Word: airstream
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...plenty of space for a seated pilot behind a reciprocating engine. But jet engines are slimmer and designers have learned to fold tanks and guns into nose and wings. To take full advantage of lower frontal areas, pilots may have to stretch out in the direction of the airstream...
...airplanes fly faster & faster, bailing out gets harder & harder. The airstream, pouring past the plane at 500 m.p.h., smacks the would-be "caterpillar" with the force of a padded pile driver. If he survives this blow, he runs the risk of being slammed against the tail surfaces...
...back toward the belly of the plane. At the end is a second door with two leaves. The rear leaf flies off into space. The forward leaf is pushed out hydraulically to form a windscreen. When escaping crewmen slide down the chute, the screen softens the blow from the airstream, and the deadly tail surfaces pass above them harmlessly...
Escape chutes and ejection seats are "safe" for speeds up to 500 m.p.h., but no one thinks that they will be used much at higher speeds. When the average-sized pilot, crouched in his seat, enters a 500 m.p.h. airstream, his body is hit (according to Navy calculations) by a pressure blow of 2,813 lbs. At 600 m.p.h., he gets a blow...
...added to the compressed air by combustion shoves a jet of hot, high-speed gas out the rear end with a noise like thunder. There is nothing inside a typical ramjet except fuel nozzles and a gridlike "flame-holder" to keep the flame from being blown out by the airstream...