I worked at Stanley Aviation in Denver Colorado in the late 70's. They were pretty much out of the egress system business by that time although they did some egress work on early experimental Airbus's. There were 3 complete capsules in an office in the administrative area of the building. Stanley manufactured flexible metal fluid couplings for the aerospace industry. It was pretty cool stuff. The egress capsules were moved to the Wings Over the Rockies Museum at the old Lowry AFB in Denver. There is an area dedicated to Stanley Aviation at the museum. It's a great museum.
enjoyed this. one of my university professors worked for Coleman building and operating the Hurricane Mesa facility and he told me about the B-58 capsule tests. This inspired me to eventually work for McDonnell-Douglas Escape Systems group as a test engineer and used the Mesa facility several times. the T-28 they mentioned actually belonged to Coleman, not Stanley, and was still flying in the 90s.
One of my all time favorite - The B- 58 . I belive that this aircraft not only tried but reached the boundary allowed to man in matters of physical limits.
"What did you do at work today, dear?" "Well, I used a rocket sled to launch a bear off a cliff at Mach 2, trapped in a capsule, safe in the knowledge that opening the capsule would be someone else's job."
My father was a navigator in a B-58. We lived in Bunker Hill. In 1967, his plane went down in Texas while on a training mission. Unfortunately, the parachute on his capsule never opened and he was killed. I was 6 years old.
Sorry about your Dad. I was stationed at Bunker Hill when this crash happened. It was a big deal with all of us. Two guys that I worked with went down there to help recover key parts for the investigation but I don't remember much after that.
I have watched several B-58 videos. They never mention that in 1957/1958 a pilot named Major Zwayer lost his life ejecting from the B-58 (wind caught his helmet and snapped his neck). I wonder if his death prompted the development of the escape module.
He was just one of many. They were well aware of the problems with high-speed ejection. That death may have helped catalyze it, but they knew that a pilot was unlikely to live when ejecting at high speeds, and capsules had been under discussion for some time.
I have to correct my previous post. Maj James Zwayer did not die in ejecting from a B-58. Someone in the know informed me that he passed ejecting from an SR-71 in 1966. The SR-71 broke apart at about Mach 3 and Maj Zwayer's neck was broken during ejection. As stated others met a similar fate while ejecting at high velocity from the B-58 during program developement. I apologize for the misinformation in my previous post.
@@bagoistvan3182 Google "Colonel James Pershing Zwayer". Col Zwayer was the RSO and I believe a Maj Weaver was the pilot. The incident happened somewhere over New Mexico.
Did not have a conventional bomb bay. Carried only one payload....nukes. Designed to outrun Soviet Migs. Once they got guided SAM's, the B-58 became obsolete.
The irony of putting so much effort into surviving an ejection from a nuclear bomber... that guy bobbing in the freezing water may have ended up being the last man standing. Be sure to shut the lights off on the way out, will ya? (I am certain that ejection systems are much more commonly used as a result of training or routine patrol accidents rather than at the hands of an aggressor in conventional [or nuclear for that matter] weapons systems. It’s just kinda a mullet of regard for human life... incredible effort put into safety up front, unimaginable pain and destruction in the back... you get it.)
Robert Stanley use to work at the Hurricane Mesa test track when the ejection seats were being developed. His only goal was test data and an all over suntan. His attire consisted of a hat, Converse basketball shoes and a shoulder bag that he used to carried a notebook and pencils. The other engineers at the track had to deal with him as he was, it was his track at the time, and the Mormon women who came from Springdale and Hurricane to work in the lunch room were in a constant state of consternation, but, like the man said, it was his track, his rules.
Stanley Aviation ejection device. Bob Stanley had some serious problems. He ultimatly crash landed in the Bermuda Triangle with his family. Bob Stanley was the only body that was not found. Stanley was a difficult person to get along with. He once fired the famous Tex Johnson on a whim.
I'll bet the "floating in Lake Erie in the middle of winter for 72 hours" test was fun! Ya think the guy had to take a shit real bad after THAT test was over? LOL!
I'm sure after 3 days in that tiny little capsule in freezing conditions, taking a grunt was the way down on the list of things he was concerned about.
That has to have been one of the least pleasant tests ever to experience lol. Being bored, freezing cold cold, and tossed around by the rollers for 3 days... I'd expect some serious hazard pay lol
6:20 Ouch, that isn't exactly a soft touchdown. And what if there is a rocky slope below you? I guess it's a matter of luck. Somehow it's scary to think of going down backwards and blind, but at the same time, the impact would be survivable, and the capsule and restraints would protect you from the worst injuries, even if you do end up bouncing down a rocky slope. And it's is better than ejecting unprotected at Mach 2, for sure! A 90% survival rate versus a 5% survival rate!
Yes in the Gemini/Apollo era, but for Space Shuttle, NASA went to a nitrogen/oxygen mixture. They also went to a pressure of 14.7 pounds psi, rather than the 5 psi of earlier, pure oxygen capsules.
Desrumeaux Jean Sebastien the Soviets thought so...but the speeds of Buran meant there were only limited windows for its use. www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-secu-sieges.php
The SR-71 is smaller inside, and could not afford the volume or weight taken up by a similar system. The pressure suits work just fine. There was a situation where a Blackbird broke up in flight and at speed, and the pilot survived.
How do you know what the color scheme was? FIrst, these old color films weren't very reliable in showing colors correctly, second, these are all experimental and test prototypes. They are painted safety orange and yellow to make them visible. In service they were white or kind of silver colored, IIRC.
Wonder when Stanley went out of business or got bought out. Next time I go through Denver would like to go by the address and see if the building is still there or rebuilt.
D Hall while this particular system was not used, the XB-70 Valkyrie used a system like this. When the system was used during the crash of one of the Xb-70s on a demonstration flight the forces of the aircraft spinning due to loss of vertical stabilizers caused the pilots arm to get caught while the pod system was closing shattering his arm. What I notice about all of these tests is the engineers always assumed ejection would be done on a straight level flight, they never accounted for gforce fluctuations which could confuse the system and not allow for a safe engagement...
It was discovered that they really didn't provide much benefit. The F-111's pod was more trouble than it was worth. Pilots generally didn't trust it. And it was like trying to land a Gemini Capsule while under fire. I think most of the pilots prefer to take their chances with the more traditional system than be strapped in a coffin hurtling to the earth.
@@andrewtaylor940 The One-Eleven system worked very well actually, but it was unnecessary because except at sea it was not enough an improvement to pay the price in weight. You need to remember both airplanes, the B-58 and F-111 were built to fly over mach and low level. You don't survive a seat ejection in that environment.
@@duster0066 I dunno, One of my College Summer jobs was working out at Grumman's main assembly plant and test area back when they were doing the EF-111A conversions. The Test Pilots all HATED those bloody capsules. Never trusted them as it was a sealed capsule that they felt they had no control over. Granted these were Test Pilots, so they hate anything that isolates them from control. My Dad was one of the designers on the ejection seats for the F-14 and C-2 Greyhound. He always thought the same of the Capsule. They worked well enough, and they did keep the flight crews together, as did the A-6's tandem seats, but nobody really seemed to trust them. I think some of the problems with (and fatalities caused by) the XB-70's "Pod's" led to some major Pilot distrust from early on. The F-111 system was more reliable as it just ejected the entire cockpit, fuselage and all, so no moving parts to snag the pilots. But it still was seemingly unloved.
@@andrewtaylor940 Cheers man. I worked them for 8 years, all models. Every crew member survived when ejecting inside the envelope on my units crashes. They all died when ejecting outside the envelope. There was a failure on an F model iirc, but that is the only capsule failure I know of. The bridle cable failed. The major problem was with back injuries. There were a lot. I rode home from Vegas on a 141 with a major that had punched out of an FB the day before. He was gutting it out but was in bad shape with a back injury. Even when the bag worked which it mostly did it was still a hard hit. That capsule was really cool. It had flight controls that were powered by the pyros to fly itself upright if there was enough altitude. The 4 guys that died all ejected upside down at low altitude...no chance. I was crash recovery on both of those crashes and we sent crews to both. Both capsules attempted to right themselves and one almost made it. It worked. And again remember the mission of the jet. Mach 1.3 at 200'. You don't survive that in a seat. Plus the Navy insisted on it being a boat. So it was a boat to. The bilge pump would pump water and air to keep the bags inflated so the thing would float. It weighed like 3000 pounds. Stupid heavy. Another Vark tid bit. The capsules were made by McDonald. They all had a McDonald placards on them with a McDonald S/N. It was a separate airplane.
Sure it is. You seriously think that the US and USSR would have finished out the 20th Century without launching a war more horrible than WWII and killing hundreds of millions of people in doing so? Nuclear weapons prevented us from acting on our worst instincts, because we knew destruction would follow. Anyway, he doesn't say that the B-58 is for preservation of life. He says that since aircraft were invented, that's been a prime motivator of people. A bit of an exaggeration, since killing people has been even more of a motivator. But it sounds good, so of course they will say it. A B-58 or B-52 crew works hard to preserve their lives nad the lives of other airmen, and people on the ground. They would preserve the lives of a Soviet crew they say crashed on the ice below them without hesitating. However, if the government orders them to go to war, they will go and drop the bomb that kills millions of people. Don't blame that on the aircraft though. If someone had been...or is...stupid enough to start the war, nukes would kill many hundreds of millions. But without them, many millions certainly WOULD have died in conventional war, which is hardly a "better" way to die, in spite of all the rhetoric.
It was kind of the mission for the two times the weapons were used in anger! Preventing the massive amount of life, particularly our peoples lives that would be lost trying to storm fortified and mountainous Japan. Further since the days of WW 2 the US Military has had as its highest priority policy to save men at the expense of machines. That policy was one of the biggest contributors to victory in the pacific.
I worked at Stanley Aviation in Denver Colorado in the late 70's. They were pretty much out of the egress system business by that time although they did some egress work on early experimental Airbus's. There were 3 complete capsules in an office in the administrative area of the building. Stanley manufactured flexible metal fluid couplings for the aerospace industry. It was pretty cool stuff. The egress capsules were moved to the Wings Over the Rockies Museum at the old Lowry AFB in Denver. There is an area dedicated to Stanley Aviation at the museum. It's a great museum.
enjoyed this. one of my university professors worked for Coleman building and operating the Hurricane Mesa facility and he told me about the B-58 capsule tests. This inspired me to eventually work for McDonnell-Douglas Escape Systems group as a test engineer and used the Mesa facility several times.
the T-28 they mentioned actually belonged to Coleman, not Stanley, and was still flying in the 90s.
"The pilot could exit in safety and comfort". Yeaaahhhh......sure....
Better than just a normal non encapsulated ejection seat
One of my all time favorite - The B- 58 . I belive that this aircraft not only tried but reached the boundary allowed to man in matters of physical limits.
I built the model by Revell!
I actually got to see a B 58 up close at Wright Patterson Air Force Base I believe it was the early 60s. What a beautiful sleek aircraft
It’s still there.
"What did you do at work today, dear?"
"Well, I used a rocket sled to launch a bear off a cliff at Mach 2, trapped in a capsule, safe in the knowledge that opening the capsule would be someone else's job."
The XB 70 supersonic bomber was also equipped with an escape capsule that saved the life of one of the 2 pilots during a test flight.
it also chopped one of their arms off while saving them too from what I’ve been told.
My father was a navigator in a B-58. We lived in Bunker Hill. In 1967, his plane went down in Texas while on a training mission. Unfortunately, the parachute on his capsule never opened and he was killed. I was 6 years old.
Sorry for your loss
Sorry about your Dad. I was stationed at Bunker Hill when this crash happened. It was a big deal with all of us. Two guys that I worked with went down there to help recover key parts for the investigation but I don't remember much after that.
Being in the capsule at ejecting, must have been an experience
I always loved these planes. They looked like fighter planes on steroids!!
Just an awesome video. Its amazing what went into protecting the pilots of these planes. It truly is amazing. Thanks.
That B-58 is one HOT airplane! 🇺🇸
I have watched several B-58 videos. They never mention that in 1957/1958 a pilot named Major Zwayer lost his life ejecting from the B-58 (wind caught his helmet and snapped his neck). I wonder if his death prompted the development of the escape module.
He was just one of many. They were well aware of the problems with high-speed ejection. That death may have helped catalyze it, but they knew that a pilot was unlikely to live when ejecting at high speeds, and capsules had been under discussion for some time.
For sure it did.
I have to correct my previous post. Maj James Zwayer did not die in ejecting from a B-58. Someone in the know informed me that he passed ejecting from an SR-71 in 1966. The SR-71 broke apart at about Mach 3 and Maj Zwayer's neck was broken during ejection. As stated others met a similar fate while ejecting at high velocity from the B-58 during program developement. I apologize for the misinformation in my previous post.
James Reed - i was with the impression that nobody died on the SR - 71, accidents happened but nobody died. This is very interesting .
@@bagoistvan3182 Google "Colonel James Pershing Zwayer". Col Zwayer was the RSO and I believe a Maj Weaver was the pilot. The incident happened somewhere over New Mexico.
Did not have a conventional bomb bay. Carried only one payload....nukes. Designed to outrun Soviet Migs. Once they got guided SAM's, the B-58 became obsolete.
The irony of putting so much effort into surviving an ejection from a nuclear bomber... that guy bobbing in the freezing water may have ended up being the last man standing. Be sure to shut the lights off on the way out, will ya?
(I am certain that ejection systems are much more commonly used as a result of training or routine patrol accidents rather than at the hands of an aggressor in conventional [or nuclear for that matter] weapons systems. It’s just kinda a mullet of regard for human life... incredible effort put into safety up front, unimaginable pain and destruction in the back... you get it.)
Robert Stanley use to work at the Hurricane Mesa test track when the ejection seats were being developed. His only goal was test data and an all over suntan. His attire consisted of a hat, Converse basketball shoes and a shoulder bag that he used to carried a notebook and pencils. The other engineers at the track had to deal with him as he was, it was his track at the time, and the Mormon women who came from Springdale and Hurricane to work in the lunch room were in a constant state of consternation, but, like the man said, it was his track, his rules.
Are you saying he was naked except for his shoes and hat?
@ASCALON 🤪
What. The. Fuck 😂😂😂
Jack CF Exactly that.
ohh man...i really respect test pilot.they are brave n tough guy...also cool n calm
Stanley Aviation ejection device. Bob Stanley had some serious problems. He ultimatly crash landed in the Bermuda Triangle with his family. Bob Stanley was the only body that was not found. Stanley was a difficult person to get along with. He once fired the famous Tex Johnson on a whim.
Very interesting.
Now I see were the Furturama writers got their inspiration for documentary parodies.
Hopping it would end with a "DON'T DATE ROBOTS!".
I had a Stanley tackle box I dropped in lake Erie years ago, found it 3days later, crawlers were still alive, $3.98.
I think this should be standard feature on my first flying car
Until thousands of flying cars will crash in houses...
I'll bet the "floating in Lake Erie in the middle of winter for 72 hours" test was fun! Ya think the guy had to take a shit real bad after THAT test was over? LOL!
I'm sure after 3 days in that tiny little capsule in freezing conditions, taking a grunt was the way down on the list of things he was concerned about.
That has to have been one of the least pleasant tests ever to experience lol. Being bored, freezing cold cold, and tossed around by the rollers for 3 days... I'd expect some serious hazard pay lol
Look closer at the footage; they used a bear.
6:20 Ouch, that isn't exactly a soft touchdown. And what if there is a rocky slope below you? I guess it's a matter of luck. Somehow it's scary to think of going down backwards and blind, but at the same time, the impact would be survivable, and the capsule and restraints would protect you from the worst injuries, even if you do end up bouncing down a rocky slope. And it's is better than ejecting unprotected at Mach 2, for sure! A 90% survival rate versus a 5% survival rate!
3'12'':what was feared of was how to avoid legs from being badly injured,to avoid from letting in the cockpit a piece them, truly...
The capsule was just as bad ass as the jet!
Would this system have been useful for the space shuttle?
Yes in the Gemini/Apollo era, but for Space Shuttle, NASA went to a nitrogen/oxygen mixture. They also went to a pressure of 14.7 pounds psi, rather than the 5 psi of earlier, pure oxygen capsules.
Desrumeaux Jean Sebastien the Soviets thought so...but the speeds of Buran meant there were only limited windows for its use. www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-secu-sieges.php
No animals were, errr.....shown to be harmed during this training film.
3'33":cumbersome pressure suits? What about ejection device in sr71?
The SR-71 is smaller inside, and could not afford the volume or weight taken up by a similar system. The pressure suits work just fine. There was a situation where a Blackbird broke up in flight and at speed, and the pilot survived.
Very nice. I would personally change the colour scheme but overall very nice!
How do you know what the color scheme was? FIrst, these old color films weren't very reliable in showing colors correctly, second, these are all experimental and test prototypes. They are painted safety orange and yellow to make them visible. In service they were white or kind of silver colored, IIRC.
Is that the test where they used a bear for the escape pod
Wonder when Stanley went out of business or got bought out. Next time I go through Denver would like to go by the address and see if the building is still there or rebuilt.
I think its now a shopping center called Stanley Plaza, or Stanley Place.
So what happens today if a pilot has to eject at mach 2?
I don't think the USAF has any operational aircraft capable of Mach 2.
We still have one foot in the cave and one foot...
beautiful lines on this witch
I used to say that too.
Then I divorced her!
@@oldman4021 ha ha ha....like why are divorces do expensive? because, they are worth it..
take care
@@fridayray8891 You too, Bro.
I wonder if the animators were the same ones who did Jonny Quest
8'37'':the poor fella was certainly holding tight his balls... My My...
Luckily it never had to be used by humans. But good to know it could safely eject a 2-year-old bear at Mach 2.
D Hall while this particular system was not used, the XB-70 Valkyrie used a system like this. When the system was used during the crash of one of the Xb-70s on a demonstration flight the forces of the aircraft spinning due to loss of vertical stabilizers caused the pilots arm to get caught while the pod system was closing shattering his arm. What I notice about all of these tests is the engineers always assumed ejection would be done on a straight level flight, they never accounted for gforce fluctuations which could confuse the system and not allow for a safe engagement...
D Hall The escape system was used twice by crewmen and once accidentally by maintenance.
3 days bobbing around in an icy lake ,capsule would be full of barf ifit was me !
Would be okay if there was a fishing rod and lures
B-56 Hustler is one meeeeeean aircraft.
those poor animals
Far ahead of it time always wondered how they pulled it off with only 11 years after world war 2
Paperclip.
I think abt a quarter of all Hustlers in service were lost in accidents. An appalling record.
in the year nineteen hundred and fifty eight 😂
6:30 is that a freaking black bear?
Great idea, Why they didn’t use in other airplanes?
The F-111 used an escape pod. A significant portion of the front of the airplane departed - both crew members stayed together in it.
It was discovered that they really didn't provide much benefit. The F-111's pod was more trouble than it was worth. Pilots generally didn't trust it. And it was like trying to land a Gemini Capsule while under fire. I think most of the pilots prefer to take their chances with the more traditional system than be strapped in a coffin hurtling to the earth.
@@andrewtaylor940 The One-Eleven system worked very well actually, but it was unnecessary because except at sea it was not enough an improvement to pay the price in weight. You need to remember both airplanes, the B-58 and F-111 were built to fly over mach and low level. You don't survive a seat ejection in that environment.
@@duster0066 I dunno, One of my College Summer jobs was working out at Grumman's main assembly plant and test area back when they were doing the EF-111A conversions. The Test Pilots all HATED those bloody capsules. Never trusted them as it was a sealed capsule that they felt they had no control over. Granted these were Test Pilots, so they hate anything that isolates them from control.
My Dad was one of the designers on the ejection seats for the F-14 and C-2 Greyhound. He always thought the same of the Capsule. They worked well enough, and they did keep the flight crews together, as did the A-6's tandem seats, but nobody really seemed to trust them. I think some of the problems with (and fatalities caused by) the XB-70's "Pod's" led to some major Pilot distrust from early on. The F-111 system was more reliable as it just ejected the entire cockpit, fuselage and all, so no moving parts to snag the pilots. But it still was seemingly unloved.
@@andrewtaylor940 Cheers man. I worked them for 8 years, all models. Every crew member survived when ejecting inside the envelope on my units crashes. They all died when ejecting outside the envelope. There was a failure on an F model iirc, but that is the only capsule failure I know of. The bridle cable failed. The major problem was with back injuries. There were a lot. I rode home from Vegas on a 141 with a major that had punched out of an FB the day before. He was gutting it out but was in bad shape with a back injury. Even when the bag worked which it mostly did it was still a hard hit. That capsule was really cool. It had flight controls that were powered by the pyros to fly itself upright if there was enough altitude. The 4 guys that died all ejected upside down at low altitude...no chance. I was crash recovery on both of those crashes and we sent crews to both. Both capsules attempted to right themselves and one almost made it. It worked. And again remember the mission of the jet. Mach 1.3 at 200'. You don't survive that in a seat. Plus the Navy insisted on it being a boat. So it was a boat to. The bilge pump would pump water and air to keep the bags inflated so the thing would float. It weighed like 3000 pounds. Stupid heavy.
Another Vark tid bit. The capsules were made by McDonald. They all had a McDonald placards on them with a McDonald S/N. It was a separate airplane.
Who's voice is this ? Is it computer?
It's an actual human voice, not a computer.
@@walter2990 thnks
HAL 3000
Preservation of human life, that is not what a nuke bomber is about.
Sure it is. You seriously think that the US and USSR would have finished out the 20th Century without launching a war more horrible than WWII and killing hundreds of millions of people in doing so? Nuclear weapons prevented us from acting on our worst instincts, because we knew destruction would follow. Anyway, he doesn't say that the B-58 is for preservation of life. He says that since aircraft were invented, that's been a prime motivator of people. A bit of an exaggeration, since killing people has been even more of a motivator. But it sounds good, so of course they will say it.
A B-58 or B-52 crew works hard to preserve their lives nad the lives of other airmen, and people on the ground. They would preserve the lives of a Soviet crew they say crashed on the ice below them without hesitating. However, if the government orders them to go to war, they will go and drop the bomb that kills millions of people. Don't blame that on the aircraft though. If someone had been...or is...stupid enough to start the war, nukes would kill many hundreds of millions. But without them, many millions certainly WOULD have died in conventional war, which is hardly a "better" way to die, in spite of all the rhetoric.
It was kind of the mission for the two times the weapons were used in anger! Preventing the massive amount of life, particularly our peoples lives that would be lost trying to storm fortified and mountainous Japan. Further since the days of WW 2 the US Military has had as its highest priority policy to save men at the expense of machines. That policy was one of the biggest contributors to victory in the pacific.
Ever heard of the word ‘deterrence’?
Yea...no thank you
Sorry Americans, " Aviation History " most certainly DID NOT start at Kittyhawk......