Bailing out at high speeds

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Kupsised

Back to the video...

In the test seat (the one on rails), what is that sheet they're pulling over their faces to trigger the seat? Was that ever included in any production seats does anyone know?

It could be just for the test rig I suppose, to eliminate the need for hat and goggles, but it seems a bit of a weird way of doing things if that's what it is. Surely a hat would be more practical.

Yes the sheet is present on any ejector seat with the overhead black and yellow handle, the idea behind it is to provide some protection to the face on egress, but overhed handles were shown to be difficult to reach in an aircraft which is seriously out of controll and inducing high 'g' loads to the pilot, I believe the overhead handles were present in aircraft like the F14 and F4 and as far as I know only Martin Baker seats had them.