British engineers have created a very cool way to test an ejection seat for the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet they’re developing: mount it on a rocket sled and propel it down a railroad track at 600 miles per hour.
A very cool video shows the successful test. Blink and you’ll miss the ejection seat shooting out of the cockpit at around 0:05. In case you’re wondering, that’s not a very brave human in that seat but a mannequin. BAE Systems, an aerospace company based in the United Kingdom, designed and built the test track. The test took place at Martin Baker’s facility at Chalgrove Airfield in Oxfordshire, England.
Test Manager Rick Whittaker said in a press release “Ejecting from an aircraft like the F-35 typically takes no more than three seconds from the time the ejection handle is pulled to the pilot being on a parachute. You can imagine how quickly everything happens.” Whittaker also said that over 900,000 measurements were taken during the test.
Over 30 ejection seat tests have been completed in the U.K., France, and the U.S. After the successful tests, BAE plans to implement the ejection system in production aircraft.
Production or not, this is still a very cool test to watch. If only Amtrak would implement rocket trains along all their routes. I’ve certainly been on train rides where I wish I had an ejection seat. It would certainly give the TGV and Shinkansen a run for their money.
If you think a rocket train sounds cool, you’ll probably also like the Chinese concept non-stop train and Super Mario’s Bullet Bill Goes Vertical: DIY Rocket
Via: Boing Boing
