Science: The Flying Seat

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Airmen and scientists long ago conquered the problem of flight at supersonic speeds, but they are still wrestling with the jet-age problem of bailing out. Both the Navy and Air Force have been betting that as speeds rise, the pilot who bails out will have to be protected from the killing blast of the airstream by a detachable, parachute-fitted cockpit that can be blasted away from the crippled aircraft. But no aircraft now being made is designed to take a capsule cockpit.

Taking a simpler approach to the problem, the Air Force and Lockheed Aircraft last week announced solid progress on a new "flying seat." Using the seat, a pilot in trouble pulls a D-shaped ring between his feet. In a second his head, arms and legs are lashed into place and he is catapulted downward out of the plane. Once free of the cockpit, the seat projects an 8 in. by 5 in. steel plate on a 4-ft. boom in front of the pilot, shielding him from the force of the airstream much as an auto-hood deflector diverts bugs from a windshield. Lieut. Colonel John Paul Stapp. the space surgeon, says that this gimmick puts

Lockheed's seat far ahead of anything under test. Vertical fins built into the seat and stubby 1-ft. wings that snap into place after the ejection guide the seat on a steady, tumble-free path until its parachute opens automatically below 15,000 ft. and a speed of 350 m.p.h. The seat then falls free.

No human has as yet tried the new seat, but Lockheed is so encouraged by fullscale, 1,000-m.p.h. trials at the Air Force's research track on Hurricane Mesa, Utah that the device will go into production before its test cycle is complete, probably by midyear. Lockheed's flying seat has many advantages over the capsule cockpit: it is light, simple, cheap and can fit many aircraft now in service.

In addition, Lockheed expects its seat to work well during dangerous low-altitude emergencies when the capsule would not have time or space to work. "With our D seat," says C. L. ("Kelly") Johnson, Lockheed's vice president for engineering and research, "and at today's take-off and landing speeds, it becomes possible to eject pilots safely at near-zero altitudes—as low as 400 ft. at 850 m.p.h. This thing has the same wing-loading as an airplane. Crude as it looks, it's a very sound aerodynamic device."