 2 and
losing an engine (or breaking up) you decelerate to under mach one
almost immediately so that established their top design criteria for
seats.

When I ejected, it was at low speed and about 8K (over the ice cap in
Greenland) above the ground with bird under control. Worked fine and
didn't even get any crotch black and blue marksG

Was in NORAD but never landed at Cold Lake. stationed at Bangor AFB,
Maine for four years and we flew into and over eastern Canada on many
missions. Great troops canuks.

Have a nice day

Big John
Point of the sword



On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 11:42:08 GMT, Kevin Horton
wrote:

In article , Big John
wrote:

Model Flyer

1. Ejecting at 800 mph on the ground has a few things to consider,
both good and bad.

2. Current ejection seats are called 'zero zero' seats. This means
they can be used sitting on the ground and with zero forward speed.

3. The initial 'push' to clear the vertical fin on their fuselage can
be accomplished well within current technology.

4. Some of the bad things:

a.Air Force found out that one of the problems with high speed
ejections was 'flailing' of the arms (and legs). Of most importance
was the arms with the joints receiving a lot of damage.


For high speed ejections, I would want one of the Russian Zvezda K-36DM
seats. Good to 1,400 km/hr equivalent airspeed (755 KEAS, 870 mph
EAS).

I was stationed at the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment in Cold
Lake, AB when the iron curtain came down. Our lead ejection seat
specialist was at one of the first ejection conferences that had Soviet
participation, and he spent some time talking with them. He was very
impressed with how well their seats protected the crew. They had a
much, much greater percentage of ejections that ended up with no injury
to the crew than was seen with western seats.

At the time, the western world was working on the 600 kt barrier (i.e.
a seat design that allowed ejections with no injury at 600 kt). The
Russians were working on the Mach 3 barrier.

Their seats have telescopic stabilizing booms that provide drag to keep
the seat facing into the wind. They have arm and leg restraints, and a
blast shield that comes up between the occupant's legs and extends in
front of the chest (sounds a bit scary if you are well hung).

The only downside of the Russian seats is the weight - they were about
twice as heavy as the western seats.

The USAF is seriously considering a lightened version of the Russian
seat for future aircraft. It looks like they removed the blast shield
in this version, which lowers the max speed rating down to 700 kt.

http://www.zvezda-npp.ru/english/05.htm
http://users.bestweb.net/~kcoyne/k36seat.htm
http://www.afrl.af.mil/successstorie...warfighter/02-
he-11.pdf