F-111 Crew Escape Module Development Report ~ 1965 US Air Force - General Dynamics; F-111 Aardvark

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Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

An escape crew capsule is an escape capsule that allows one or more occupants of an aircraft or spacecraft to escape from the craft while it is subjected to extreme conditions, such as high speed or altitude. The occupant remains encapsulated and protected until such time as the external environment is suitable for direct exposure or the capsule reaches the ground...

Escape types

There are two ways to do this:

Ejecting individual crew capsules (one for each pilot/crew member) or "capsule ejection"

Ejecting the entire crew cabin, or "cabin ejection"

Some examples of U.S. military aircraft that have escape crew capsules are:

The Convair B-58 Hustler Mach 2 bomber and North American XB-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 bomber prototype had individual encapsulated seats. A cabin ejection for the XB-70 Valkyrie was also tested. The B-58's capsule had a control stick, a bottle of oxygen, and a drogue chute.

The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark used cabin ejection where both side-by-side seats were in a single 3000 lb (1360 kg) capsule.

Three of the four Rockwell B-1A prototypes also used cabin ejection. They had a single capsule "roughly the size of a mini-van"  for all four crew members.

Design and development

Pioneering developments in jettisonable-cockpit style escape capsule systems occurred in Nazi Germany...

The first American attempt to design such an escape capsule was for the U.S. Navy F4D Skyray. It was tested in 1951-52 but was never installed in the aircraft. The Bell X-2, designed for flight in excess of Mach 3, could jettison the cockpit, though the pilot would still have to jump out and descend under his own parachute. The first production aircraft with an escape crew capsule was the Mach 2 B-58 Hustler. It was developed by the Stanley Aviation Company for Convair. The capsule was pressurized, sheltered the pilot from the airstream, and contained food and survival supplies. During testing of the "Stanley Capsule" in 1962, a bear became the first living creature to survive a supersonic ejection.

The Mach 3 XB-70's two crew escape capsules did not work well the only time they were needed. On June 8, 1966, XB-70 airframe AV/2 was involved in a mid-air crash with an F-104 Starfighter. Maj. Carl Cross's seat was unable to retract backwards into the escape capsule due to high-g-forces as the plane spiraled downwards. He died in the crash. Maj. Al White's seat did retract but his elbow protruded from the capsule and blocked the closing clamshell doors. He struggled to free his trapped elbow. As soon as he freed the doors, he was ejected from the plane and descended by parachute as planned. Due to pain and confusion, White failed to trigger the manually activated airbag that would normally cushion the capsule upon landing. When the capsule hit the ground, White was subjected to an estimated 33 to 44 g (320 to 430 m/s²). He received serious injuries, but nevertheless survived.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the F-111 and B-1A introduced the method of jettisoning the entire cockpit as a means of crew escape. The crew remains strapped in the cabin, unencumbered by a parachute harness, while 27,000 lbf (120 kN) of thrust from rockets accelerates the module away from the rest of the aircraft. A single, large parachute retards the descent of the capsule. On landing, an airbag system cushions the landing. In the event of a water landing the airbag acts as a flotation device. Additional airbags could be activated to right the capsule in the event of a water landing (similar to the Apollo capsule), or an additional airbag could be selected for auxiliary flotation. With a movement of a pin at the base of the pilot's control stick, a bilge pump could be activated and extra air pumped into the airbags. For the F-111 escape capsule, following a successful landing on land or water, it could serve as a survival shelter for the crew until a rescue could be mounted...