How safe is your ejector seat?
A passenger in a fighter plane in South Africa last week accidentally activated the ejector seat but escaped unharmed. Was he just incredibly lucky?Of all the things that you hope you wouldn't be able do by accident, pulling an ejector seat handle would have to be up there. This is what happened to one man last week in South Africa. He was being taken for a ride in a plane from the Silver Falcons air display team, when he was thrown forward during some aerobatics. At that point, he reportedly accidentally pulled the black-and- yellow handle between his legs and was blasted through the Perspex canopy 100 metres into the sky. His emergency parachute opened and he floated back to the ground unharmed.To the untrained eye, ejector seats don't look much changed since the second world war, when they started to be used; they resemble something you could have...
Read the whole article on The Guardian - Science
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