PPRuNe Forums - Ejection Seats and Operating Envelopes

PPRuNe Forums (https://www.pprune.org/)

- Military Aviation (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation-57/)

- - Ejection Seats and Operating Envelopes (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/565341-ejection-seats-operating-envelopes.html)

At an event at IWM Duxford I had a long and informative chat about the ACES seat (These guys were from Lakenheath, so I'm assuming this is the seat in the F-15C/D/E).

IIRC the ACES (II)? seat has a kind of pitot tube which is able to distinguish the 'vector' present closely before the moment of ejection and hence the seat acts accordingly-i.e. the seat will adopt a different ejection profile if you eject low and slow to if you are high and fast (seems to make sense to me)-I think 3 different 'profiles' were mentioned...

Is this correct, and if so does MB's latest seat have a similar option?

Incidentally I also learned that the F-14 had an MB seat in it (the gentlemen were pretty scathing of some of the cockpit sequences and shots in Top Gun).

Treble one, in a word, yes(ish). The seat has probes which collect data for the digital seat sequencer, so the seat know's which way up you are and how fast your going and reacts accordingly within limits.
The seats are very clever, as is the parachute system which is designed to operate differently at high speed low level and low speed. The F/A-18 also has an MB seat, as does the F-35.

Thank you SB. A massive boost to survivability I would think should you need to use one of them. Much better than 'one size fits all'...