Forgive my ignorance - but if I am understanding you all correctly, some of you got to in excess of FL60, with only the Taylor helmet and a pressure jerkin, relying on cockpit pressurisation alone?
So presumably, if the canopy had sprung a leak, or you'd had some kind of explosive decompression event, an emergency descent would be totally out of the question - you'd be unconscious or have boiled blood (or both) before you'd got anywhere near a safe altitude.
Young and brave indeed.
What was the maximum balls to the wall rate of descent for a
PR.9 in an emergency?