Rocket Bail-Out

One serious problem in designing military aircraft is providing some means for the pilot to escape. Every year the problem becomes more difficult. Even at present speeds (600-plus m.p.h.) and altitudes (50,000-plus ft.), a simple parachute is no good. The pilot must be shot from his cockpit to clear the tail. He is buffeted by the air, and during his long fall before the chute can be opened (automatically at 18,000 ft.), he needs protection against both cold and lack of oxygen.

The present trend is to put the pilot in a streamlined, detachable capsule to ease his return to earth, but even this system will have its dangers at future speeds and altitudes. In a report of the Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, Dr. Fritz Haber considers the problem of escape from aircraft flying at 300,000 ft. (57 miles).

Hot Air. At this height, the airplane (presumably rocket-propelled) must fly at something like Mach 10 (more than 7,000 m.p.h.) to get enough lift out of the thin air. When the pilot bails out, however, the thinness of the air comes to his rescue: he does not feel so much shock as he would when leaving a present-day airplane at comparatively low altitude.

Instead of shock, he gets heat. Air hitting a body moving at Mach 10 raises its surface temperature by 7,500DEGF. This is not so bad as it looks at first glance; there is so little air that not much heat is transferred to the speeding body. The pilot or his capsule, nevertheless, needs protection against heat damage.

As the long fall toward earth proceeds, another enemy menaces the falling man.

At first he slows down gradually because the thin air has little grip on him, but as soon as he reaches the denser air below 200,000 ft., he runs into the painful gravity increase caused by deceleration. This may rise to the dangerous figure of 7 Gs. It may rise even higher if the pilot's capsule has so little air resistance that it gains considerable speed from the pull of the earth before it slams against dense air.

Pooled Blood. Opening a full-sized parachute at this point is out of the question; it would probably be torn to shreds, and, even if successful, it would keep the pilot in the air too long. Dr. Haber suggests that the pilot should have air brakes, a small parachute, or some other means of limiting his falling speed. It may be dangerous, however, to use any attachment that prevents tumbling. The tumbling motion is unpleasant, but it keeps the pilot's blood from getting "pooled" in his head or feet by one-directional Gs. But he should not spin too fast, or centrifugal force will pool his blood, too.

When the pilot has slowed to about Mach 1 below 100,000 ft., he needs protection not from heat but from cold. He also needs oxygen, and when his low-altitude parachute has opened and he has settled safely to earth, he may need a compass, map, food and other survival supplies. He will not be easy to find: his initial speed will have carried him 250 miles horizontally from the point where he left his airplane.

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