Photo courtesy U.S. Air Force

You're flying 450 miles per hour at an altitude of 17,000 feet. All of a sudden, something is wrong with the plane. You check the control panel, but can't figure out what's wrong. Then you smell the smoke. You start losing altitude fast. Real fast. There's no time to think. You reach down and pull the lever. In a matter of seconds, there's a loud bang and you're soaring into the air along with your seat. You just clear the tail wing of the plane. Soon after, a parachute deploys above you. Your plane continues to plummet to the ground. Thank goodness, you're no longer inside it.

Most military aircraft, NASA research aircraft and some small commercial airplanes are equipped with ejection seats. These life-saving seats allow pilots to escape from damaged or malfunctioning airplanes.

Ejecting from an aircraft moving at speeds greater than the speed of sound (mach 1 or 750 miles per hour) can be very dangerous. The force of ejecting at those speeds can reach in excess of 20 Gs. One G is the force of Earth's gravity. At 20 Gs, a pilot experiences a force equal to 20 times his or her body weight. A force this great can cause severe injury and even death. Even so, about 90 percent of pilots who are forced to eject from their aircraft do survive. In fact, as of January 2006, ejection seat manufacturer Martin-Baker reports 7,130 lives saved to date by their escape system technology.

Helicopter Help Soon, some helicopters may benefit from ejections seats, too. The Multi-Functional Operating Seat (MFOS) for the HH-60L Blackhawk helicopter is currently in production at Martin-Baker.