Best Ejection Seats - Russia or USA?

USA




Russia

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Maybe it's because you see MIGs crashing more from crazy pilots that I think Russia has better ejection seats.

The Aces II seat the US uses is pretty good from the number of pilots that have survived ejection, but I thjink the Russians have an edge on the technology. I recall that they looked at a Russian design for the ATF

Darnit, for some reason I can't edit the messed up Russia .jpg but here's the same pic:

Remeber the Migs that struck teh ground in paris, the pilot ejected at low altitude landed, took off his harnas and lit up a smoke with his foot on his helmet. Now thats Macho!

The russains put ejection seats in helicopters thats pretty crazy but it seems they have got it to work

The KA-50 black shark has this system the Zvezda K-37-800 ejection system

It uses explosive bolts I think to blow off the rotar blades before you eject.
The US tried this out but decided not to use it.

The Aces II has saved more than 600 lives since it debut in 1978. The new Aces III is made for the F/A-22, it is designed for 60,000 ft. and speeds of 700 mph. The helicopter ejection seat was too dangerous to use the blades would not blow out every single time. So the pentagon did not want is pilots chopped salad.

Your right WestPoint if the blades didnt blow off that would be one ugly picture I wonder what the Russians did to make them stick with it?

I always thought that perhaps a ejection cockpit might work in a helicopter have the whole thing shoot forward then boost up thus avoiding the whole blade thing. Though im sure better minds then mine have thought of this and found something wrong with it.

I don't think the problem is with the blades not coming off. Explosive bolts are very dependable. If the blades are blow off at the Jesus hub they sure as hell will get out of the way.

There are other considerations besides the danger of the blades, like the fact that most helicopter accidents happen at extremely low altitudes so quickly that ejection seats might not be much help, the fact that pilots can still auto-rotate most of the time, and the fact that most choppers are used for troop transport, so maybe they want the pilots to know it's up to them to do everything to recover the ship.

I thought you can only auto-rotate if your pass the dead mans curve which governs the minimum height for any given speed. Below this height, the pilot can't "auto-rotate" and in case of engine failure the chopper drops like a rock

I forgot what the height was for it though

Yeah they do drop like rocks, a few had 'hard landings' when I was in the Marines. I don't know the specifics of auto-rotate just I know it's a recovery possibility.

I like the Russian seat very much, it's very smart and tries hard not to knacker the pilot.

Although not US or Russian I'm suprised no one has mentioned Martin Baker who began it all, 7069 lives saved so far including 28 this year alone.

Greetings

Any Helicopter doing less than 50 knots, under 500ft is toast, thats the nicest way that you could ever put it, that sucker is going to hit the ground like a rocket.

I have heard that the Russian designs a two fold locking system, one pin holds that rotor blades in place, with explosive bolts, that throws the blade the hell out of dodge using the power from the engine to "throw" the rotors out of the way. The second method, I think is a backup, but its been mentioned before, about basically stopping the rotor head dead in its tracks, causing the rotor blades to snap off, again using the power from the engine and possibly the explosive bolts also.

Autorotation is some thing nice to think about when you are boarding a helicopter for the first time, in practice, if your engine fails on your helo and there isn't another engine on it, you had better pray you 'land' [Crash] into a toliet roll factory!

The Europeans, aka the Brits and Germans developed a Closed Cockpit ejection system for the Eurocopter, the one that France and German are currently using, so far I haven't heard of any failures.

- Phil

Originally posted by Bravon03
I like the Russian seat very much, it's very smart and tries hard not to knacker the pilot.

Although not US or Russian I'm suprised no one has mentioned Martin Baker who began it all, 7069 lives saved so far including 28 this year alone.

Hmmm good old Martin baker. You are right the Zero/Zero seat has saved quite a few pilots.

Martin Baker supply seats for the A6, F14, F18, T45, Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon & JSF!!

Yes, Martin Baker are the Ejection seat kings! They even stopped building aircraft altogether just to concentrate on their invention!

Originally posted by gooseuk

The Europeans, aka the Brits and Germans developed a Closed Cockpit ejection system for the Eurocopter, the one that France and German are currently using, so far I haven't heard of any failures.

- Phil

Cool I did not know that. I guess better minds did think of that and it works thanks for the info gooseuk

best ejection seat?

RUSSIA

watch this VIDEO
then judge yourself

also i havent seen any american pilot eject while doing ~Mach 3

PS: if you have problems downloading video, try again. once i had to try 50 times till it worked

EDIT: nahh, not mach 3 but mach 2.5

The seat has already been tested from a sled and from a modified MiG-25 ejection seat laboratory aircraft at speeds approaching Mach 2.5 and an altitude of 56,000 ft (17,000 m). Larry Specker of the Air Force Research
Laboratory stated: "The results showed significant reduction in injury risk over current US ejection seats."



[edit on 12-8-2004 by titus]