The Ejector Seat
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An ejector seat propels a human at speeds reaching 200 miles in less than a second. It can save a life... or snap a neck. John Nichol remembers pulling the ejector handle in his Tornado aircraft flying at over 500mph above the Iraqi desert, launching him back down to earth. It saved his life, but he wasn't able to recover in a hospital because he was captured and taken straight to an Iraqi prison. This makes him the most appropriate guest to take Dan through the history of the invention of the ejector seat, how it works and what it was like to eject. He delves into the incredible history of the Martin Baker ejector seat, still being made in London today and astonishing stories of the first ejection in combat, of American soldiers ejecting out of burning aircraft over Vietnam in the 80s and how they were all given a second chance at life by ejecting.
This episode was produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
His new book is called 'Eject! Eject!'
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I got married on a Saturday and I went |
| 0:06.2 | to work on the Monday. We had a kind of low-key affair and we didn't go on honeymoon for |
| 0:09.9 | a few months. In fact, we just co-opted a holiday of vacation we'd already planned and we |
| 0:14.6 | went as our honeymoon to Cambodia, to see Uncle Watts and the killing fields. It was super |
| 0:20.5 | romantic. Anyway, I digress. So I went to work on the Monday after my wedding and told |
| 0:24.8 | the team I'd got married the weekend. They all pat him on the back and then we went to |
| 0:28.9 | make a short film for a BBC TV show. That film was at a remarkable factory in London |
| 0:35.0 | of all places. Yes, they still make stuff in London. Inside the M25, it was the Martin |
| 0:41.8 | Baker factory. They invented and they still produce the world's best ejector seats. |
| 0:48.8 | So the first thing I did after getting married was going film in an ejector seat factory. |
| 0:56.6 | We then have to work at the joke too hard there. But I'm pleased to say it is now 13 years |
| 1:02.2 | later and my wife has never pulled that ejector seat handle. Thank goodness. Today I'm talking |
| 1:08.9 | all about ejector seats because I've got John Nichol back on the podcast. He's not |
| 1:12.0 | on the podcast before. He is truly a national treasure. He was an RAF officer. He was a navigator |
| 1:17.8 | in 15 Squadron and he was shot down during a low-level sortie attacking Iraqi positions |
| 1:24.2 | during the Iraq War, the war of Kuwaiti liberation in 1991. He was then captured by Iraqi forces. |
| 1:31.0 | He was taken to Abu Ghay Prison. He was tortured, beaten, before being released and has written |
| 1:35.8 | a series of best-selling books both about his own career and about history. He's been |
| 1:39.9 | on the podcast before talking about Spitfire, the Lancaster and other aircraft. He is one |
| 1:45.2 | of the most optimistic, the most brilliant human beings I know and I'm thrilled that |
| 1:49.4 | he's written a new book all about the history of the ejector seat, the experience of being |
| 1:53.3 | ejected, not him but by many of the people he's interviewed for the book. And as ever, |
... |
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