JohnB wrote:
Notice the pilot names on the side of the '104 (seen on her website link above)...it was flown by a "Who's who" of NACA/NASA test pilots.
A historic airframe. It's gratifying to see it's current owners commemorated that history.
I also noticed in the photos that it seems to have had an ejection seat fitted (of course it could have been there just for looks).
Anyone know if it was operational..and if it was retrofitted to a modern "zero-zero" type?
Sad news, condolences to those who knew her.
Regarding the ejection seat. I seriously doubt it had "hot seats" as there would be no need for it. If that racer went out of control, which would presumably be the reason for having the ejection seat in the first place, it would both tumble and roll. Any time the seat was not pointing straight up and was fired would almost always result in a fatal consequence.
In addition to that, all ejection seats have some kind of delay. According to the F-104 manual, the delay is about .3 seconds from the time the ejection seat handle is pulled until the seat actually fires. That amount of time is an eternity and would be impossible for a driver to have the super-human reaction to time the pull in coordination with the fuselage/seat pointing straight up. So, in effect, having an ejection seat in that car, in my opinion, would be a huge safety detriment and a fatal design characteristic. If you don't believe me, just look up the statistics on fatal ejection sequences from military jets where the pilot pulled the ejection handle when at or near ground level upon encountering some kind of rolling moment on the aircraft. As soon as a rolling moment is initiated at ground level, unless it is very slow, it is almost always better to stay with the aircraft and not eject. This same dictum applies to this racer as well.
There would be no reason to have an ejection seat in that car and the only time it would be useful would be if the car went off a cliff. I don't think that was a consideration in its speed runs. All of the previously mentioned is also contingent upon the version of the F-104 fuselage it was based off of. Remember, the early models of the aircraft had downward firing ejection seats. That also, would completely negate the reason to have an ejection seat in a ground based vehicle.
Even if you had enough reaction time to initiate ejection, chances are you would blackout or have so many rotational G's that you wouldn't be able to reach the handles. This is the reason why in many military jet aircraft, there are at least 2 or 3 different ways to initiate the ejection sequence. The designers assumed that either lateral or rotational G forces might be so severe as to inhibit the pilot from reaching a mere 4 to 6 inches to reach the handles. Physics is a bitch!
Remember, a car or any ground based vehicle that is out of control is completely different from an aircraft that is out of control or unlandable. Any car that is out of control will result in some type of spinning, tumbling and rolling about numerous axis's. Trying to time an ejection seat initiation off of a rapidly spinning vehicle would be pure suicide.
There are many reasons to NOT have an ejection seat in that aiframe/racer and I've only covered a few of those. To have a "hot" ejection seat in that racer would be very dangerous and actually make it much more unsafe than it would without it.
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