
An instructional film charting the development of the first successful pilot ejector seat by Martin Baker Aircraft Company Ltd just after the Second World War, provided to the Smith Institute by kind permission of the Imperial War Museum. To date the ejector seat has saved over 7000 lives. FULL SUMMARY courtesy of IWM: START 00:00:00 Reel 1. The film opens with live action shots showing a parachutist jumping from a Fairey Swordfish torpedo-bomber, a de Havilland Mosquito flying at extremely low level and a pilot seated in the fuselage of a Vickers Supermarine Spitfire being used by Martin Baker as an engine test-bed. With the assistance of a young Martin Baker scientist who serves throughout the film as presenter, the film explains how the rapid increase in the flying speeds of some RAF aircraft types, especially the Gloster Meteor jet, has made bailing out of stricken aircraft extremely difficult. 00:02:22 To meet the challenge, Martin Baker (based at Chalgrove airfield in Oxfordshire) has developed an ejector seat that allows a pilot to bail out at speeds of up to 500 miles per hour (mph) and survive. The film shows pilots taking part in prototype trials on a test rig at Chalgrove and explains how the cordite-fired apparatus works and the procedure which a pilot needs to follow in order to eject safely. A dummy is seen being ejected from a Gloster Meteor Mk II jet in mid-air.
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