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Most airlines now offer fear of flying courses, most airports provide flying lessons and some specialist companies offer zero-gravity flight experiences.

Are there any companies that provide 'ejection' experiences, where you can fly an aircraft and eject from it at a pre-determined location?

Please note, I'm not talking about sky-diving. I want to actually use an ejection seat.

Cloud
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3 Answers3

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No, there are no companies offering ejection seat experiences, for many reasons:

  1. Cost: Ejection seats are expensive, base costs are somewhere around $100,000 per seat. Seats can't generally be re-used, therefore the cost of an experience is going to be well over that
  2. No platform: There are airplanes that are designed to eject someone and keep flying safely, they are used exclusively for seat testing and not open to the public. Someone would have to develop and build an airplane designed to give a "fighter plane ejection" experience
  3. Ejection is incredibly dangerous: the chances of injury or death are very high. Ejection seat companies have used test dummies instead of humans for decades for this reason
  4. Ejection can lead to life changing health issues: the G forces on a modern seat are at least 12G, and go up from there - they can't be any less or you won't clear the airplane. This compresses the spine and can lead to debilitating, life lasting injury. If your ejection position isn't right you can break or lose a limb
  5. Ejection isn't fun: there's not a pilot or crew member in existence who has used an ejection seat and said "Whoopee! Let's do that again!" Instead they say, if they are capable of speech, "Ow!" or "Please get me clean underwear."

So a company would have to spend tens of millions to develop a system that only rich people would be able to use, still less would want to, and a very precious few would be crazy enough to try.

GdD
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    I agree 100%, and upvoted this answer. Not hard to imagine though, a very similar response 100 years ago to someone asking about parachuting for fun, but look at the industry now! And while it is a very bad idea to intentionally experience a 0/0 military seat for recreation, it’s also not hard to imagine some enterprising company in the future designing a much milder, less expensive and reusable recreational seat to replicate the experience on a roughly 25% scale. – Michael Hall Nov 26 '19 at 20:02
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    Heck, I might even consider punching out of a specially configured 208 Caravan at 80-100KIAS and riding a 3-4 G rocket seat upwards for a few hundred feet. 3-4 Gs is very fun! I’m not saying such a company would get a solid return on their investment, but we do know that people would be willing to try it... – Michael Hall Nov 26 '19 at 20:02
  • I'm not sure that's what sunk cost means.. – Antzi Nov 27 '19 at 09:11
  • A sunk cost is one that cannot be recovered @Antzi, I'm happy to rephrase though. – GdD Nov 27 '19 at 09:24
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    "There are no airplanes that are designed to eject someone and keep flying safely" - not quite true, there is one: Martin Baker maintains a Meteor for exactly that purpose http://martin-baker.com/2018/06/18/martin-baker-meteor-back-action/ – Party Ark Nov 27 '19 at 09:24
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    Cool @PartyArk, I thought they'd retired that. – GdD Nov 27 '19 at 09:26
  • @GdD sorry you are 100% right – Antzi Nov 27 '19 at 09:26
  • Minor nitpick: I believe the F-14 can eject only the RIO and keep flying. Whether that was a design requirement or just happened to work out that way, I don't know, but we have at least anecdotal proof of it being the case. The airframe is also still in service with the IRIAF. – AEhere supports Monica Nov 27 '19 at 09:32
  • Also, shameless plug of a question about ejection fatality rates: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/68529/what-are-the-ejection-injury-and-fatality-rates – AEhere supports Monica Nov 27 '19 at 09:34
  • There's more than one 2 seater which has been known to keep flying after the RIO ejects @AEheresupportsMonica, the F4 is another that comes to mind. They aren't designed for that and there's no guarantees it will work though. – GdD Nov 27 '19 at 09:46
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Certain civilian/aerobatic planes come with ejection seats, and that requires training. Ejection seat training is as close as you'll get to "actually using an ejection seat" barring an actual use that is not for fun. Here are some companies that provide said training and you'll get to feel the 10 G. Though if you are not fit I doubt they will offer their services. Spinal injury is not fun.

https://www.amst.co.at/en/aerospace-medicine/training-simulation-products/basic-and-advanced-ejection-seat-trainer/

https://www.etcaircrewtraining.com/ejectionseat/

https://www.nastarcenter.com/about-us/our-equipment/ejection-seat-trainer

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Yes, there is.

Since ejecting from an aircraft destroys the aircraft, you'll just have to buy one with an ejection seat. I'd recommend an L-39 or a Dassault Alpha Jet. They can be had for about \$1.5-$4 million.

After that you can pretty much do whatever you want. Head out over the ocean, pull the ejector handle, wait for the Coast Guard.

Seriously though, no. The chances of serious injury or death, especially for somebody who does not have the years physical training required of fighter pilots is almost sure to result in your own permanent injury or death. Ejecting from an aircraft destroys the aircraft, so nobody is offering a "fly and eject" experience package. Might as well take the "Russian Roulette" experience with it, you're chances are probably better with that game.

Ron Beyer
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    I don't think ejection always destroys the aircraft. There are stories out there about planes continuing to be flown after crew has ejected. https://www.quora.com/In-a-two-seater-combat-aircraft-if-one-of-the-pilots-ejects-can-the-the-other-pilot-continue-flight-and-land-safely – DJClayworth Nov 26 '19 at 14:55
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    Apparently the odds of surviving an ejection are around 84% https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/68529/what-are-the-ejection-injury-and-fatality-rates – Notts90 Nov 26 '19 at 16:10
  • This literally had me laughing out loud in the office... thank you! :) – Cloud Nov 26 '19 at 17:17
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    https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/52797/why-does-martin-baker-use-a-gloster-meteor-as-a-testbed-for-ejection-seats – jean Nov 26 '19 at 17:56
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    The Cornfield Bomber is another example of a plane that survived ejection. It was even repaired and returned to service! – Fred Larson Nov 26 '19 at 21:33
  • @Notts90 This is not really a relevant number to this question. One can expect that for a planned ejection, the rate would be closer to 100%. – Antzi Nov 27 '19 at 09:15