Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

Last edited by Patriot on Dec 03, 2006 - 12:31 AM; edited 2 times in total

Novadays pilots get more and more chances to get out of death's clutches, mainly because of more and more excellent ejection seats.

Making draw a comparison between modern combat aircrafts in relation to ejection seats and other factors it's interesting which gives the crew the biggest chances to survive ?

What are F-16 'surviveing features' in comparing to other aircarfts ?

Outlook picture: 'typical ejection sequence'

These famous/infamous pictures show in how dramatic moments pilots can save theirs lifes

Overview to the ejection seats

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Elite 1K Joined: Aug 19, 2004 - 09:19 AM Posts: 1092

The F-16's ACES II ejection seat (originally developed by McDonnell-Douglas Corp.) is one of the best ejection seats around. There's an improved version in the F-22 if I'm not mistaken. The Martin-Baker NACES ejection seat used in the F/A-18 and similar ejection seat variants are probably comparable to the ACES II found in the F-16, F-15, etc.

Go here for more information: http://users.bestweb.net/~kcoyne/index.html

Hope you know the saying, Meet your maker in a Martin-Baker.

Lol.
Didn't hear that one yet. Damn funny. Laughing

Martin Baker - the Widow maker...

the best one ever??? hmmm I think the one that works when used is the best one.

The best ejection seat, thats easy... the one that works.

Hopefully it's the one you never have to use.

FalconRed wrote:

The best ejection seat, thats easy... the one that works.

Exactly, whatever one you're sitting in when you really need it.

Mike

I agree with Purplehaze: The one you never have to use!!!!!

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 19, 2004 - 09:19 AM Posts: 1092

I guess we have a lot of ACES II fans here... including me. Smile

Never knew Martin-Baker had a bad rep though. Hehehe.... meet your maker in a Martin Baker... LOL!

An interesting question, but one with no definite answer.
It seems to me that
it depends on the aircraft's mission,
[Link pending approval] operations very close to the
ground, versus up high; or subsonic vs supersonic; etc.

For example I would think that using the ACESII (or any other
specific seat) on an acft tasked for ground troop support
would have smaller survival rates than an ACESII used on an acft
tasked for missile delivery; I say that since ejecting at a high roll rate
would be a riskier proposion with the former than with the latter.
So to correctly assess whether ACESII is better than MBA (mk 16 family) or
to K-36 you need to specify the mission, and then go from there.

For those missions performed at supersonic speeds, it would seem that
the K-36 would have a higher survival rate
than the "regular" ACESII. I say that based on the K-36 having leg retention hardware, seat stab booms (to minimize adverse yaw),
pop up blast shield, intergrated helmet visor and bladder, and the ACESII
having none of those features. I guess that is why the ACES that will go
into the raptor will have some of those features.

Finally, from the spectacular airshow video of crashing Mig's or F-16
at high sink rates I will admit that I have a hard time in choosing which one of these modern seats are the best. Afterall, all those pilots were able
to walk away from these incidents.

JP

http://www.martin-baker.com/ejject_tie_club.html
Not bad for widow makers...

Wasn’t there an old saying once that went something like this?

“If it says Pratt and Whitney on the engine it better say Martin Baker on the seat….”

Off Topic

guy@rdaf.dk wrote:

“If it says Pratt and Whitney on the engine it better say Martin Baker on the seat….”

Must've been an old Tomcat crew saying, when they had the TF-30s. Laughing

ACES II is a great seat. I've known 2 pilots who bailed out of Eagles going supersonic and survived. One was Brian Udell, who punched out of a Mudhen. Unfortunately, his WSO didn't make it. Jon Counsell bailed out of a C model over the Gulf Range, ESE of Tyndall after a G-LOC. He regained consciousness just in time to see that he didn't have enough time to pull out of the dive.

Both were heavily injured, but both eventually returned to flying status.

The great thing about ACES II, is that I've never heard of any pilot being killed when ejecting within the normal parameters of the seat. The only ones I remember being killed either ejected out of the seat's envelope, or waited too long (this includes not attempting ejection).

K-36D is a great seat too. Perhaps too heavy and complex, which is why the joint U.S.-Russian effort seemed to go nowhere. However, it has proven its worth in airshow after airshow... Wink

I'm in complete agreement, though, with the best being the one that you don't have to use.

Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

Best ejection seat?