Ejection Seat

An ejection seat is an emergency escape system, mainly fitted to military aircraft, that propels a pilot or crew member clear of the aircraft using an explosive charge or rocket motor before a parachute deploys for the descent to the ground. German and Swedish designers built early ejection systems during the Second World War, but James Martin of Northern Ireland and his company Martin-Baker developed the seat that made ejection reliable and practical for widespread use; on July 24, 1946, company fitter Bernard Lynch made the first live ejection-seat test, bailing out of a Gloster Meteor jet. Martin-Baker seats were fitted to prototype and production aircraft from the late 1940s onward, and the system saw its first use in an actual in-flight emergency in 1949 during testing of the experimental Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52 flying wing.