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Upwardly
TESTING TIMES EJECTION SEATS
46 FLYPAST August 2018
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What’s the best way of checking ejection seats work? Shoot a volunteer into the air at
8,000ft at a speed of 320mph of course. Ken Ellis tells the remarkable
story of Martin-Baker fi tter ‘Benny’ Lynch’s selfl ess bravery
Above
The fi rst live British
ejection, ‘Benny’ Lynch
parting company with
Meteor III EE416 on July
24, 1946.Bottom right
Meteor WA634 was
displayed at the RAF
Museum Cosford from
1986, but had been placed
in storage by 2012.
KEN ELLIS
A
s these words appear on
the computer screen, the
counter on the Martin-Baker
website recorded 7,567 lives
saved using the world-renowned
seats. Each soul represented by
that statistic has many people to
thank, not least James Martin and
Valentine Baker, the founders of
Martin-Baker Aircraft, now known
as Martin-Baker (MB).
There are two others who need to
be remembered, Bernard Lynch and
John Fifield. For both of these men,
there came a moment when the use
of dummies and crude telemetry
just would not do. Someone had to
try out the seats ‘in anger’.
After trials with rigs at the
MB factory at Denham,
Buckinghamshire, a flying test bed
was needed. The Boulton Paul
Defiant was the obvious answer; the
space previously occupied by the gun
turret provided plenty of room.
Defiant I DR944 was transferred
to MB on December 11, 1944 and
modified. From May 11, 1945,
ejections, using special-weighted
dummies, were made from DR944
at Wittering, near Stamford. Six days
later, the aircraft moved to Beaulieu,
Hampshire, and further ‘shoots’
were carried out. Flying DR944 was
Bryan Greensted, chief test pilot forpropeller manufacturer Rotol.
Meanwhile, the rig at Denham
was prepared for the next test:
firing the development seat with a
volunteer strapped to it. Bernard
‘Benny’ Lynch, working as a fitter
in MB’s experimental department,
stepped forward.JET PIONEER
The pace of the programme was
quickening. On November 6, 1945,
Meteor III EE416 was allocated to
MB for conversion into the next- and much faster – test bed and
by the following year the airfield
at Chalgrove in Oxfordshire was
adopted. Benny endured a series of
blasts up the rig at Denham and a
mass of data was gathered. It soon
became evident that he was the best
candidate for the next phase: live
firing from the Meteor in flight.
By the early summer of 1946,
EE416 was ready at Chalgrove
and on June 8, the first firing of a
seat with a weighted mannequin
was made from the static jet. A
dozen flying trials followed with
the dummy being blasted out at
2,000ft (609m) and a speed of
about 415mph (667km/h).
The stage was set for the first
live British ejection. In 1946, Jack
‘Scotty’ Scott, former Rolls-Royce
development test pilot at Hucknall,
Nottinghamshire, who had flown
for Frank Whittle’s Power Jets and
later the National Gas Turbine
Establishment (NGTE), was
appointed as MB’s chief test pilot.
He held the post until 1960.
Scotty took EE416 out of
Chalgrove on July 24, 1946 and
behind him was Benny Lynch,
although the intention was that the
‘passenger’ would not be present
when the Meteor touched down.
At 8,000ft and 320mph, Benny
made his debut departure using an
ejection seat – he was to carry out
another 15.
The early seats provided a means
of propelling the airman out of
the aircraft. It was then up to the
ejectee to release himself from the
seat, let it fall clear and pull the
ripcord in the conventional manner.
Present-day seats automate all of
these processes.
On August 29, 1947, Benny was
successfully ejected out at 12,000ft
and a speed of 420mph. To mark
his bravery, he was awarded the
British Empire Medal in 1948.METEOR ‘T.7½’
Meteor EE416 carried out more
than 400 airborne tests for MB and
by August 1953, its replacement