The rocket-powered rise of the ejector seat.Older, slower aircraft were much easier for a parachute-equipped pilot to jump out of, but a fighter plane travelling 450mph (724km/h) or more created almost insurmountable problems – the plane would be moving so quickly that a pilot wouldn't have time to clear the tail. ![]() ![]() The young test pilot is one of a handful who successfully escaped a doomed plane on an ejector seat which fired down, not up.Īs military aviation developed during World War Two, the increasing speed of aircraft had created a dramatic problem – it was much more difficult to escape them if something went wrong. But what's remarkable about his ejection is that he wasn't spat out of the aircraft through the Starfighter cockpit canopy, but through the floor. Simpson's parachute opened safely and he survived the mishap with little more than bumps and bruises. "Only this blast was instantaneous it hit me at about 450mph (725km/h)." "I can still remember the powerful, full force of rushing air, pinning me to my seat – like going downhill in the front seat of a mile high roller coaster," Simpson recounted to Flight Journal in an interview in 1998. Simpson knew he had to get out quickly and pulled the ejector seat handle at 27,000ft (8.1km). It was at the furthest limits of aircraft design at the time.Īfter flying to 30,000ft, a malfunction with the ailerons (the hinged back sections of the wing which help a plane turn) caused Simpson's Starfighter to pitch straight down and tumble wildly, high above the ground. Simpson was testing a prototype of the Lockheed F-104 "Starfighter", the first US jet fighter capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound. ![]() It wasn't long before the flight took a turn for the worse. On, Lockheed test pilot Jack "Suitcase" Simpson took off from an air base in Palmdale, California, on what was supposed to be a routine test flight of a new jet fighter.
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