EJECTION FORCES
Ejection seats are serious business, with pilots describing an ejection as one of the most violent forces they’ve ever experienced. And when you consider the physics at play, that’s no surprise. Ejection seats propel pilots for between 30 and 100 metres at speeds beyond 250 miles per hour in a process that takes half a second – and when the planes are flying at speeds upwards of 750 miles per hour. These extreme speeds put huge pressure on the human body. Pilots typically experience up to 14G of force when they eject, which means that an 80-kilogram person will experience 1,632 kilograms of pressure on their body. Unsurprisingly, this can cause injuries – it’s not unheard of for pilots to break limbs because they’re thrown around so violently thanks to ejection seat g-forces.