Lead
On 1 April 2001, in the airspace over the South China Sea on the mainland, a pilot of the Continental Air Force was on a mission when he accidentally collided with a United States reconnaissance plane.
In the end, the pilot unfortunately died, and the body was not found in the end, and the news attracted the attention of the people of the whole country.
This incident has also aroused great attention from the State Council, the General Staff Headquarters, and the Central Military Commission, thus intensifying the work of the mainland air force's fighter planes.
For a time, all major media on the mainland reported on the pilot's death, and the mainland also held a grand memorial service for the pilot.
The name of the pilot who died was Wang Wei, who was only 33 years old, and nearly 20 years have passed since the incident, and Wang Wei will always be remembered by us.
In this era of rapid development, the mainland is also constantly carrying out a series of military reforms, and the ejection seat is the "protector" of the pilot's life, how can the design be so simple?
Why is the ejection seat able to rescue the pilot in time when the pilot is injured?
The history of the ejection seat.
When it comes to Wang Wei, there are two words inseparable from him, one is patriotism, this patriotic feeling makes him not afraid of difficulties, bravely struggles, and leaves a lot of achievements on the Continental Army aircraft, although he finally died heroically, but fortunately, he has served the country with his body, and has always been remembered by us.
As an Air Force pilot, Wang Wei was supposed to enjoy his old age after retirement, taking his family around to experience the joys of life.
But another key word in this pilot is the love of flying, and perhaps it was his love of flying that led him to collide with a US military reconnaissance plane while on a mission.
Perhaps at that time, he could not have imagined that this US plane would disregard international law and violate the relevant regulations of the South China Sea to conduct reconnaissance in mainland waters.
Even in the airspace of the South China Sea, we have not heeded our warnings, which has affected the sovereignty and security of the mainland, and should be punished.
In order to warn the US side, the mainland submitted a request to the US side to investigate the matter, but the US side said that there was no black box on the US military reconnaissance plane, and that all problems had nothing to do with the captain of the plane.
And the detector was destroyed by the United States, and there was no way to find out how it happened.
This also made the mainland angrily confirm the worst result, reaffirmed the mainland's sovereignty, gave a tough attitude, and finally United States was willing to compensate for the reconnaissance plane incident and apologize, but did not admit "fault."
It also brought the mainland to a close to the incident of the US military reconnaissance plane.
And this incident has also made us pay more attention to the safety of pilots, who often have some unexpected situations when performing missions.
For example, the failure of the airframe, etc., but the life and death of the pilot is often in the hands of the "catapult" of the fighter.
And what is the secret on the pilot's catapult?
Fighter jets are the pilot's home for life, and there are all kinds of furniture in the home, and one of these furniture is the ejection seat called the fighter jet.
In 1950, with the popularization of fighter jets, the air force also began to gradually "popularize" ejection seats, which are also called ejection life-saving devices.
It is composed of the seat shell, ejection slot, ejection device, parachute and fixture.
According to the different principles of its operation, there are generally two types: gunpowder type and gas type.
These seats are known as the pilot's "life-saving device".
Often accidents occur in flight, and the life and death of the pilot are at this moment.
Ejection seats have a long history, dating back to the 30s of the 20th century.
At that time, due to the technical limitations of the aircraft, test pilots often had to put their lives at risk.
For this reason, the Sweden Karl · Jago began to design and manufacture a simple ejection seat during the 30s of the 20th century, but it was not widely used.
With the outbreak of World War II, many advanced technologies have emerged one after another, the flight speed and altitude of fighter jets have been increasing, and unfortunately, there have been more and more accidents caused by aircraft failures.
In order to save the lives of test pilots, with the joint efforts of many countries, the ejection seat began to be fully popularized and developed in the late stage of World War II.
From the perspective of the research and development of ejection devices, United States is the world leader in ejection seat technology, while Continental's ejection seat technology started late.
However, after decades of development, Continental has also made great progress in the research of ejection seat technology.
How the ejection seat works.
The working principle of an ejection seat is relatively simple and mainly consists of the following steps.
First, the seat belt is automatically tightened after the pilot enters the seat, ensuring that the pilot does not detach from the seat during the ejection process.
This step is mainly achieved by an electric mechanism, and after the pilot sits down, the seat belt automatically senses the pilot's weight and begins to tighten.
The ejection seat then ejects the pilot from the plane with acceleration through the ejection device.
The working principle of the ejection device is mainly to use gunpowder or nitrogen for pressurization, when the pilot presses the ejection button, the gunpowder or nitrogen in the device will expand rapidly, generating a large amount of gas pressure, and the ejection seat will be quickly pushed out of the aircraft.
When in the air, the pilot immediately opens the parachute.
The parachute has a foldable design, and when the pilot pulls the line, the parachute in the bag deploys quickly and provides enough resistance to slow down the landing.
Because the plane flies very fast in the air, the pilot, after ejection, if he does not pull the parachute in time, will die because of the fleeting high altitude.
So, the parachute deploys very quickly, and when the pilot ejects out of the plane, the parachute opens immediately.
To ensure the safety of the pilot, the ejection seat is also equipped with an oxygen supply system.
When the pilot ejects out, because the aircraft is already in a high-altitude state, the air pressure is low and the oxygen is thin, the pilot may feel suffocated in an instant, so the oxygen supply system will immediately provide sufficient oxygen.
The working principle of an ejection seat is very complex, and there are many technical aspects involved.
The development of ejection seats needs to take into account many factors such as the pilot's weight, the performance of the aircraft, and the meteorological conditions.
In order to ensure the safety and reliability of ejection seats, a lot of trials and research work has been carried out in many countries.
For example, the "X-15" test aircraft in United States is equipped with an advanced ejection seat, which uses a number of advanced technologies, such as a rocket-powered ejection system and an automatic parachute deployment system.
The application of these technologies has greatly improved the performance and reliability of the ejection seat, providing a higher guarantee for the safety of the pilot.
Although ejection seats can help pilots escape from fighter jets in time when they are in danger, not all situations apply.
For example, when the aircraft is at a lower altitude or flying at a slower speed, the ejection seat may cause the pilot to collide with the aircraft and even cause more damage.
Therefore, pilots need to decisively judge when to eject when they encounter danger, which puts forward higher requirements for their reaction ability and decision-making ability.
Why can't ejection seats be installed on passenger planes?
The use of ejection seats provides vital protection for pilots in the face of danger, but one question gradually comes to mind: "Can ejection seats be added to civil airliners?"
Many people even think that if airliners have ejection seats, it will be safer to fly in the future.
But is that really the case?
Why are there no ejection seats installed on civil airliners today?
One pilot said: "Our pilot's life was saved by ejecting the seat."
If ejection seats are installed on civil airliners, it will undoubtedly increase huge economic expenditures.
One will cost as much as 2.5 million yuan at a "sky-high price", and if you want to add economy class, it will have to double the price several times.
And if the cabin needs to be rebuilt, it will not only cost a lot of manpower and material resources, but also take several years to modify the fuselage.
Secondly, the weight of the ejection seat is also an issue.
After the pilot ejects the ejection seat, the seat becomes very heavy, and it will be a big problem to remove it.
If there are thirty or forty ejection seats in the cabin, then the ejection seats alone will take up more than one-third of the space.
And in order to adapt to the size of the pilot, it is necessary to design the ejection hatch and other equipment.
According to United States ICAO standards, 3 cubic meters of space in the cabin of the aircraft is required for the evacuation of passengers in an emergency.
If all the cabins were equipped with ejection seats, the space would be squeezed out, and it would not be possible to pass the standard.
The ejection seat does not provide the pilot with enough oxygen equipment, and if the pilot ejects, the remaining aircraft becomes dangerous because the plane is likely to crash.
Therefore, this needs to be improved on the passenger aircraft to ensure that the pilot can be provided with sufficient oxygen supply.
At the same time, there is another problem that makes it impossible to install ejection seats on the aircraft, and that is a safety hazard.
There are several ejection seats on an airplane, and if the ejection seat fails, it can cause multiple passengers to eject at the same time and cause injury.
There is a saying that if an ejection device is installed on a passenger plane, it is equivalent to equipping each passenger with a catapult device.
However, in this way, due to the lack of space, the evacuation of the cabin will be affected, and the safety of the cabin will be affected.
Therefore, based on these factors, it is not possible to install ejection seats on passenger aircraft.
epilogue
In a series of flight accidents, the catapult or ejection seat successfully saved the pilot's life, which also proves the importance of the ejection seat.
However, as the tasks of the Air Force become heavier and heavier, the mainland is also constantly innovating in technology.
Moreover, countries around the world are also carrying out technological innovation in ejection seats to improve the safety of ejection seats and provide greater help to pilots.
To date, Continental has also developed a new generation of ejection seats, which have a significantly higher safety factor than the previous one.
Nowadays, the mainland has also promoted advanced ejection seat technology to passenger aircraft, but it has not been used in civil airliners, so this aspect still needs to be studied.
But it has to be said that the ejection seat is the "protector" of the pilot's life, and their lives are in the hands of this "protector".