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Comment by ctippett | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if it was a Martin-Baker ejection seat, but this pilot's account of surviving an ejection from 78,000 ft at Mach 3.18 (3926,664 km/h!) in a SR-71 Blackbird is pretty wild.

http://www.chuckyeager.org/news/sr-71-disintegrated-pilot-fr...

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Thanks for the link, that was a great read! What a story.

Minor nit pick, the pilot did not in fact eject. He was literally thrown out of the disintegrating aircraft, ripping his shoulder and waist harnesses in the process. Insane stuff, especially that he survived.

My dad used to know a marine fighter pilot who survived an ejection at mach 1.2. Each leg broke in four places and the soles of feet were pressed flat against his chest hard enough to break many of his ribs. But the seat worked and was certainly responsible for saving his life.

I'm having a hard time imagining how the bottom of his feet were pressed against his chest?!

Were his knees bent the wrong way?

I'm guessing that has to do with his legs being broken in four places

A quick search suggests the SR-71 had Lockheed-designed seats.

You're right. I found this link[1]that describes (in great detail) the seat used in the SR-71.

As an aside, the website (ejectionseat.com) is a trip itself.

[1] https://www.ejectionsite.com/sr1seat.htm

Top Gun Maverick movie starts with reenactment of that scene. Totally worth watching.

Sad part of the story is that the other pilot of the original Blackbird incident didn't survive. The surviving pilot saw his companion's parachute and was thus (thinking that he survived) motivated to fight for his own life.

"Standby for Ejection!" - https://youtu.be/5QF2F51adjA

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