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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0435.PDF
FLIGHT, 3 April 1953 CANBERRA NIGHT FLIGHT . . . tions: "Two miles to touch-down, heading good . . . fifty feet below the glide-path . . . heading still good ... on the glide-path . .. quarter of a mile to go . . . look for the runway and land .. ." The curtain of cloud parted to reveal twin rows of amber lights, and within ten seconds—at 2008 hr, just 2 hr 9 min after take-off —we had touched down. A comparable Lancaster sortie to the same objective would have taken at least 4\ hr. Meanwhile, several of the other Binbrook Canberras, those flown by pilots with "White-card" instrument-ratings—were being diverted to other airfields with better visibility and higher cloud-base. These aircraft carried tip-tanks, and consequently had a better margin of endurance; some of the Canberras had not yet been so equipped, and the longer-range aircraft were nor mally reserved for less experienced pilots. De-briefing began with a quiz from the intelligence officer. Sgt. Neate's reply to his first question summed up our flight in a nutshell: "Yes, it was a successful mission." This was an encouraging glimpse of one of the many efficient and large-scale operations flown by Bomber Command's new Canberra squadrons. Both crews and aircraft stood up well to an exacting test: at Binbrook, where every force took off at full strengdi without a single "early return," there were only one or two cases of unserviceability. In his review of "Jungle King," Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd stated that there had not been a single engine-failure among Canberras taking part. 1AST week we published a note on the remarkable high-altitude ejection-seat test carried out (from Chalgrove Air-J field, Oxfordshire on March 17th) by Mr. B. Lynch, B.E.M., of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., Ltd.; and now we are able to quote a letter from Mr. James Martin, O.B.E., F.R.Ae.S., which gives further details of the ejection and, incidentally, supplements the report Flight, November 14th, 1952) of a lecture, on the development of the seat, that he delivered in America last year. Since 1946 (writes Mr. Martin) our ejection seat has been standard equipment for the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. This seat has been manually operated: by that I mean that when the pilot wishes to eject himself he must first jettison the hood, then pull the face-screen over his face, and then be shot out. A moment later the drogue gun is fired by means of a static line. The energy of the bullet from the gun pulls out the drogue parachute; the function of this parachute is to stabilize the seat and keep it from cartwheeling. With the manually operated seat Bernard Lynch, photographed shortly before the test described here. 433 During "Jungle King," Canberras made a number of live-bombing attacks on the Nordhorn range with 25 lb practice missiles. the pilot then has to undo his harness, fall out of the seat and use his parachute in the normal way. There are certain disadvantages with this manually operated type. Take the low-altitude case: with the automatic seat we have done a large number of ejections as low as 500ft and have had 250ft to spare when the main canopy has developed. With the manu ally operated seat we would estimate that it would require at least 1,500ft to give a reasonable margin of time, and, of course, so much must depend on the individual. So the automatic seat has enormous advantages; if a man is shot out at 500ft in level flight at the highest possible speed at which a modern aircraft can fly, he is automatically lifted out of his seat five seconds later. Take the high-altitude case: there has always been a theory that the seat rr.i'ht spin axially, due to the rate of descent from such a high altitude. We carried out a large number of tests with dummies from 33,030ft and the seat fell through space on the drogue parachute only, without spinning; the time mechanism, which is barostat-controlled, releases the drogue from the main seat, undoes the pilot's harness and extracts the canopy from its pack; the pilot is then lifted out of the seat. If for any reason the pilot were unconscious it would all happen automatically without any action being required from him after actual ejection from the aircraft. Incidentally, emergency oxygen is carried and is turned on immediately on ejection; it is sufficient to last the pilot during his free fall. We recently decided to do a live test with our parachutist, Mr. B. Lynch, B.E.M. Prior to the test he was medically examined at the Institute of Aviation Medicine by G/C. Stewart and was found to be medically fit; he was also tested in the decompression chamber and his reactions seemed satisfactory. Incidentally, he weighs sixteen stone, so is a bit heavy for parachuting. On March 17th the test was carried out from our old Meteor 3 which was converted by us six years ago into a two-seater and has -since been used for our ejection tests. The machine climbed to approximately 29,000ft and Lynch ejected himself. It was possi ble, with special binoculars, to follow the seat down, and it only turned round very slowly during the descent. Lynch felt no discomfort from the cold or from lack of oxygen. We have been working on automatic ejection seats since 1947 and have done a very large number of tests with various arrange ments and schemes. The seat that was tested out on March 17th was a standard Mk 1 seat with the addition of the various bits and pieces to convert it from manual to fully automatic operation. The components for these conversion sets are now going into intensive production and all seats for the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy should have these fittings supplied to them within the next few months. We have also designed and developed a new telescopic jack suitable for bombers; it gives an ejection velocity of 80 ft/sec, so that there is plenty of clearance over the fin. We have also de signed a new lightweight automatic seat, the prototype of which will soon be completed; this will give an ejection velocity of 60 ft/sec; the bottom of the seat pan practically touches the floor. This seat will have combined parachute and seat harness. AUTOMATIC EJECTION-SEATS Mr. James Martin gives the Background to a High-altitude Test
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