Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
Its important for many types of aircraft to have an ejection seat in case the plane is damaged in battle or during testing and the pilot has to bail out to save his or her life. Ejection seats are one of the most complex pieces of equipment on any aircraft, and some consist of thousands of parts. The purpose of the ejection seat is simple: To lift the pilot straight out of the aircraft to a safe distance, then deploy a parachute to allow the pilot to land safely on the ground. To understand how an ejection seat works, you must first be familiar with the basic components in any ejection system. Everything has to perform properly in a split second and in a specific sequence to save a pilots life. If just one piece of critical equipment malfunctions, it could be fatal. Ejection seats are placed into the cockpit and usually attach to rails via a set of rollers on the edges of the seat. During an ejection, these rails guide the seat out of the aircraft at a predetermined angle of ascent. Like any seat, the ejection seats basic anatomy consists of the bucket, back and headrest. Everything else is built around these main components. Here are key devices of an ejection seat:

Catapult

Rocket
Restraints Parachute

In the event of an ejection, the catapult fires the seat up the rails, the rocket fires to propel the seat higher and the parachute opens to allow for a safe landing. In some models, the rocket and catapult are combined into one device. These seats also double as restraint systems for the crewmembers both during an ejection and during normal operation.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 2

GENERATIONS OF SEAT DESIGNS

2.1First Generation - (1940-1965) These seats were purely ballistic operation with a
compressed air, mortar, or rocket cartridge providing a single force to remove the seat and occupant from the aircraft. In early generation 1 seats, the occupant had to deploy the parachute manually. In later seats this became an automatic function. Examples of first Generation seats would be the Saab Mk 1 and the Martin Baker Mk 1-5 seats.

2.2 Second Generation - (1965-1975) Accumulated information had shown that a catapult
alone would put too much force/acceleration on the occupant to survive an ejection without significant injury. Also, the end users of the seats were looking for zero/zero performance and performance at high speed. To accomplish this, a rocket sustainer was added. The catapult would operate from 0.15 to 0.25 seconds to keep the initial acceleration under 10G. The rocket sustainer would then act for an additional 0.20 to 0.40 seconds. The Martin Baker Mk 7 and the Douglas Escapac seats would be examples of this generation.

2.3 Third Generation - (1975-present) Automated features had been added to seats such as
drogue chutes, parachute deployment based on altitude, and automatic deployment of survival gear since the first generation. But the advances in electronics allowed a computer to be placed into the seat and control the functions based on readings from sensors. Pitot - static systems, gyroscopic stabilizers, and pilot weight indicators were added to give information to the seat computer, extending the ejection envelope and improving crew survivability. Representative examples of the third generation are the Martin Baker Mk 14, The McDonnell Douglas ACES II, and the Stencil S4S.

2.4 Fourth Generation - (present) Research continues on expanding the envelope for the
systems. Martin - Baker Aircraft, Boeing (McDonnell Douglas), and the former Soviet Union have either tested or placed into service seats featuring vectored thrust, flow generators, or variable thrust rockets.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 3

PHYSICS PRIMER FOR UNDERSTANDING EJECTIONS

Frames of reference
Forces and gs

gs and seat speed

Seat speed, aircraft speed, & aircraft size

Pilot size and weight Pilot position and seat actuation

3.1 Frames of Reference - refers to the orientation of the object in relation to some
reference. This way up/down, left/right, and front/back can be defined so others understand the position. In ejections, the following convention is used: The primary vector acceleration axes are defined relative to the crewmans spinal axis (+Gz, positive spinal, eyeballs down; Gz, negative spinal, eyeballs up; +Gx, positive fore-and-aft, eyeballs in; -Gx, negative foreand-aft, eyeballs out; +Gy, positive lateral, eyeballs left; -Gy, negative lateral, eyeballs right).

All vector directions refer to the inertial response of the crewmans eyes when viewed during the motion. By referencing the eyes, the position of the aircraft in regards to the earth frame of reference becomes irrelevant. While factors such as airspeed, angle of attack, roll rate, and sink rate need to be looked at, the primary concern is the force or acceleration on the seat occupant.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

3.2 Forces and Gs - Newtons second law states that the force on a body is a function of the
mass it contains and the acceleration it undergoes. It is represented in an equation as Force = Mass * Acceleration [F=MA]. The acceleration is usually measured in terms of the G, or gravity, force equivalent. For each 32 feet/second^2 or 9.8 meter/second^2, one experiences 1 G of acceleration. A Porsche 911 undergoing rapid acceleration from a standing start to 60 miles/hour (96.5 kilometer/hour) in 3.9 seconds would subject the occupant to an acceleration of about 0.70 G. An aircraft being launched off a carrier catapult is in the neighborhood of a 2.5 G. A rocket assisted seat has a G rating of 5-10, while a pure catapult seat would be in the 10-20 G range.

3.3 Gs and speed - To determine the speed of the seat at any point in time, one solves the
Newton equation knowing the force applied and the mass of the seat/occupant system. The only other factors that are needed are the time for the force to be applied and the initial velocity present (if any). This all works together in the following equation: Speed (final) = Acceleration * Time + Speed (initial) [V(f) = AT + V(i)] Initial velocity may involve the climb or sink rate of the aircraft, but most likely involves velocity resulting from a previous ejection force. For example, in most current seats, the ejection in a two step process where an explosive catapult removes the seat from the aircraft then a rocket sustainer gives final separation. So to solve this seat system, the Newton equation would be solved twice. Once with a V(i) of zero for the catapult and a second time where the initial velocity would be the speed at which the seat left the catapult.

3.4 Seat Speed, Aircraft Speed, & Aircraft size - All the above parameters, force,
mass, time, and seat sequencing, need to be considered when the system is applied to an operating aircraft. A seat speed needs to be high enough to give a reasonable separation distance between the occupant and the aircraft. At the same time, the operating time needs to be short enough to move the person out of danger and allow all actions to take place. But as speed goes up and time goes down, the G force may become excessive.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

Therefore distance and time have to be balanced to provide a system that will operate swiftly, provide adequate separation, and not impose an undue G load on the seat occupant. This relationship is given in the following equation: Distance = * Acceleration * Time^2 + Speed (initial) * Time [D = 1/2AT^2 + V(i)T] As an example look at two different ejection problems. The first is an aircraft sitting on the runway requiring a zero/zero ejection. Air resistance to the seat is negligible. The critical factor here is height to provide separation from the aircraft and allow the chute to safely deploy. If a height of 100 meters is desired and the system acts for 0.250 seconds with a delay of 2.000 seconds from ejection to when the parachute deploys, that works out to an acceleration of around 25G on the seat occupant. The second example assumes the plane is flying at altitude and the crew ejects. Height to deploy the parachute is not a factor here, but aircraft speed and design are. The seat must clear the tail of the plane. To grossly oversimplify the problem, assume the air resistance halts all forward motion of the seat as it clears the plane. The seat must be climbing at a high enough speed for the plane (still at full airspeed) to pass underneath it. Drawing a triangle from the seat position to the top of the tail gives the seat path, minimum vertical distance, and horizontal distance. For a large plane such as the B-1, the pilot is 15.6 feet (4.75 m) below the tail, but also 109.8 feet (33.5 m) away, an angle of 8 degrees. Therefore a slower seat is acceptable since the tail is far back. But for a fighter such as the F-4, its tail at 7 feet (2.1 m) is high relative to the fuselage length of 40.5 feet (12.3 m) meaning a fast seat would be needed to provide clearance for the seat / tail angle of 10 degrees. Assuming the same 0.250 second catapult phase, the data is summarized below. The time to tail assumes the aircraft moves at the listed airspeed while the seat, moving at the given speed, will just clear the tail.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

To get away from the high G forces needed to meet the demands of a timely escape in either the zero/zero or high speed flight scenario, the design of the seat went to a two stage system. An explosive catapult gives the first, initial push. A second impulse is given by using a rocket. In seats by Martin-Baker, these are a separate devices. The McDonnell Douglas ACES II seat uses a combination catapult - rocket unit. Utilizing the previous zero/zero parameters for time and distance, this dual force results in lowered G forces on the occupant.

3.4 Pilot size and weight - No discussion has been made about the occupant of the seat.
This is important since the mass of the pilot will ultimately have an effect on the acceleration. There are three things determining the mass to be ejected and two of them are essentially constant. These are seat mass, equipment mass, and pilot/occupant mass. The seat mass is composed of the seat itself, any pyrotechnics that eject with it, the survival kit, and the parachute. These weights can vary greatly. For the Martin Baker H-7 seat as installed in the F-4 phantom they were as follows, seat = 193 pounds (88 kg), survival kit = 40 pounds (18 kg), and parachute = 20 pounds (9 kg). Looking at the McDonnell Douglas ACES II seat, the seat weight drops to about 150 pounds (68 kg) with the other factors remaining essentially constant. For seats used in some aircraft, weight is even less as the survival kit may be deleted since the aircraft is only used for flight test or over land where rescue is immediately available. Equipment mass is what the pilot brings on board. The clothing worn by the occupant does not count, however the G suit, torso harness, life preserver, and helmet would. Depending on the aircraft and the occupant that may be 30-50 more pounds (14-22 kg) of weight.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

The pilot mass is the largest variable since the seat mass will be determined by the aircraft and the equipment mass determined by the mission. When preparing for the addition of women pilots, the United States Air Force revised its pilot weight data and found a 5th percentile pilot to be a weight of 103 pounds (47 kg) and a 95th percentile pilot to be 205 pounds (93 kg). This difference in mass will produce a significant difference in the forces involved as shown below. Using the Martin Baker H7 seat as a reference, the numbers would add up as such

If the seat is designed to provide acceptable performance for the 50th percentile occupant, then the difference to the 5th or 95th percentile amounts to 51 pounds (23 kg). This represents an +/- 11% mass allowance or difference for the occupant. Therefore a light person may be exposed to too much force and possibly suffer injury during an ejection event. But the heavy person may not have sufficient force and therefore speed to safely reach parachute deployment height or clear the aircraft. The numbers would show an even wider spread if the aircraft uses a lighter seat or weight reduction is accomplished by removal of survival equipment.

3.5 Pilot position and seat actuation - As noted above, wind blast is a factor during an
ejection. From the beginning, efforts were made to keep limbs and the head in place during the ejection event. The first step was using the inertia reel straps and having the pilot lock the harness prior to activation of the seat. As seats became more automatic, gas pressure from seat activation was used to retract and lock the reel. This helped to insure the hips and torso were tight against the seat.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

The head and arms received attention next. Seats designed on both sides of the Atlantic settled on the face curtain as a means of seat activation and protection for the occupant. Hands grasped a set of handles mounted at the top and pulled down. The extended curtain helped hold the head back and gave some wind blast protection. The arms were also tight against the body and, with muscles under tension, less likely to be out of position. A similar idea was the use of the center pull handle. By grasping in a two hand grip, the hands and arms are again inside the body and protected from wind blast. The final option is the side firing levers. Some designers feel that moving the hands up to a face curtain or into the center for the handle wastes valuable time. Therefore side firing handles put the hands and arms in an anatomically stable position and also reduce reaction time when the need to eject arises. The final appendages to consider are the legs and feet. Some seats, such as the Escapac and ACES II, attempt to passively control them through the use of high sides that keep the knees together and prevent the legs from abducting. Martin - Baker and Stencel have favored the use of a strap and garter assembly that attaches to the aircraft, passes through pulleys attached to the seat, and connects to the ankle of the occupant. As the seat moved up the rails, the cords tighten and pull the feet and legs into the bottom of the seat.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KBNCE, Gulbarga

Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 4

FACE CURTAIN EJECTION SEAT

Fig 4.1 Ejection Seats The curtain is showed at the top of the seat (center image). Hands grasped a handle (shown in left image) and pulled down. Cables attached to the handle / curtain assembly activate the seat. The extended curtain helps hold the head back and gave some wind blast protection. The arms are also tight against the body and, with muscles under tension, less likely to be out of position (right image) when the seat leaves the aircraft.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KBNCE, Gulbarga

Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats 4.1 SIDE HANDLE EJECTION SEAT

Fig 4.1 Side Handle Ejection Seat The time required to actuate the system is a somewhat undefined variable. Depending on aircraft attitude and motion, reaching for the face curtain or center handle may be difficult. Therefore some aircraft use a side firing handle (center image). The arm muscles used for adduction are relatively strong and can tend to overcome external forces. As well, with the advent of the HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) cockpit, the pilots hands are not all over the cockpit, but in fairly consistent positions. The handles are gripped (left image) and then rotated upward (right image). In the ACES II seat shown, this fires dual pyrotechnic initiators.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

4.2 Centre Handle Ejection Seat

Fig 4.1 Centre Handle Ejection Seat Placed between the occupants legs is the center firing handle (center image). By grasping in a two hand grip, the handle either fires an initiator or connects by cable to a bellcrank assembly that fires the seat. Two grips are seen in the training procedures. The one shown is by gripping the handle with one hand and wrapping the other hand around the wrist of the first arm. The second method is placing both hands on handle prior to pulling it. In either case, some protection is afforded to the hands and arms.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 5

MICROPROCESSOR CONTROLLED SEATS

In the ACES II ejection seat produced by Goodrich Corporation, there are three possible ejection modes. The one used is determined by the aircrafts altitude and airspeed at the time of ejection. These two parameters are measured by the environmental sensor and recovery sequencer in the back of the ejection seat. The environmental sensor senses the airspeed and altitude of the seat and sends data to the recovery sequencer. When the ejection sequence begins, the seat travels up the guide rails and exposes pitot tubes. Pitot tubes, named for physicist Henri Pitot, are designed to measure airpressure differences to determine the velocity of the air. Data about the air flow is sent to the sequencer, which then selects from the three modes of ejections:

Mode 1: low altitude, low speed - Mode 1 is for ejections at speeds of less than 250 knots (288 mph / 463 kph) and altitudes of less than 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). The drogue parachute doesnt deploy in mode 1. Mode 2: low altitude, high speed - Mode 2 is for ejections at speeds of more than 250 knots and altitudes of less than 15,000 feet. Mode 3: high altitude, any speed - Mode 3 is selected for any ejection at an altitude greater than 15,000 feet.

Automated features had been added to seats such as drogue chutes, parachute deployment based on altitude, and automatic deployment of survival gear since the first generation. But the advances in electronics allowed a computer to be placed into the seat and control the functions based on readings from sensors. Pitot - static systems, gyroscopic stabilizers, and pilot weight indicators were added to give information to the seat computer, extending the ejection envelope and improving crew survivability. Representative examples of the third generation are the Martin Baker Mk 14, The McDonnell Douglas ACES II, and the Stencil S4S.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

The McDonnell - Douglas (now Boeing ) CF-18 has been in Canadian service since 1982. It is equipped with the Martin-Baker SJU-5 seat. The seat is microprocessor controlled for full capability This is the rear seat. One main difference between the ejection seat in the American F/A-18 and the Canadian CF-18 is the attachment of the occupant. In the US versions, the occupant wears the MA-2 torso harness and snaps Koch fittings into the parachute risers and survival kit. For the CF-18 the harness is permanently attached to the seat. The leg straps and parachute risers attach to the T shaped fitting lying in the center of the seat.The only actuator for seat initiation is the center pull handle. As with several multi-seat aircraft there is sequenced ejection. If either person pulls the handle, the seat go in a rear then front sequence.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 6

EJECTION SEATS WITH ROCKET MOTORS

6.1 APPLICATION OF ROCKET MOTORS
The jet engine continued to increase the performance of post World War II aircraft, and it was not long before the limitations of the simple ejector seat become apparent. Two such areas of limitations were: (1) Inability of the ejected seat to clear the aircraft s vertical tail at high speed, and (2) The potential for windblast injury to the aircrew forced to eject under high Q conditions. Propulsive elements were involved in the solutions to these problem areas. The problem of achieving tail clearance was approached in several ways. As indicated earlier, the German approach was to jettison the vertical or dorsal surface. One approach taken in the US was to eject the seat downwards, rather than upwards. This approach had serious shortcomings when the ejection occurred at low altitudes. Another approach was to increase the catapult output sufficiently to provide adequate tail clearance. While successful in clearing the tail, this approach was also very successful in inducing spinal injury to the aircrew. The problem was finally addressed successfully by combining a rocket motor with the catapult to form a two-stage propulsion system for the seat. The catapult remained as the initial booster to get the seat/man mass clear of the cockpit, while the rocket motor came on line, once clear of the cockpit, to act in a sustainer mode. When combined into a single unit, this propulsive element was termed the rocket catapult. The first USAF rocket catapult, the TALCO Engineering Co. 1057, was installed in the F-102 in 1958. Shortly after this, the first USN rocket catapults, the RAPEC I for the A-4 and the TALCO Engineering Co. 1192 for the T-2, became operational. Propellants used in the RAPEC were double base, as were most previous escape propulsion units. The 1057 and 1192 units were unique in that they used a composite propellant. This basic rocket catapult configured seat is illustrated in Figure 1.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

Fig 6.1 Rocket Catapult Configured Seat A slightly different approach was taken by Martin-Baker in England. The catapult was maintained as separate component, and the rocket motor was located separately under the seat bottom. This configuration is illustrated in figure 2, and is, if not unique, certainly rare in its use of multiple propellant tubes feeding into a single nozzled manifold. Propellant is double base. This propulsion concept was extensively tested, culminating in a live static (zero airspeed and zero altitude) test on 1 April 1961. The test was repeated at the Paris Air Show of the same year.

Fig 6.2 Martin-Baker underseat Motor Configuration

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

The Stencel Aero Engineering Company of Asheville, North Carolina, likewise utilizes separate catapult and rocket motors. However, their system consists of twin catapult tubes which also do duty as the main seat structural beams. Rocket motors are located on both sides of the seat at the aft extremity, and they are termed SBRs for Seat Back Rockets. Figure 3 illustrates this variation. Composite propellant is used.

Fig 6.3 Seat Back Rocket Motor Configuration The ESCAPAC IE-1 seat holds the current record for the number of separate rocket motors per seat (four) each performing a different function. These functions are: seat ejection by MK 16 Mod 1 rocket catapult (1,100 pound-second rocket phase), trajectory divergence by MK 83/MK 85 yaw motors (11 and 22 pound-seconds respectively), seat stabilization by MK 84 vernier motor (250 pound-seconds), and seat-man-separation by MK 82 motor (100 poundseconds). Figure 7 illustrates these motors.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

Martin Baker Ejection Seats.

Mk.10L

Mk.11

Mk.12

NACES

Mk.15

Mk.16

Mk.16L

JPATS

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSIONS

The rocket motor has proven to be the only stored energy source which can provide the needed force versus time output consistent with both the human physiological limitations and the necessity to decrease escape system total functioning time to the absolute minimum.

Since the human physiological limits are not likely to change as rapidly as the performance envelope of the next generation of combat aircraft, it seems likely that the rocket motor will continue to be a key part of future escape systems.

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Advancement in Aircraft ejection seats

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Patent no. 678566, of April 2, 1930, Nouveau systme de montage des parachutes dans les appareils de locomotion arienne In practice: opening the cockpit hood, inverting the aircraft and falling out. who later changed his name to Jrkenstedt Ejection-history.org.uk. Retrieved 2012-10-30. Green, William (1986). The Warplanes of the Third Reich. New York: Galahad Books. p. 363.

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