Weren’t some of the facial injuries attributed to the captors of captured US pilots during the Gulf war due to their ejection?
robby
June 20, 2010, 3:15am
22
Not sure, but Chuck Yeager famously ejected from a YF-104 in 1963, and was pretty severely burned during the ejection.
Details here:
December 10, 1963 - 'To err is human, to forgive is divine; neither of which is Air Force policy.' -Unknown... The Lockheed NF-104 aerospace trainer was a modified F-104A airplane, incorporating a liquid fuel rocket engine in addition to the...
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/NF104-YeagerInterview.htm
In his own words:
…The seat hit me in the face piece of my pressure suit. And what hit me was the butt end of the rocket on the seat, which still had glowing propellant burning. When this happened, and you are feeding 100 percent oxygen. It’s like a blow torch. …I got burned pretty bad on my neck and shoulder and it was very difficult to breathe.
One of the guys who ejected with facial injuries in the Gulf War said the drill was to put your head down in your lap, pull the ejection handle and count to ten. He counted to ten three times, looked up and the seat fired.
