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The Ejection Seat That Thinks For Itself
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The combat pilot of the future, faced with a sudden, catastrophic emergency while flying at 800km/h, 30m from the ground, could be out of the aircraft and parachuting to safety even before his mind has had time to register the danger.
The decision to use the aircraft’s ejection seat and to take the vital actions to activate it would be the total responsibility of a microprocessor. In an instant it would be able. to assess an emergency and trigger the systems to hurl the pilot to safety long before his own thought processes could analyze the situation and carry out the right action,
Typically, a fast jet pilot now takes four to five seconds to recognise a full emergency, make the decision to eject and initiate the procedure. A pilot with exceptional reactions (and some measure of luck) might manage it in three seconds. But even that may not be quick enough and in future aircraft with high pilot workload and increasingly tough electronic warfare environments to cope with will have even greater problems.
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