Where’s my Ejector Seat?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Even if you spent your entire life on a plane, the chances are you’d never crash – commercial air travel is remarkably safe. But after hearing about a recent air tragedy, two brothers in Kampala wondered if commercial airplanes could ever have ejector seats – like fighter jets do - to give passengers a last option for escape.
We meet 98-year-old John Oliver “Jo” Lancaster, one of the first people ever to eject out of a plane, and discover the seemingly insurmountable barriers to fitting ejector seats into passenger jets. And we find out that an awful lot of work goes into making flying as safe as it is, as we visit an air accident investigation lab, practise an emergency exit from a passenger cabin and deal with a multiple engine failure …in a plane simulator.
But are any safety ideas as radical as ejector seats on the horizon? We assess a controversial design that would parachute the entire passenger cabin down to earth should the worst happen.
Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards
(Image: Person blasting out of a plane cockpit on an ejection seat Credit: Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Ltd)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to crowd science from the BBC World Service. You join us as we're going up a roller coaster. Oh God and the |
| 0:49.7 | reason that we're on a roller coaster is because of the following listener question. |
| 0:55.0 | Hello crowd science, I'm Okeria from Kampala, Uganda and I'm here with my 11-year old brother Timothy. |
| 1:05.6 | We want to know good commercial airplanes ever have ejector seats like fighter jets to do. |
| 1:11.6 | Thanks very much Timothy and... like fighter jets to do. |
| 1:18.0 | Thanks very much, Timothy and Okeria, for your excellent question about ejector seats in planes. Producer Kathy, I'm still not sure why we had to go through the roller coaster ordeal. |
| 1:22.0 | Well, surprisingly enough, it's quite extreme. why we had to go through the roller coaster ordeal? |
| 1:22.6 | Well, surprisingly enough, it's quite extreme to be ejected out of a plane, |
| 1:26.7 | so no one would let us do that. |
| 1:28.9 | So this was what we had to make do with |
| 1:30.7 | to kind of experience something of the forces that you would if you'd |
| 1:34.3 | been ejected out of a plane. Lee you're from the theme park and you know all about |
| 1:38.9 | that Python roller coaster we've just been on what kind of forces was I subjected to on that? |
| 1:44.0 | Yeah, you spend probably about 2.2 g's. |
| 1:46.3 | Kathy, how similar to an ejector seat is that? |
| 1:49.1 | Okay, it's not very similar at all. |
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