4 ms·

He mentions that it was his "first ever parachute landing", but I can't imagine a SR-71 test pilot wouldn't have been trained in parachute landings. Any idea wh

• disillusioned 14y ago
  I imagine he's simply stating that this was his first-ever ejection-seat landing. It's not like they kick you out of a plane in a chair with a chute attached to it to train.
• liotier 14y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTvB5AE6HlE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTvB5AE6HlE describes "Aircraft Ejection & Parachute Training, ADC Life Support Training School, 1968, US Air Force" - so we can infer that since ejection and parachute training did happen in times contemporary to this account, and since test pilot is a high risk activity (especially back in the time when test pilots were actually pushing the flight envelope instead of just validating numerical models), the author did receive that training. But even for test pilots, ejection is a rare and traumatic event : finding oneself landing with no injury at all after a high speed ejection is very lucky - the design of the B-58, XB-70, F-111, Space Shuttle and some of the B-1A prototypes with an escape crew capsule is a consequence of that, though it seems that the weight and space tradeoff has fallen out of favor. Apart from speed, the mere impact of the charge that propels the seat is enough to cause spinal injury, even if the pilot managed to get his spine in perfectly upright position before ejecting.
  • shin_lao 14y ago
    Actually, I think today's procedure is that a pilot is retired after two ejections because of the induced trauma.