WEBVTT - From the Vault: To The Escape Pod! 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.800 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.120 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's vault time. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.840 We're going to climb into the vault, but actually it 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.840 appears to the vault is ceiling behind us and taking 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.680 off into space. Yes, because this is the escape Pod, Joe. Uh, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:26.239 this episode from November is to the escape Pod. I 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.600 think we recorded this a week that you and I 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.360 were both kind of feeling like stopped the planet of 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.360 the Apes. I want to get off. Yeah. And plus 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.479 this one published on on on Thanksgiving, which I think 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.080 a lot of times, you know, it's holiday holiday travels, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.960 the pressures of the American holidays. Uh, the call of 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.680 the escape Pod is often, um, you know, siren like 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.280 and its power. But we also got to talk about 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:52.080 escape from New York and this one. So anytime you 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.880 get to anytime we get to talk about Escape from 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.600 New York, it's a good time. Yeah. The Donald pleasant 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.480 S egg I'm sure comes up. Well. I hope you 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:07.920 enjoy this classic episode about escape pods. Welcome to Stuff 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.280 to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:18.000 I'll follow, Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.800 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.400 A lot of times on this podcast we end up 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.240 talking about instincts. Yes, we use our instincts to talk 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:32.840 about instincts, often worse. But one of any animal's deepest 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:37.319 instincts is the escape instinct. It's right down there with 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.319 the desire for food, water reproduction, but I would say 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.360 maybe even more immediate. And you can definitely see how 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.199 powerful it is by the way that escape instincts, even 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.160 in rational, really high functioning primates like human beings, can 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:55.560 totally short circuit rational thinking and lead to mass panics 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.600 that kill people. This happens all the time. Uh. And 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.520 so the escape rive, you know, the fight or flight impulse, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.320 has been associated in neuroscience with the amygdala and the 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:11.680 autonomic nervous system, deep deep, primitive old parts of the brain, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.320 the rat like hind brain, the reptile brain. Right, though 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.960 I have heard people disputing the term reptile brain, I 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:20.760 do not refer to it as such, and from a 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.760 scientific standpoint, right, But but the idea of the the earlier, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.079 more primitive parts of the brain that go way back 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.720 in evolutionary history, that is there and so escape is 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.000 is rooted down in those really primitive parts of the brain. 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:39.040 Is this fundamental, intractable part of human psychology, because think 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.639 about it. When you go into a room, even if 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.560 there's no cause of danger whatsoever, just say it's an 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.200 office Christmas party or something like that. Oh yeah, you 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.200 better believe I'm gonna have an escape planet an office. 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.560 Exactly what's the first thing you do in your mind? 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.720 If you're like me, it's probably unconscious. You're not consciously 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:58.880 thinking about it, but you do just sort of take 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.400 note of where all the eggs it's are ye in 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.160 the room? Do you do the same thing, Robert? Yeah, well, 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.480 I would say, like the physical exits, it's almost like 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.440 a subconscious thing. But I also will kind of have 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.360 like social exit strategies in mind as well, right right, 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.760 If this gets uncomfortable for any number of reasons, and 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.960 I'm not saying like office Christmas parties in particular are uncomfortable, 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.480 but like any social situation that I'm not like one 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.720 comfortable with, I'll have that escape hatch in the back 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.760 of my mind. You know, that's a really good point 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.680 because that kind of shows how our obsession with physical 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:39.040 escape extends even to our metaphors and our abstract thinking. 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.200 You know, you're in an awkward social situation, how do 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:44.880 I get out? You're in a bad relationship, and you think, 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:46.680 how do I find a way out of this? You're 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.480 not physically finding a way out, but that that's the 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.040 way your brain goes. It's like the hatch in the 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.520 top of an elevator or the roof of a school bus. 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.000 You're probably not gonna shinny up any any elevator shaft 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.880 cable today, but there's something comfortable about knowing that hatches there. 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.080 Though I have always kind of wanted to do that. Yeah, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.720 but but it's true. I think, always somewhere deep in 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.040 your mind, there is a part of you, mostly unconscious, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.400 that is obsessed with escape, and it's always doing the 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.920 pre calculations for an escape trajectory. How would I get 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:22.760 out of here? How how could I get out if 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.359 I had to? So, of course our obsession with escape 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.400 escape routes, flight from danger. It extends to our technology. 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:34.520 Our technology always reflects our psychology. So when we imagine 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.440 a rebel spaceship fleeing from the galactic empire, we also 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.520 imagine escape pods fleeing from the larger rebel ship. And 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.600 uh no, of course, no science fiction vessel is complete 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.760 without an escape pod. And I think at some point 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.240 this year, I bet, when times were rough and the 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.600 world seemed full of despair, you thought about an escape pod, 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.520 didn't you. Sometime this year many of us have found 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.000 ourselves idly wishing you could just get into the capsule 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.039 and blast away and leave everything behind. The one I 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.640 always come back to in in fiction is the escape 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:14.600 pod that that that president ideal President Donald Pleasants uses 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.640 um to escape from Air Force one in Escape from 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.400 New York. It's also my favorite, yeah, because it's it's 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.440 so comfy. It's an egg, yeah, and and Pleasants is 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.520 kind of egg like himself, so and it it's just 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.479 his perfect egg that he's able to get into an 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.320 escape from immediate danger into of course more immediate danger. Right. So, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.480 if you haven't seen the movie President US, President Donald Pleasants, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.520 which is kind of strange because he has a British accent, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.080 he gets his plane, gets captured by terrorists who are 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.080 going to kill him and they're gonna crash the plane 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.120 into Manhattan. I believe it was kind of strange. But yeah, 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.479 so Donald pleasants gets into this big egg and he 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.719 gets shot out the back of his airplane to safety. 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.800 I think he says something to his doomed staff like main, 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.920 god watch over you all. But yeah, that's a great one. 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.400 But there are tons of great fictional escape pods there 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.080 in all kinds of James Bond movies. Always when Raker 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:09.479 had a great one that was kind of like a 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:14.880 like a sexy um bachelor pad, they're always like that. 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.640 There's some aquatics escape pods in James Bond movies too. 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.000 Why do the escape pods in these movies always have 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.359 like satin sheets and champagne coolers and curtains on the windows. 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.760 It's weird because they're kind of it's kind of there's 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.040 a sense of it being a a comfy little abode 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.760 and like a little bed, but also kind of like 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.480 a little casket. You know, it gets complicated, I guess 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.120 when you start teasing apart how we design our our 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.960 escape pods and how we design our our our coffins. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.440 You're totally right. It is like a coffin. It's like 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.840 a sexy, sexy coffin. But of course, so we don't 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.919 have to look entirely to fiction for examples of escape pods, 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.720 because sometimes we really do build escape capsules of some 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:05.200 kind into our technologies, especially our vehicles. Um, but why 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.680 would you build escape capsules into real vehicles? Why not 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:12.840 just have a door? Well, that's kind of an obvious question. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.040 It's a great question. Um. I think one of the 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:17.760 main area to look for an answer here is in 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:19.800 the room of aviation and a lot of We're gonna 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.960 go through several examples that are related to aviation or 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.080 or space exploration because we've all seen like the or 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.400 I don't know about we've all, but I've certainly seen 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.320 my fair share, and I know you've seen your fair 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:35.440 share of like old serial adventures from the thirties and forties, 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.800 where you have individuals trying to get off of a 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.240 crashing airplane and they're using an obvious set with just 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.320 in abnormally large fuselage, and they're walking with relative ease 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.800 down the aisle of this airplane to go jump out 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.920 of a door out of the the the portal with 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.640 their parachute. And of course, a crashing airplane or an 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.680 out of controlled airplane or airplane in peril is not 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.000 going to be that straightforward a situation generally, right, well, 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.800 I mean a passenger aircraft also are just not made 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.280 to be jumped out of. You can read the whole 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.320 dB Cooper story for yeah, for some more details on this. 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.760 So there's a basic need for an escape system be at, 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:18.920 and be at an ejection seat, which we're not really 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.080 going to get into ejection seats much here that we 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.080 should mention we're all familiar with ejector seats, right, Like 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.800 in top Gun, the ejector seat will propel you up 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.320 the pilot out of the failing aircraft. You deploy a parachute, 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.960 you get the pilot safely to the ground. But generally 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.679 the canopy comes off, though some there are models of 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.760 ejection seats where the canopy did not come off and 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.160 you just blast through the glass. But today we're talking 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.480 about escape pods. So when you need this enclosed space, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.679 when does that come in? Well, it's gonna come when 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.199 you need added protection, certainly when you're dealing with higher altitude, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.280 higher speed aircraft. And and of course this is just 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.160 on top of we we talked about, you know the 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.720 need for the individual, for the pilot, for the crew 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.320 member to have an escape plan. But of course, just 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.960 to boil down, like the basic economic idea here is 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.920 that human lives are more valuable than machines. Yeah, but 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.280 not in like a moral sense, because most of these 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.680 are war machines designed to like drop nuclear payloads on 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.360 the whole cities. Know what means they cost more to train, 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.800 right right? You need you need highly trained specialist individuals 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.760 who are piloting these aircraft. And even though the aircraft 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.200 costs millions and millions of dollars if it goes down 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.240 in flames, at least you can say in since you're 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.479 saving the brain of the aircraft, you're saving the pilots 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.800 that fluid exactly. So let's look at some examples from 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.319 aviation history of these great Uh, what would you call 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.000 it if? If the pilot being saved from a failing 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:44.160 aircraft is like saving the brain, the escape pod is 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.720 like the jar that you put the brain in. Yeah, 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.360 So let's look at some of these jars. All right, Well, 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:50.920 so the first one we're gonna bring up, and we're 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:52.440 gonna I'm gonna try and make sure that we have 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.840 images related to these on the landing page for this 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:56.960 episode of Stuff to Blow your mind, Dot com because 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.360 you're gonna we're gonna try and to describe everything, but 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.800 you know you're gonna you're gonna probably want some visuals. 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.560 So the first one we want to mention here is 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.439 the B fifty eight Hustler, the convey B fifty eight Hustler. 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.880 So this was a bomber that saw service nineteen sixty 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.480 through nineteen seventy. About hundred and sixteen were built. It 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.760 was a three man crew. This was a U s 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.120 Air Force US Air Force debuted nineteen fifty six, and 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.240 it was the US Air force Is first operational supersonic bomber. 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.640 It was visually notable because it had these awesome delta wings, 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.320 so it looked like an arrow um and it also 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.520 had a wasp waist fuselage. It was so thin that 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.360 it had to use external bomb pods. Gleaming chrome appearance 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.480 in most of the images you see of it, so yeah, 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.200 it looked like an arrowhead, though maybe an arrowhead either 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.079 pregnant with death or infected with explosive parasites. However you 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.480 want to frame it. It is a very weird and 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.120 very sexy looking aircraft. It's got this this tapered fuselage 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.400 like you're talking about is kind of thin, and the 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:04.280 in these straight, completely angular wings cutting through it, it's 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.120 cool to look at. Yeah, and I wanna I mention 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.679 this real quick quickly here if it sounds like if 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.120 some people might be thinking, oh, you're awfuly enthusiastic about 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.640 all these awful war machines, Robert, uh, I do have 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:18.600 to say that I grew up in a household where 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.720 my my dad was a big aviation enthusiast, and uh 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.439 I was really into aviation history, military aviation history. So 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:27.839 I grew up like with a lot of books about 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.720 these airplanes around, and it seems like there were always 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.679 documentaries on TV about these aircraft. So I have a 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.960 certain fondness for their designs. But back to the so yeah, 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:43.320 sexually looking aircraft. Uh. It initially boasted typical ejection seats, 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.880 so just blast the individual crew members out of the 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:50.880 imperiled aircraft. But ejection at supersonic speeds proved dangerous. So 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.599 Stanley Aircraft Corporation developed a retrofitted ejection capsule and in 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.400 late nineteen six two and this allowed aircrew to eject 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.000 safely it twice the speed of sound and from as 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:07.600 high as altitudes of seventy feet or roughly twenty one kilometers. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.400 That does not sound like a condition in which you 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.080 would want to be ejected naked out of your right, 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.720 have your brain ejective naked or even in a flight 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.400 suit and in a chair. Right, So they came up 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.800 with this capsule. The capsule was essentially a clamshell hood 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.880 that closed over the ejection seat and it was I 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.439 found some some Gatty images on this, and the Getty 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.599 images a database, so some some work that went and 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.839 went into designing this, and it was apparently referred to 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.240 as the torture chamber during development because it I guess, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.120 because it kind of looks like an Iron Maiden. It 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.720 really does. Yeah, So this capsule, you have the seat, 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:46.920 it's like a right angle kind of thing, which is 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.280 where the crew member would be I guess, but folded 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.280 over the top of it, it looks kind of like 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:57.000 a It's just this cascading series of metal bands coming down, 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.920 So it looks like a mask that a cinebyte would 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.520 where in one of the Hell raisor sequels, and the 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.960 cinembyte would be called like shutter face or something. Yeah, 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.439 it's reminiscent a little bit too of of a rolltop desk. 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.280 Yeah yeah, yeah, like that, but metal. Yeah, so this 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.400 this that once it's over you, this thing was air tight, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.800 had an independent oxygen supply supply system that ensured pressurization. 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:23.760 And this was but one of the things that was 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.760 it was far from fully automated, because I know, when 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.439 you're when you're hearing this, you're reading about it, you're 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.360 imagining like, oh, it shuts over you and then you 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.880 blast out like you're in a science fiction movie. But 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.360 it wasn't. The user still had a number of choices 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.920 after the clamshell shut. You could continue on to ejection, 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.480 or you could hold off until the plane made it 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.440 to a lower altitude that didn't demand the pressurization. UM. 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.040 The idea here being, you know that is still incredibly dangerous, 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.000 UM ejecting from the aircraft at high altitudes, even in 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.760 the capsule. So if the plane is not in just 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.480 complete peril, then maybe it makes sense to wait just 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.360 a minute, right um. And this is the thing we 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.040 should keep in mind throughout the episode. I mean, ejecting 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.079 from an aircraft, uh always comes with risks. You know, 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.200 when you eject from an aircraft to bail out, there 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.000 is a certain percent chance that you will be killed 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.320 by the ejection process. That's why it is a last resort, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.120 is a violent last resort in a in a in 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:26.040 a terrible dangerous situation. Now, additionally, the pilot's capsule in 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.480 the Hustler contained the control stick and other necessary controls 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.520 to pilot the aircraft to that lower altitude, and then 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:37.280 communication was maintained capsule to capsule in the airplane. Uh 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.320 So it's this interesting, Um, I love how these capsules 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:48.160 are not immediate um, immediately exercised from the craft. They're 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.520 kind of a part of the craft in peril. So 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.440 what kind of test pilot would volunteer to be the 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.440 first test subject of the torture chamber. Well, it's interesting 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.040 and reading about these different tests because the thing you 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:03.720 had have you have a fair amount of testing. They 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.400 went into any of these extensive testing even uh, you 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.400 would have test pilots that are you know, trying them 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.400 out in some cases on the ground. Um, they're loading 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.600 them onto uh, you know, under propelled carts to just 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.240 see how they how the impact affects them. And in 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:24.240 the case of the hustlers ejection capsules, the U S 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.680 Air Force used Himalayan and American black bears to test 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.280 the ejection seats. Well, how did I hear you? Right? Yes, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.400 say that again, Himalayan and American black bears. Uh, none 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.520 of them were killed during the tests. They only suffered 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.520 broken bones for what it's worth, and they were drugged. 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:44.640 But we're talking ejections at speeds of mock one point six, 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.280 um that's we know, or and also at altitudes of 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:54.160 forty five thousand feet. So yeah, the bears helped us 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.600 out in that regard. It's well hard to argue that 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.320 they volunteered, but I'm glad to hear that no bears 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.480 were killed in the making of this escape pod. Yeah, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.600 at least we can say that, right. Um So after injection, 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.160 the capsule here featured a parachute, of course, as well 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.000 as shock absorbers and inflatable bladders to turn the thing 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.200 into a life raft if it fell in the water. 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:15.920 Uh So, in short, it was it was a pretty 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:18.760 pretty cool escape capsule. I think. I think it's one 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.520 of the better like just pure examples of of a 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:26.040 of an escape capsule in aviation history. There are actually 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.960 videos online of the tests of this escape capsule, of 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:31.880 it coming up out of the plane. You can see 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.480 it just rocketing up into the sky and shooting up 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.160 over the top of the plane as the plane passes underneath. 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.960 It's worth looking up. Yeah, there's also a fabulous periscope 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.160 films documentary that's freely available on YouTube now that that 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.680 shows you exactly how it worked, and it had had 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:52.280 like some wonderful animations. They quoted Shakespeare and showed like 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.840 sort of a Disney documentary, hand paid but leafing through 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.080 a book of the works of Shakespeare just impeccably. You know, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.000 nineteen five these pr project here, So do we know 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.639 how often people in the real world ejected from one 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.480 of these planes? And how well it worked? This was 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.600 a real revelation to me. There is a wonderful website, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.440 and I say wonderful. It's it's a little long in 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.840 the tooth now it could it could benefit from redesign, 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.320 but this but the work that's gone into it is 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.960 pretty pretty awesome. It's ejection history dot org dot UK 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:31.080 and it's an attempt by the author and contributors to 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:37.560 catalog every ejection from from key aircraft and and and 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:42.000 and also rank like how how survivable each incident was, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.840 So all in all, like some some aircraft have better 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.159 databases and others on this site, but it's it's a 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:54.200 real sobering look at the effectiveness of ejection seats and 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:59.080 ejection capsules, uh to determine, like to what center they 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.160 able to save live in the event of you know, catastrophe. 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.000 In the case of the Hustler, it looked like there's 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.840 something like thirty ejections total, with the majority of them 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.800 being survivals. So the torture chamber by and large worked, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:15.399 it would seem too. I don't I don't have a 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.720 have a particular stat on it because the database doesn't 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.880 really present the information that that. Clearly it's not it's 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.960 not a modern spreadsheets sort of format. But certainly if 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:28.359 you really have to have an answer to that, you 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.960 can go and and count them. Um. But yeah, the 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:35.320 Hustler an interesting plane, a great escape capsule. Get in 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.320 that cinebyte head. Okay, let's look at another one. How 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.159 about the XP seventy Valkyrie. Oh yeah, so this this 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.119 one's really cool too. So this was a prototype for 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.240 the B seventy. And this was another beautiful delta wing 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.720 bomber of the sixties, designed to be a high altitude 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.719 mock three bomber. It never actually entered service, so visually 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.159 it's most striking feature and the one that that if 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.520 you've looked at aviation pictures in the past, you might go, oh, 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.760 that air plant, it's uh, it's probably because it has 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.600 these two large canards which acted control surfaces. Essentially imagine 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.600 the so imagine the airplane is a bird. It has 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.879 two little wings right behind its ears. Um, those are 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.680 just you know, control surfaces essentially located behind the cockpit. 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.560 Performance Wise, however, the really crazy thing about the XP 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.040 seventy was that it was designed to fold its wings 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:30.200 down hearing supersonic flight and ride its own shock wave 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.480 quote much as a surfer rides in ocean wave. That's 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.600 a according to the NASA dot gov fact sheet on 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.240 this aircraft. Wow. So if you look at pictures of 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.760 this aircraft, it also is very visually striking. As you say, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.320 I thought this one looks kind of like a paper plane. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.840 It does. Like it's very white and very thin, extremely 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.320 thin as far as the wings go, has a paper 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.000 like kind of quality to it, except that the the 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:57.440 of course, the middle fuselage is kind of circular, but 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.840 otherwise it's it's dead ringer for paper plane. Yeah, it 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:02.480 looks it looks like a paper plane or a piece 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.880 of oregony, almost like an oregony crane. Yeah, I see 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.879 that too. So this airplane design came about in a 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.879 time of uncertain future for traditional bombers, and the Kennedy 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:18.000 administration ended up scrapping it, so it became a research aircraft, 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.240 largely for supersonic transport research looking into the idea of 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:27.480 using supersonic airline or supersonic sonic transport planes. In general, 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:29.840 it was the right shape, it was the right size, 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.679 and even though the program was scrapped, they had two prototypes, 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:38.280 so you had two XP seventy Valkyries, So it was 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.040 sort of a prototype concorde. Well it was like that. 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:44.639 Well it was totally a bomber, but but it was 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.800 the right size and it had enough in common with 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.440 the designs that were being looked at for commercial use 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.639 that it could be used to explore the possibilities there. So, 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.000 despite some of the problems, the early flights provided data 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.200 on a number of issues acing supersonic transport. These included 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:08.960 aircraft noise, operational problems, control system design, uh comparison of 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:12.240 winternal predictions with what actually happens during the course of flight, 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.480 high ALTITA to clear air turbulence, all of these issues. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.280 I mean, this was there was still so much to 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.600 learn at the time about supersonic flight. But this one 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.960 did have an ejection capsule. Yes, back to the main point. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.320 The reason we're talking about is that it did feature 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.400 an injection capsule and it had a clam clam shell 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.199 design similar to that that we discussed in the Hustler. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.399 So they're bringing back shutter face, right, Yeah, shutter faces 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.440 in action that the ideally the chair that you're in 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.399 the cockpit seat, it kind of like folds back and 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.160 then the clam shell snaps over. Uh, and it contains 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.919 survival gear oxygen systems. It also contained the flight control 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.080 stick for the pilot and um, you know, it's very 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:59.640 much the same idea. We We only had two of these, 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.920 so it's there's not a lot of ejection data on it. 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.639 But there is one key incident that occurred with one 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.560 of the XP seventies, and that was a tragedy involving 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:15.960 one of them in nineteen sixty six. June eighth, nineteen 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.760 sixty six, the second of the two XP seventies crashed 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.280 following a mid air collision with the NASA's F one 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.840 oh four in Chase plane. How did that happen? Um, 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:31.159