Interesting escape concepts.

Probably doesn't belong here, but then again it has not yet been used on a mission, so it's still a project. Check out the "full envelope" escape system test for Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket's crew capsule. 70,000 lb of thrust for two seconds!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l8aQ3hQyVs

https://www.blueorigin.com/technology
 
Please Moderator,

this topic belongs to Aerospace Section,no unbuilt Projects here.
 
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Actually, wouldn't it still be a project until it's used operationally? We regularly include prototypes that have been built in our discussions.
 
Nice reefing ropes on those chutes.

Watching those chutes deflate - after landing - makes me think that they still have a substantial weight attached to the apex. ..... probably deployment staging device ....
Auto-deflate reduces the risk of dragging after landing.
 
AERCAB ejection system paper.
 

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A better image of the earlier shown RF-101 escape concept:

5859443860_53a312077b_o.jpg
 
hesham said:
hesham said:
Hi,

There was anther old escape concept from the 1970s,the Fairchild Model-616
AERCAB aircrew escape rescue capability for combat aircraft,the purpose of
AERCAB was to permit recovery of aircrew who eject from their aircraft over
enemy territory and to provide capability to fly the ejection seat up to 43nm
(50 miles;80 km)at up to 100 knots (115mph;185 km/h) prior to vertical descent
by personal parachute.



A real picture to a test version of the Fairchild-Hiller
Model-616 AERCAB.

From JAWA 1973.
 

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AeroFranz great retrofind from the other topic
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/801787.pdf
 
Bubba said:
Please have you informations about this Shuttle Mk II concept? It seems to have an aerodynamic reentry escape capsule.

———————————————————————————

When (September 28, 1986) Space Shuttle Mark I “Challenger” exploded shortly after lift-off, NASA started developing a new escape system. Shuttle crews wore special harnesses and slid outboard along a curved pole. Once past the end of the pole, they would deploy conventional back type Pilot Emergency Parachutes. That system would only work when stable, power off and within the earth’s atmosphere.
I was asked to sew prototype harnesses. I read the drawings, but we never got the “go ahead” for sewing prototypes.
 
Tailspin Turtle said:
Yankee (aka Stanley) Extraction Seat Demo (production retrofit to some A-1 Skyraiders and to be used in the Rotor Systems Research Aircraft)
——————————————————————————————————

Back in 1992, I started rigging for Butler Parachutes just as a bewildering array of Cold War-surplus airplanes arrived in the USA from: China, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, etc. The influx was so rapid that the FAA imposed a temporary import embargo until they could process all the applications already filed!
Many of them arrived with faded and frayed military parachutes 30 years old! Since hardly any of their pilot emergency parachutes were certified in the USA - and even fewer came with English-language manuals - Butler developed specialized harnesses and containers to fit into cramped cockpits in: Draken, Gemsbok, Gnat, Impala, Jet Cruiser, Nanjing, Pond Racer, RV KITPLANES, Scaled Composites, Yak, etc. plus newly-designed himebuilts and KITPLANES, a few NASA projects plus all the usual antiques, sailplanes and WW 2-surplus airplanes. We even had a couple contracts with the United States Coast Guard. It was an exciting time to be a parachute rigger!

Around 1995, Zvezda offered their new SKS-94 rocket extractor system for the latest Sukhoi and Yak aerobatic airplanes. The only jet installation was in the Pampa light jet trainer. I never heard of any RES sold in the USA. I suspect that the FAA banned Zvezda RES at the same time that they banned all explosive charges from ejection seats owned by civilians.

Circa 1998, I was repacking Softie pilot emergency parachutes for an RV KITPLANES owner/pilot. He mentioned that he had flown Douglas AD-1 Skyraiders during the Vietnam War. On two occasions, he tried to eject, but both times his Stanley Yankee Rocket Extractor System failed to fire! After the war, he enjoyed a lengthy career flying cargo with Flying Tiger Lines. The pilot’s name was Drury and he wrote a book (My Secret War) about his military flying adventures.

Trivia: when Pilatus struggled to refine spin characteristics on their PC-2 trainer, they borrowed a Stanley RES.
 
AWST article on an inflatable escape system for space station use.
 

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https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/utas-puts-aces-5-high-with-hurricane-mesa-ejection-s-453197/
 
Good Day All -

I have become the happy and grateful caretaker of a significant number of 4x5 negatives of models that were tested in the LTV/Vought Low Speed Wing Tunnel (LSWT) along with a number of the test reports. As I sort thru the whole lot (guessing 4,000+ negatives), there is plenty there to share as they get scanned and identified.

Here's a wind tunnel test of the F8U escape capsule - stablizing fin configuration is noteworthy...

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 

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From Flying 1947-11.
 

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Some excellent info here, I've always been interested in ejection systems having once met Sir James Martin and have worked on seats for a long time - at one point maintaining MB Mk 2s and 10s at the same time; there were other marks of seat involved, including a Mk1C!

Somewhere along the line I read an article about the HP Victor was intended to have an escape pod in that the entire cockpit would be jettisoned.

The story went that there was to be a "proof of concept" demonstration using a modified Horsa glider with a mock-up Victor front end. Safe separation was to be achieved by a long cable loom between the capsule and fuselage unwinding and then acting as a static line to fire various rocket motors. Come the day of the demonstration a engineer entered the compartment between the two sections saw the "untidy" hanging slack cable loom and being a good engineer dutifully secured the excess cable into a tight bundle. The trial then went ahead but without the extended loom giving any separation the rockets fired too soon and blew the whole thing to bits and the escape capsule idea was scrapped.

I admit that I saw this a long time ago and have been unable to find the pictures I'm convinced I saw. Howerver, in the late 1940s and early 50s the British Aircraft Industry had a lot of experimental projects going on and this seems entirely possible.

Given the passage of time I could be recalling a speculative article in a magazine. Has anyone else come across this story?
 
A similar story appears in Postwar Military Aircaft: 6 - Handley Page Victor by Andrew Brookes, Ian Allan 1988. Brookes writes a bit more:
The idea was that, in a serious emergency, the first pilot would press a button whereby the control linkages would sever and four explosive bolts would push the cabin capsule (including scanner bay) clear. Once free of the pitching fuselage, four hinged fins would stabilise the tumbling nose before a large parachute came out from behind to lower the capsule, with the crew still strapped in their 25g seats, gently to earth. The cabin relied on the collapse of the nose structure to absorb the shock of the impact. It was a good way of getting the whole crew out quickly without hitting the recently added tail fin, but like many advanced ideas it was too complicated for the technology of the day. The Ministry also blew hot and cold as to whether it really wanted the thing anyway because of the development costs and time involved, but during the final phase of official enthusiasm in 1950 Handley Page acquired a quarter scale model of the nose from a sub-contractor and fitted it to the front of a 32ft span ML target glider. The stabilising fins and parachute were to be actuated automatically via 30ft of electric cable once the nose cleared the glider, but unfortunately the night before the trial a tidy-minded electrician found all this looped cable lying around and he shortened it. Consequently when the nose was fired off the following day, the cable snapped straight away; there being no power to operate the fins and parachute, the whole thing dropped like a stone.
An Avro Lincoln test vehicle was then sent to replace the glider but by then the Ministry had suffered an acute loss of interest, partially as a result of pressure from Avro which was getting nowhere with a jettisonable nose for their delta. The whole concept was therefore abandoned, leaving the HP80 nose to be fitted permanently to the fuselage by four large bolts where the explosive attachments were to have gone. All that remained of the idea was the plenum chamber, a partially pressurised compartment compartment just behind the cockpit where the parachute was to have been stowed. It was subsequently lengthened by 42in to house most of the electrical connections to the cabin but in the beginning it was known at Radlett as 'Pilch's Attic' after the small humorous Cockney who was thin enough to squeeze inside and work there.
 
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Slightly offtopic - the "32ft span ML target glider" - possibly refers to this:
The image shows two Towed Target Gliders, which were produced by a British company called International Model Aircraft (IMA) which was founded in 1931 by its parent company Triang. (British readers of mature age will remember Triang Toys, no doubt, which was well known for its brightly coloured toy cars and trains). IMA, on the other hand, were better known as the manufacturers of FROG (Flies Right Off the Ground) model aircraft. What appears to be a Holden FE in the background of the photo would date it as early as 1956.

The Towed Target Glider was designed to fulfil a joint RAF/RN requirement for a realistic full size target for air-to-air and ground-to-air gunnery training. The glider was 26 feet long with a 32 feet wingspan and a fixed tricycle undercarriage with much of the structure being made from light gauge steel sheet. The glider was rigged so that the target operator in the towing aircraft could impart a nose-up attitude for take-off and a nose-down attitude for landing. Another mechanism would release the tow cable and turn the nosewheel so that the glider would vacate the runway after landing.

Production began circa 1942 and continued until after the war. In February 1944 the company claimed to be producing an average of 39 sets of wings per week. In all 3,500 were built. Gliders built during the war featured wings of partial wooden construction whereas the post-war version, known as the Mark 2, had metal wings of the same 32 foot span.

A subsequent version with reduced wingspan was generally known as the “25 ft Target Glider”. The glider is known to have been towed by Miles Martinet, Beaufighter Mk 10 and Meteor Mk 7 target tugs. It is believed that these gliders remained in general service until approximately 1955.
 

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A similar story appears in Postwar Military Aircaft: 6 - Handley Page Victor by Andrew Brookes, Ian Allan 1988. Brookes writes a bit more:
The idea was that, in a serious emergency, the first pilot would press a button whereby the control linkages would sever and four explosive bolts would push the cabin capsule (including scanner bay) clear. Once free of the pitching fuselage, four hinged fins would stabilise the tumbling nose before a large parachute came out from behind to lower the capsule, with the crew still strapped in their 25g seats, gently to earth. The cabin relied on the collapse of the nose structure to absorb the shock of the impact. It was a good way of getting the whole crew out quickly without hitting the recently added tail fin, but like many advanced ideas it was too complicated for the technology of the day. The Ministry also blew hot and cold as to whether it really wanted the thing anyway because of the development costs and time involved, but during the final phase of official enthusiasm in 1950 Handley Page acquired a quarter scale model of the nose from a sub-contractor and fitted it to the front of a 32ft span ML target glider. The stabilising fins and parachute were to be actuated automatically via 30ft of electric cable once the nose cleared the glider, but unfortunately the night before the trial a tidy-minded electrician found all this looped cable lying around and he shortened it. Consequently when the nose was fired off the following day, the cable snapped straight away; there being no power to operate the fins and parachute, the whole thing dropped like a stone.
An Avro Lincoln test vehicle was then sent to replace the glider but by then the Ministry had suffered an acute loss of interest, partially as a result of pressure from Avro which was getting nowhere with a jettisonable nose for their delta. The whole concept was therefore abandoned, leaving the HP80 nose to be fitted permanently to the fuselage by four large bolts where the explosive attachments were to have gone. All that remained of the idea was the plenum chamber, a partially pressurised compartment compartment just behind the cockpit where the parachute was to have been stowed. It was subsequently lengthened by 42in to house most of the electrical connections to the cabin but in the beginning it was known at Radlett as 'Pilch's Attic' after the small humorous Cockney who was thin enough to squeeze inside and work there.
Hi Arjen, thanks for the insight on the HP proposal, I knew I had seen it sometime in the past. Thanks for confirming that at least some of my brain cells are still connected.
 
hesham said:
Hi,
from Letectvi magazine,here is an escape concept,but I don't know if it was
a real or just imagine from the author.
I forget who generated it (I've got another picture promoting it somewhere) but I don't think it got to the hardware stage.
Update: D'Oh! I already posted this earlier in this thread. It was a Douglas concept.
View: https://flic.kr/p/23Lvi2N

View: https://flic.kr/p/23LvhX9

View: https://flic.kr/p/23LvhQq

Breakaway Cockpit Capsule
A breakaway cockpit unit, designed to serve as a parachute-borne emergency escape vehicle for pilots of high-altitude, supersonic planes, has been developed by the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, after almost two years of intensive research. The pod-shaped unit, known as “ejection cockpit capsule”, is completely enclosed and is pressurized and insulated. Riding in it, a pilot will be safely dropped from very high altitudes where the rarified atmosphere and extreme cold quickly destroy life. The cockpit capsule is blown from the plane when the pilot pulls a release lever. Three stabilizing tail fins prevent the capsule from tumbling through the air, and a large parachute drops it gently to the Earth. In addition, the cockpit unit floats in water and will serve as a boat for pilots forced down at sea. In case of crash landings at sea, the capsule is unhooked and floats away from the sinking aircraft. The capsule also will carry survival gear, emergency rations, and radio equipment to direct rescue operations. The capsule will be flight tested at the Naval Ordnance Test, Inyokern, California. Shown are steps 1 to 2. Photograph released February 23, 1950. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (2016/06/14).
 
Dear Fighting Irish,
That reference to testing at Inyokern, California really refers to the Navy Weapons Testing Ranges at NAS China Lake. China Lake is in the Mojave high desert an hour or so North of the USAF testing facilities at Edwards Air Force Base.
You might also hear of USN testing near Ridgecrest, which is a suburb of Inyokern and China Lake.
While skydiving at California City, I often met parachute riggers and test jumpers from both the USAF and USN.
 
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Gotha P.54 Rammer (Speculative drawings)


On October 10, 1944, the company Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG proposed to the RLM building a sophisticated rocket rammer designed by Dipl. Ing. Walter Wundes. Unlike other projects of ramming aircraft already rejected by the Technisches Amt, the new rammer was endowed with several anti-shock devices to improve the chances of survival of the pilot after the impact. Two versions are known.

The Gotha P.54 Entwurf I was designed to destroy the tail surfaces of a bomber, attacking from behind to minimize the impact speed. It was towed to the combat zone by a Focke Wulf Fw 190; the mother plane located after the formation of bombers to carry out the launch and the rammer used a Schmidding 109-553 rocket engine to reach the last aircraft of the most delayed 'box' hitting the tail surfaces of one of them at an estimated speed between 160 to 200 kph.


The Luftwaffe Aviation Medicine Branch had established that a pilot could endure up to 20 g for 0.1 seconds, but only when using a vertical launched ejector seat. It was estimated that the impact of 'Entwurf I' against the bomber would last 0.04 seconds and Gotha designers devised a seat that rotated 90 degrees backward at the time of impact, aligning the spine of the pilot with the fuselage axis. Additionally, the seat base was equipped with a powerful sprung shock-absorbing device.

The entire system was mechanically activated by a trigger located to the extreme nose of the rammer. The pilot stayed in an armoured artillery shell shaped capsule, attached to the main wing spar by another shock-absorbing device. After impact, the armoured cockpit was detached from the airframe by the action of various explosive bolts and freely fell to 9,000 ft. The pilot then left its protection completing the descent with his own parachute.

The variant Entwurf II was designed to impact laterally against the fuselage of a bomber in the area between the bomb bay and tailplane, in an angle close to 90 degrees, in order to cut the control wires. This type of ramming attack was considered difficult due to the relative speeds of both aircraft and possible evading manoeuvres of the bomber. The special configuration of Entwurf II allowed two types of attack: If the impact was produced against the fuselage of circular section of a B-17, the lower section of the rammer crushed against the bomber, while the pilot capsule was released and 'jumped' over (the bomber) to freely fall while the bomber exploded.

If the target was a B-24, which fuselage was deeper and with flat sides, it was planned that the armoured capsule could get through it almost without any resistance. A small explosive charge with impact fuse was installed in the extreme nose to that purpose. It fractured the light alloy structure of the bomber, thus allowing the penetration by the capsule that had already detached from the rest of the airframe with the impact. It was estimated that thanks to the gained momentum before the impact, the capsule would completely go through the B-24 with a minimal loss of speed, while the rest of the rammer completed the destruction.

The 'blunt nosed' configuration of the lower element seems to suggest that contained a warhead. According to this hypothesis, Entwurf II would have a dual use as rammer and as Pulkzerstörer. If the attacked B-24 was in the centre of the 'box', triggering the explosion of their bombs could achieve a Herausschuss effect, breaking the cohesion of the box, damaging other bombers and exposing them to the action of the conventional German fighters during the return flight to their bases.
 

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Gotha P.55 (Speculative drawings)


It was a twin-boom expendable glider project, with a ballooned fuselage specially designed to contain a heavy load of explosives.

The anti-armour version of the P.55 could carry a warhead SHL 3500 Schwere Hohlladung (hollow charge) capable of destroying a capital ship. The SHL 3500, with 2 m of diameter and 3,500 kg weight, was also used by the Mistel composite-bombers. It contained 1,700 kg of explosive Füllung 95 activated by an extensible probe of 1.8 m called Elephantenrüssel (Elephant's trunk) with four impact fuses at its end.

The Pulkzerstörer version of the P.55 could carry up to 3,000 kg of HE possibly of the RDX type. The glider had to be towed by a He 177 bomber to the vicinity of the bomber stream and released between 1,000 and 1,500 m over the flight level of the enemy planes. The pilot drove the P.55 inward of a 'box' and triggered the cockpit ejection mechanism consisting of two Schmidding 109-543 solid fuel rockets 150 kp thrust each.

The capsule had a design based on the Personenabwurfgerät system developed by DFS for the release of agents into enemy territory. It was stabilized and slowed by a parachute located behind the pilot and could float for later recovery by a U-boat or seaplane. The warhead could be detonated by a radio signal from the He 177 mother plane by a Marder radio-fuse developed by the Orlich Institut for the air-to-air bombs Henschel Hs 293H. The explosion at a defined altitude could also be programmed by a barometric fuse type Baro-1 or an acoustic trigger Stimmgabel that was activated when the sound of the engines of the bombers reached certain intensity.
 

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Celebrating Aviation with Mike Machat said:
AIRCRAFT EJECTION PODS & CAPSULES - High-performance escape systems of the 1950s and 1960s
An in-depth look at aircraft emergency escape devices used for pilot survivability as jet and rocket-powered aircraft flew faster than Mach 2. Video covers nose cones, ejectable crew compartments, and pilot ejection capsules, showing which ones worked and which ones didn't!
Video:
View: https://youtu.be/Cn_Ulu6H4y4

Code:
https://youtu.be/Cn_Ulu6H4y4
 
On a bit of a tangent:

A 1963 USAF report describes work on an emergency “space suit.” It’s meant to be something that can be worn as a normal outfit and then zipped up at a moments notice in the event of a pressure drop. This includes a flexible helmet with a flexible “faceplate.” the end result looks like something out of a bad 1970’s pre-Star Wars disco-era sci-fi flick. Note, though that the actual test item is substantially less Giant Polyester Leisure Suit Lapels and more Cheap Plastic Poncho.
 
hesham said:
Hi,

There was anther old escape concept from the 1970s,the Fairchild Model-616
AERCAB aircrew escape rescue capability for combat aircraft,the purpose of
AERCAB was to permit recovery of aircrew who eject from their aircraft over
enemy territory and to provide capability to fly the ejection seat up to 43nm
(50 miles;80 km)at up to 100 knots (115mph;185 km/h) prior to vertical descent
by personal parachute.



A real picture to a test version of the Fairchild-Hiller
Model-616 AERCAB.

From Aviation magazine 1972.
 

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Now the T-tails of large airplane can have the same wingspan of a Beechcraft.

What if the top of the T-tail was in fact a true airplane on its own? Slide down the tail to a 727 style entrance. Cockpit atop the t-tail only. No one in the main fuselage. Enough range to get by the Viet Cong.
 
Now the T-tails of large airplane can have the same wingspan of a Beechcraft.

What if the top of the T-tail was in fact a true airplane on its own? Slide down the tail to a 727 style entrance. Cockpit atop the t-tail only. No one in the main fuselage. Enough range to get by the Viet Cong.

Bing!
Some one using his/her imagination to dream up a truly innovative escape concept.
 
Now the T-tails of large airplane can have the same wingspan of a Beechcraft.

What if the top of the T-tail was in fact a true airplane on its own? Slide down the tail to a 727 style entrance. Cockpit atop the t-tail only. No one in the main fuselage. Enough range to get by the Viet Cong.

Bing!
Some one using his/her imagination to dream up a truly innovative escape concept.
It might wind up as dumb as my other ideas. It might be a bit heavy…glider maybe? My last name is Wright…no relation. The separatists’ craft from Star Wars prequels and rebel ships had some cockpit or other up top. If supported by double telescoping tail fins that might save a pilots back from being broken in heavy landings…
 
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Supersonic and Transonic Aircraft Problems By LT. COL CARL E. REICHERT.( Aircraft Laboratory, Air Material Command, A.A.F).Prosented at the Annual Convention of the American Rocket Society, New York, December 6. 1946 (Journal of the American Rocket Society n° 69 march 1947.Page 24-33 )
 

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I might put that in survival-extrication. A cockpit equipped T tail could still have an ejection seat-true escape.
 
Did the 'Inflatoplane' belong in this area ?
The Goodyear Inflatoplane prototypes pre-date this program because they were tested between 1955 and 1962, so pre-dating these programs.
Goodyear's proposal involved dropping/parachuting Inflatoplane kits to downed airmen. Airmen would then assemble and inflate their Inflatoplanes and fly them to friendly terrain.
The fancier autogyro, etc. equipped ejection seats were to allow airmen in distress to fly eastwards towards the South China Sea and avoid capture by the North Vietnamese Army. Prisoners of War were a political embarrassment for Washington.
 
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