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Aviation History
1981
1981 - 1299.PDF
FLIGHT International, 9 May 1981 1305 are known to have been saved with Martin-Baker seats. Co-founder Sir James Martin died recently, but the application of good old-fashioned com mon sense continues at the Denfaam factory in southern England. All seat primary components are designed and tested in house and stringent controls on both workmanship and materials apply throughout manufacture. All present Martin-Baker seats are finished to United States Navy speci fications. If a seat can stand the cor rosive environment of carrier opera tions, it is good enough for anywhere. Cartridges and rocket motors for Martin-Baker seats are produced by the company, under stringent inspec tion and test conditions. Batches of 105 seats are prepared and the odd five test-fired. If any of the five is underpowered or fails in any way the other 100 of the batch are rejected. The company enjoys the freedom of private venture; not being tied to Ministry test-track schedules is one bones. Martin-Baker has its own 650kt rocket track at Langford Lodge in Northern Ireland. The company also operates a Gloster Meteor and a Dakota from Chalgrove near Oxford, the former for test ejections up to 450kt and the latter for inter-base transport. Although a private com pany, Martin-Baker is not averse to using Government facilities when needed, and a rocket track at Pendine Sands in Wales and BAE Boscombe Down's Canberra testbed and wind- tunnel are available. Martin-Baker's first live test ejec tion was on July 24, 1946, when Bernard Lynch, a volunteer company employee, ejected from a Gloster Meteor at 8,600fit and 320kt over Chal grove airfield. A year later the Mk. 1 seat was ordered for all front-line RAF and RN jet fighters, including the Meteor and the Supermarine Attacker. Since then the company has invested millions of pounds and man- hours in keeping pace with the in creasing speeds and decreasing heights of military aircraft operation. The Mk. 2 seat, which was automatic from ejection initiation to main parachute deployment, was the next major ad vance and was fitted to all Hawker Hunters and the RAF's two-seat Gloster Javelins. To meet the more exacting require ments of high-speed, high->altitude escape from the V-bombere, then on the drawing boards of Vickers, Avro and Handley Page, Martin-Baker de signed the Mk. 3 seat to give a precise trajectory, carrying the pilots clear of the high tails of these aircraft. The Mk. 3's main new feature was a three- tube telescopic ejection gun, still in use on all Martin-Baker seats. V- bom'ber rear crew did not have ejec tion seats. Although successful ground-level test ejections were made from an RAF Valiant in the early 1960s, the ejection seats for rear crew were never fitted on cost grounds. The instances of a successful full-crew bail-out from Valiants, Vuloans and Victors are few; even from high level. The Mk. 4 seat entered service in 1956 with the prototype English Elec tric Lightning, the Sea Vixen and the Macchi MB.326. The new seat was lighter than previous models and other new features were a combined seat and parachute harness and a "g" switch in the parachute Time Release Unit. This delayed the release of the main parachute at high speeds, giving the seat time to decelerate to a safe deployment speed with the drogue parachutes. The Mk. 4 was picked by the French Air Force for the Dassault Mystere IV, replacing the original seat. The Mk. 4 was subsequently built under licence in France and fitted to the Mirage III, Mirage IV, Etendard IV and some Mirage F.ls (later replaced by the Mk. 10 in most F.l aircraft). An Americanised version of the Mk. 4, the Mk. 5, was adopted by the US Navy as standard equipment on the majority of USN fighters including the McDonnell F-4 Phantom, the Vought F-8 Crusader and the Grum man A-6 Intruder. Both the Mk. 4 and Mk. 5 seats provide safe ejection from ground level at a minimum speed of 90kt Zero/Zero In 1961, in response to user re quirements and the V/Stol projects on the horizon, Martin-Baker carried out the first live test of a rocket-powered zero-alititude/zero-speed seat. The zero/zero seat was successful and the rocket pack was retrofitted to Mk. 4 and Mk. 5 seats which then became known as the Mk. 6 and Mk. 7 respec tively, with the Mk. 6 designed to British requirements and the Mk. 7 to US standards. In practice this usually means slightly different har ness and survival-pack contents. The Mk. 6 seat is still in production and is fitted to the Pucara, and will be in the Super Etendard for the Argentinian Navy. The 1,000th Mk. 7 seat has recently been delivered to Grumman, where it is standard equipment for the F-14 Tomcat and the EA-6 Prowler (from which all four crew are com mand ejected in 1 • 2sec, on diverging trajectories). Iranian, Greek and Brazilian Northrop F-5s were fitted with the Mk. 7 and several air forces, in particular the Germans and Italians, retrofitted their Lockheed F-104 Starfighters with the seat. After 23 years of development, Martin-Baker seats were becoming somewhat complex. In the late 1960s a new seat design was started, retaining the same operating principles but with considerable changes to the :'32.a':' 108 400 to 499 kts 500 kts & above These graphs show Martin-Baker ejection speeds /heights over four years, with the number of ejections and percentages Oto 99 ft 500 to 999 ft 1000 to 4999 ft 5000 to 10000 ft Above 10000 ft ALT
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