4 ms·

They didn't invent any safety features, but the basic research done by Colonel John Stapp in the field of human g-force tolerance was fundamental to the design

• baddox 11y ago
  That's what I would have guessed: that there was at least some publicly funded research on the subject.
  • chiph 11y ago
    His research was intended to increase pilot survival for when they had to eject from a damaged plane. This was at the dawn of the jet age, and previously a pilot would just open the canopy and jump out. At jet speeds that wasn't possible, so ejection seats were built. The problem was: How fast should the seat accelerate to get him out of the plane? If it killed the pilot with excessive g's, it wasn't much of a safety system... Only later was his research used to design restraints, and also create the instrumented crash test dummies that are used in automobile crash tests. There are videos on Youtube of the early crash tests that were performed - they're rather comical to today's eyes. But they were serious business that was top secret - the car companies didn't want it to get out that their cars could crash and harm their customers (despite everyone knowing someone who was in an auto accident). Compare that to the publicity of the Ad Council's PSAs from the late 80's with crash test dummies Vince and Larry, with the tagline "You Could Learn A Lot From a Dummy". Big change in attitudes.