hi-speed ejections

I've been meaning to ask - what good books on the Blackbird would the group
recommend? I'm looking more for personal accounts than statistics.
Thanks,
Steve R.


"WaltBJ" wrote in message
om...
It's not the Mach number but the air blast, measured by indicated
airpeed in the cockpit, that hurts you. It's also known as 'Q' force,
or ram air pressure. FWIW the SR71 Q limit is low enough so serious
injury is unlikely. OTH that's also why a lot of fighter e-seats have
straps to restrain one's legs and prevent flailing. As far as I know
all seats will fire on command; the ejectee takes what conditions
exist when he wants out. FWIW I personally know a man who ejected from
an F104A (lost all hydraulics at 35000 and 1.5) going almost straight
down at 1.3 M at 25,000. The Lockheed C2 seat with its leg and arm
restraints prevented him from receiving serious injury! OTH a lot of
F4 and F105 pilots were seriously injured at high IAS (550+) ejections
prior to the seats being fitted with leg restraints. Now I guess it's
only the crews' arms that get flailed . .i.e. bent back beyond
physiological limits by the high-speed air blast.
Walt BJ

A good book on Blackbird flight test is "Blackbird Rising,"
by Donn Byrnes and the late Ken Hurley. Hurley was an AF
flight test engineer and the book relates his tale of being
in '952 (#3 SR) when an unstart caused a roll past 90 deg.
The pilot got it back down, but while he was doing that,
Hurley was madly writing notes so that there would be some
evidence of what happened in case they didn't survive.

It was a short time later that '952 came apart; there's
a chapter dedicated to it, "Number Three and Jim Zwayer
Died the Same Day."

Byrnes told me that in B-58 testing there were some high-Q
ejections in which crew members' brains were essentially
"homogenized" from the forces, despite the capsule.

BUFDRVR wrote:

The K-36 seat has telescoping booms that extend REARWARDS - to stabilise the
seat - in much the same way as the small drogue chute on western designs.

I though it also had a wind blast deflector the popped up *in front* of the
seat?

BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

It does - a sort of telescoping arm between the pilots knees, with what looks like
a small mesh screen.

But looking at photos, it only seems to extend to groin/stomach height.

I'll see if I can find a photo.

I also read recently that the Martin-Baker seat on the Rafale had a device whereby
the pilot does not need to attach his ankles to the seat - it is all done
automatically.

This was supposed to be a wonder development - but the K-36 seat has had it for
years!

It has a webbing strap that goes from the outer side of the seat, next to the
right side of one ankle - then up and over the footwell and attaches to a pulley
on the seat on the left side of the ankle - same arrangement for the other ankle.

So the pilot sits down and puts his feet on the rudder pedals in the footwell - he
doesn't have to attach any ankle straps.

As soon as the seat fires, these webbing straps retract, pulling his ankles onto
the seat. There are also risers behind his knees to raise them towards his
stomach, the aforementioned windbreak, the stabilising arms etc.

All in all a very effective design - as demonstrated by the K-36 Ejection Seat
Display Teams at RAF Fairford (two) and Le Bourget (three)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++
Ken Duffey - Flanker Freak & Russian Aviation Enthusiast
Flankers Website - http://www.flankers.co.uk/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++

On 30 Jan 2004 23:31:29 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

The K-36 seat has telescoping booms that extend REARWARDS - to stabilise the
seat - in much the same way as the small drogue chute on western designs.

I though it also had a wind blast deflector the popped up *in front* of the
seat?

I'm sure you're right. I saw a "Discovery Wings" programme recently
that showed the mechanics of the Russian ejection system. Wind
deflector at front, and rear booms on seat for stabilisation. I'm not
sure how this compare with the latest Martin-Baker zero-zero seats.

--
Kulvinder Singh Matharu
Contact details : http://www.metalvortex.com/form/form.htm
Website : http://www.metalvortex.com/

"It ain't Coca Cola, it's rice" - The Clash

Shameless plug - visit my web site at
http://showcase.netins.net/web/herke...ion/eject.html

Um?

http://showcase.netins.net/web/herke...n/history.html

Um, this completely ignores the German development of ejection seats.
Germans had first successful ejection, first ejection seats in series
production aircraft and did some 60 successful ejections during the WW2.

jok

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 05:10:31 GMT, "Steve R."
wrote:

I've been meaning to ask - what good books on the Blackbird would the group
recommend? I'm looking more for personal accounts than statistics.
Thanks,
Steve R.

Probably the best personal account is Brian Shul's "Sled Driver".

Here's a link to Amazon, but the book is apparently out of print and
the one used copy available seems to be priced with either a typo or
bound in rare Corinthian leather.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

Brian was with me at Holloman flying the AT-38. He's a dynamic and
courageous guy who was badly burned in SEA in a T-28 accident in Laos.
He's written several books and an Amazon inquiry on his name will turn
them up.

Check your library for Sled Driver and explore Inter-Library-Loan to
maybe find a copy.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

"fudog50" wrote in message
...
Third party, "I heard of" stories don't show a lot of conviction,
Tony, sorry. Please, if you have it, quotable text or links or even
the possibility that the SR-71 pilot wrote a paper on it? That would
be nice, maybe more convincing, thanks.

It was not "I heard of", It was "I heard from" - from 'Flaps' Flannigan
to be exact.

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:35:42 -0600, "Tony" wrote:

"Bill McClain" wrote in message
. com...
My son was asking me about ejecting from jet aircraft. He's 8, and
he's convinced that no matter how fast an airplane is going, it's
possible to eject. I said I didn't think that the guy who was flying
the MiG-25 at Mach 3+ was able to eject from his aircraft with the
runaway engines (if that's what was happening), and that the SR-71
isn't really something you can safely eject from at max speed and
altitude. Any knowledgeable remarks I can pass along to him?

I attended a talk by an SR-71 pilot a little while back and,
according to him, people have safely ejected from an SR-71
at speed and altitude.

Tony

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 05:10:31 GMT, "Steve R."
wrote:



I've been meaning to ask - what good books on the Blackbird would the group
recommend? I'm looking more for personal accounts than statistics.
Thanks,
Steve R.



Probably the best personal account is Brian Shul's "Sled Driver".

Here's a link to Amazon, but the book is apparently out of print and
the one used copy available seems to be priced with either a typo or
bound in rare Corinthian leather.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

Brian was with me at Holloman flying the AT-38. He's a dynamic and
courageous guy who was badly burned in SEA in a T-28 accident in Laos.
He's written several books and an Amazon inquiry on his name will turn
them up.

Check your library for Sled Driver and explore Inter-Library-Loan to
maybe find a copy.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=11 27

At the moment, one third of what Amazon wants.

In article ,
(Bill McClain) writes:
snippage

Hi all,

My Joshua was saying, "See, I told you people can eject from
Blackbirds!" Hey, who knew?

Am I right about that Foxbat? It was going Mach 3+ because of runaway
engines? What happened to aircraft and pilot? I'd imagine the
engines would flame out and the pilot would punch out; I'd hate to
think that the Foxbat would just blow up or something.

I wouldn't say that it was runaway engines, myself. Pretty much all
turbojet/turbofan engines are limited by the strength of teh materiels
of the rotating components (Compressors & Turbines). Remember that
these parts are highly loaded, and are spinning very fast, so there's
a lot of stress & strain on the blade roots and the disks that hold
the blades. The most common limit is the temperature of teh hot gas
entering the turbine section. That's pretty constant, though. 1500
Degrees K is 1500 Degress K no matter what altitude you're at, or how
fast you're going. The compreressor section, up front, is another
matter - As the engine's air is rammed into teh inlets and slowed
down, it's pressure and temperature increase. (This is, generally, a
good thing - the more air, at a higher pressure, the more thrust. As
teh air is compressed by each stage of the compressor, it heats up
more. At some point, it's possible to exceed teh tmperature limits of
the materiels in the compressor. Generally, the effects of an
overtemp in the compressor section aren't catastrophic, unless you're
above the limits for a long time. It will dramatically shorten the
useful life of those components, so an engine swap would be necessary
after landing to ensuer that the next flight's going to be safe.
It appears that that's what happened with the Foxbat over Egypt. The
pilot, for Tactical Reasons (Like getting his Recce Data back)
exceeded the placarded Mach 2.8 limit on the aircraft. He successfuly
landed the airplane in Egypt, and the engines got swapped.


Lowest and slowest ejections are kind of interesting, too. I bet the
Navy probably holds some interesting records there, mostly at sea.
)

There have been some successful underwater ejections. Those are a lot
more dangerous than they may sound. Water's heavy, thick stuff.
--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Both Blackbird Rising, 1999, ISBN 0-9673327-0-2, 1999 and SR-71, "The Secre
Missions Exposed' 2000 (paperback), ISBN1-84176-098-6 are some pretty good
reading for what your looking for.
Toby
9th AMS EMR/ECM
Beale AFB/Kadena AB
1972-1975

"Steve R." wrote in message
...
I've been meaning to ask - what good books on the Blackbird would the
group
recommend? I'm looking more for personal accounts than statistics.
Thanks,
Steve R.