The throwaway line at the end about Dr. John Stapp is interesting. For reference he was the guy who strapped himself to rocket sleds to endure 20 plus Gs and is why you have seat belts in your car because of his career with NHTSA after the military.
Wow, thanks for posting! Just when I thought I’ve seen everything on the XF-103 something new pops up! 👍🙂 I know one thing; had this airplane gone into production that downward ejection seat would have been scrapped in favor of an upward system. The F-104 Starfighter originally had a downward ejection seat…all fine and dandy at high altitude but if you ejected at low altitude (takeoff for example) you’re going to turn yourself into a high speed farming implement!
I knew a retired engineer who worked on this project -- thanks :)
The throwaway line at the end about Dr. John Stapp is interesting. For reference he was the guy who strapped himself to rocket sleds to endure 20 plus Gs and is why you have seat belts in your car because of his career with NHTSA after the military.
Wow, thanks for posting! Just when I thought I’ve seen everything on the XF-103 something new pops up! 👍🙂
I know one thing; had this airplane gone into production that downward ejection seat would have been scrapped in favor of an upward system. The F-104 Starfighter originally had a downward ejection seat…all fine and dandy at high altitude but if you ejected at low altitude (takeoff for example) you’re going to turn yourself into a high speed farming implement!
"Sometimes when you push the edge of technology, technology pushes back!" (unknown)
More like nature pushes back.
1:18 At this point I got "The Thunderbirds Are Go" vibes.