anybody know what model ejection seat the F/A-18E uses? would this one be ok? http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=TD48407 it says for late F/A-18’s. later.
According to Bert Kinzey’s book, the F-18E uses the NACES SJU-17 seat, which is the seat designation in the Squadron Signal catalog item you referenced. Sounds like a fit…
cool, thanks friend!!
You can double check yourself at
http://www.ejectionsite.com
great site wibhi2!!! thanks friend. later.
Just out of curiousity, what seats did the earlier marks use? Was that not also the NACES, which, of course, is a navalized ACES II. I also wonder if anyone can tell me what has to be done in order to navalize an ejection seat. I’ve always been fascinated by ejection seats, and have had ejection training in the F-4 M-B seat, the Lockheed seat in the F-104 (love the way those spurs clank against the tarmac when you walk), and the ACES II, and I had training in the seat in the F-18B, though it wasn’t very thorough. It didn’t seem much different from the ACES II, except in looks. It is absolutely astonishing how many functions must take place in the space of less than a second for a successful ejection, and the newer seats almost never fail. And the first time I saw how much neat stuff was crammed in the briefcase that doubles as a seat cushion in the Phantom, I was simply stunned-- everything from a survival radio, flare gun, fishing gear, a small sea anchor that doubles as a rainwater collector (as does your helmet, if it doesn’t get blown off in the ejection), canned water, a mylar blanket and on and on… You could live really well off that stuff a very long way from civilization. And that was just the peacetime survival gear. God knows what else is put in that seat during combat tours.
F-18s were originally produced with the SJU-5/6 (I don’t know what the difference is between a 5 and a 6) that were a variant of the Martin-Baker Mk10 seat. At some point there was a transition to the SJU-17 seat, and I don’t think it was with the E/F upgrade.
All F-18s these days have SJU-15/17 seats. The 17 is the front seat version and the -15 is the backseat (yes, they are slightly different).
Sharkskin…
I couldn’t tell you what is so different about a NACES seat and an ACES seat besides appearences… they don’t look anything alike - I do know all the NACES have center-mounted handles… reason being, it’s much easier to get to in time of need than an overhead or a side grip (for things like settling off the cat and whatnot)… at least that’s how the mod was explained to us by a bunch of PRs a while back. But I can tell you whatever you want to know about an SJU-17/15 seeing as I ride around in one just about every day. So fire away with any questions about it.
If memory serves, Air Force ACES II seats have center handles too. The Phantom, of course, had both that and the old face curtain. Being a lifelong civilian, I had to retrain for E and E each time I flew, as well as renew my altitude card, which entailed trips to San Antonio. But since I had the most time in the M-B seat in the F-4, I remember that training best, and one thing I was told was never, ever to use the face curtain. I don’t remember why, or even if I was even told why. But I remember when you were a passenger you only had about three things to be responsible for: turning on the radar, bringing up the INS, and unsafing the seat between your legs just after closing the canopy. Since Navy Phantoms — which I never rode – were stickless in the back seat, there was probably even less to do unless you were shooting at something.
As for the NACES seat – and this is merely a guess – there may be some kind of technical provisions for underwater ejections which you, as your profile attests, have certainly been aware of. I’m truly amazed at how many people have lived through that. Just recently I read an account by a USMC Harrier pilot who survived an underwater ejection. I don’t even know what kind of seat the Harrier carries, just that the ejection takes place right up through the glass.
Interesting - the lower handle used to be designated the “alternate” and was added after the first Martin-Bakers went into service, to provide the ability to initiate injection under high g loads or maybe to shorten the time between taking your hand off the stick and grabbing the handle. But it was definitely less preferred in the beginning.
There were definite advantages to the face curtain - it supposedly properly positioned the body (read aligned the spine) for ejection, reduced the likelihood that you’d lose your goggles/visor, oxygen mask and/or helmet when you hit the slipstream. If you didn’t have your visor down or goggles in place, there was some benefit to the face curtain.
There may be less arm flailing with the “alternate” handle and the rocket seat may be less hard on the spine so positioning is less important.
Doh - I just discovered that the Navy Common Ejection Seat doesn’t have a face curtain. Talk about stuck in the Sixties…
According to the Martin-Baker web site, beginning with their Mk 9 seat the “face screen handle” was deleted, because the “seat pan firing handle is quicker to operate… and, in addition, the modern flying helmet and its visor provides the face protection previously provided by the face screen”. Earlier in the article they describe how the positioning requirement was proactively resolved on earlier seats by using a torso harness combined with “a power retraction system” on the shoulder straps.
Well, the development of ejection seats is a fascinating subject all its own, and most people you meet, being chauvinistic Americans, are not aware that the Russians are considered by many aviation academic types around the world to be way ahead of us in this technology. If you don’t believe it, take a look at some of their Paris Air Show demonstrations. Christ, they even have them on their attack helicopters!
But in the beginning, when first generation seats used cannon shells instead of rockets to blast you out of the a/c, many, if not most, pilots were content taking their chances riding the thing down rather than having a guaranteed broken spine, or kneecaps or elbows ripped off on the cockpit coaming. Then those Brits at Martin Baker – having soundly proven their ineptitude at building aircraft – got sophisticated and began to work on the problems of arms and legs flailing around while going out of the airplane. On the F-4 seat (I forget that MB designation, but it was used in later F-8s and even some European F-104s) you were introduced to garters, one pair that went around either ankle, and another pair closer to the knees. As the seat started up the rails, the garters pulled your legs in tight to the seat. The Lockheed seat for the F-104 (and SR-71 as well) had a sort of similar system whereby you strapped “spurs” to the heels of your boots. They were actually steel covers that went over your bootheels, with a socket joint sticking out the back. When you strapped on the airplane, the first thing you did upon sitting down was to click the spurs into balls that attached to the ends of cables, and these cables served the same function as the garters on the F-4, that is, to pull the legs tightly against the seat until separation. You’ll also notice that on Century Series and other jets of that period, the arm rests are very deep, and come up high over the arms to protect them from being broken on the cockpit sill as you became a human cannonball.
Funny thing: If you had to eject, the seat cut all the connections – mask, comm cord, G-duit, etc., with little guillotines. But if you had to jump out on the ground due to fire, you had to disconnect this stuff manually on the older planes. I have an older friend who had his Texas ANG F-101B catch fire while the huffer was bringing up the RPMs. He managed to get his belt, harness and everything disconnected, except for one thing. He jumped over the side with his mask still connected to both sides of his helmet and the console of the airplane. So there he was, hanging off the side of a burning Voodoo by his oxygen hose. He lived to fly another day, and retired in the F-16, but I don’t think he ever lived that episode down.
There were guillotines for most of the connections, but other end of the leg garters - at least on the Martin-Bakers in the OV-1 Mohawk for sure - was bolted to the cockpit floor, the theory being that the upward movement of the seat would pull your lower legs into position and then when they were hard against the seat, the attaching pin at the floor would break at the higher load. I obviously put a lot of trust not only in the design, but the maintenance of that particular element of the seat…
Actually, sharkskin, there are no provisions or procedures for an underwater ejection. It’s one of those things that well, you might as well try - damned if you do, damned if you don’t in a ways.
As for the connections for comm, O2, and g-suit… the way the seat works today (at least in the T-45 – but I think it’s the same in the -18, as all the gear is the same) is comm/o2 are plugged into the seat itself, while the g-suit plugs into a panel in the left rear of the cockpit. In the event of an ejection, the upward force seperates the seats connections to the panel while the g-suit connection pulls out for a bit till it reaches its max extension then just snaps out of the plug. During the comm/o2 seperation, the seat automatically begins feeding the oxygen from the seat pan tank.
The leg garters run through a blue line that allows you to adjust their length for proper cockpit fit. On the blue line is a “break ring.” In the event of an ejection, the blue line is pulled tight as the seat moves up. Upon reaching the max force of the break ring, the line seperates from the cockpit floor. Older systems utilized sheer pins on the cockpit floor, but if the wrong pin were installed, it could take off the pilots legs. There’s also a small cable running from the floor to the seat that is attached to the ELT. When it sheers, it sets off the ELT in the seat pan.
The modern seats are really lightyears beyond the old ballistic seats of before. They all contain a lot of computing power and sample airspeed and altitude to determine which of the 5 modes it will go utilize.
this turned out to be a very informative thread!! thanks fellows. i found that this forum always goes above and beyong on pertinate info. later.
Yeah, I could listen to somebody who knows what they’re talking about on this subject for hours (and that’s certainly not me.) All I know is what I’ve read and anecdotal stories I’ve collected from pilots as an aviation writer, my favorites being those who ejected at well over Mach 1, and in the case of SR-71 pilots who survive ejections, some of those reports are still classified, so we don’t know who owns the record for highest-speed ejection, although I read and subsequently saw interviews with a young USAF major named Brian Udell who ejected from his F-15E, at night, over the Atlantic Ociean, at an estimated speed of something like 750-800 knots. He was really beaten to hell and back, as you might well understand, but Udell managed to scramble into his raft with compound fractures of his limbs, was located by the parajumpers in the dark (God, what a bunch of guys!) and lived to fly again, and so he does to this day as far as I know. And, though I’ve forgotten the details, a Navy pilot successfully ejected from an F-8 underwater, also getting severely injured in the deal, but he too flew again. I may be wrong, but I think what makes the latter story memorable is that he was the first to survive such an ejection.
And, I’m still fascinated by that Russian helicopter seat. First, the rotor blades are blown free of the airfraft laterally, and then a normal ejection sequence takes place. I’d guess you have to think fast on your feet to pull one of those off. The idea was rejected by Americans on our Apaches due, according to the army, to the added weight. My guess would be that the army’s not about to admit that we don’t have ejection seat technology sophisticated enough to pull it off.
who would want to eject from an apache?!! they only fly at tree top most of the time!!LOL. later.