How Would Maverick Survive Ejecting From the SR-72 Darkstar At Mach 10?
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- čas přidán 17. 10. 2022
- Sometimes people tweet wrong things and I feel compelled to make a video: Neil Degrasse Tyson made a number of comments about Top Gun 2: Maverick including this one which spoke to me:
neiltyson/status/...
Now, he does a fine job communicating cool things about science, but he’s an astronomer and hasn’t spend nearly as much time studying aerospace as myself, nor did he recently make a video about the most extreme Ejection seat ever made for the X-15.
Darkstar in MSFS footage comes from Brian Murray
• SR-72 Darkstar - How t...
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As Jeremy Clarkson once famously said,
"Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you."
An old classic. I wonder who said something to that amount first. Well, honestly, the one that said it first likely never got it recorded in any way. Though, maybe one could do a search for when something like that was uttered in known literature.
Too many people are commenting this 😤
Well, technically it's not _speed_ per se, it's the _acceleration_ that does it, in too short a time period. The Apollo astronauts hit much higher speeds going to and returning from the Moon, but they experienced it over enough time.
Still a good quote! 🙂
@@jaymac7203 And now you just made the problem worse! >_
@@bobblum5973 that's what he said
It was a scramjet, so it's safe to assume the altitude was around 35km as per several studies examining optimal alt/velocity for the engines. The dynamic pressure there is pretty low and surviving the ejection is possible. The temperature as you mentioned you, would definitely melt most of the suit parts if it didn't have an ejection capsule
Just my 2c
Neil be wrong, he be so wrong
Due to your standing Anton (yes I am a long term subscriber to your channel) I believe you :)
Hello wonderful person. :)
Not his first time either. He seems to be an okay scientist, a good science communicator, but not a very good engineer. I still think he's done a lot for science in general, and he's human, so I can forgive him the odd faux pas
@@tedferkin my problem with him is that he inserts himself into debunking climate change deniers and other idiots, but Neil's demonstrable arrogance and frequent fuckups outside his narrow area of expertise gives credence to the anti-science peoples claims, which lets impressionable youth or otherwise uneducated people believe anti-science lies like vaccine skepticism or climate change denial.
He's just not a good ambassador for science anymore. Same with bill Nye.
He'll show up in Russia or China. Or more likely, in the Pacific Ocean.
Niel DeGrasse Tyson has been one of those scientists I roll my eyes at regularly. Partly because his fame has obviously gone to his head, and the other because... Well:
One of the things you end up learning in college, is that you know YOUR field... _And nobody else's._ And you also learn, if you're paying attention, that the higher up your degree, the more narrow it's focus. Associates and Bachelor's degrees are essentially general [field ]1 and 2. When you get a Master's degree, you're focusing on one CORNER of the field. And the PhD is not called the 'Piled Higher and Deeper' for nothing (as it refers to the paperwork hell you put yourself through to earn it).
Tyson has a BA in Physics, and a PhD in Astrophysics. He's got a good grasp of general physics across the board, and has piled it higher and deeper for a specific corner of his astrophysics career. If he talks to you about astronomy, sit down and enjoy the conversation. If he tries to tell you how programming works, or electronics, or the hypersonic, high altitude plasma dynamics of scramjet vehicles... Walk away, because he doesn't know jack at that point.
Then again he’s only human, he can make mistake, when you look at it a face value, ya he should be dead. But when you dig into it he could probably survive. I’m pretty good at piano, if I do say so myself, but whenever I play I don’t play at 100% sometimes I just take a crack and a few meme songs and get off, could be the same thing
@@Dis_Play22
Sim City 3000, Sim Broadway. Go take a crack at the piano in that. Every time I listen, I get tempted to go learn violin, just to play the violin segment.
He also wants to get people interested in science and is more than happy when conversations like this happen.
If he tries to tell you anything the military/nasa hasn't figured out in 50+ years of jet development, run away. You're 100% right about the higher the degree, the more focused someone is. In just five minutes of research I learned early NASA research rocket aircraft like the Bell X-2 used an escape capsule type mechanism for ejection.
If he talks like an expert in subject matter that he doesn't specialize in. Just because you specialize in one category doesn't mean you can't learn anything else or at least cite an expert supplemented by your field of study
I'm sure that the writers expected the fallout of such ejection speculation, and therefore just showed a long range shot of the Darkstar cloud of disintegration and leaving all the specifics, or lack thereof, to the Monday morning quarterbacks. That way it can always be stated that, yes, it COULD be done and he COULD survive.
Great video Scott!
Agreed
More that it creates more hype for the movie.
Or the writers wanted to keep it ambiguous. Maybe tom cruise dies and the rest of the movie is a dream he experience while he dies. It’s a pretty good theory that’s floating around in the internet. That’s my head cannon 😂.
I don't think I properly understood how fast Mach 10 was until I saw that 2g turn mapped over the US.... thanks for putting things so neatly in perspective!
Unfortunately someone does not know how Mach speed works. Mach 1 is not a fixed velocity. While it does make sense to talk about speed relative to sound at ground level for ISS, as the speed of sound out there is practically zero as sound will not propagate in such a thin atmosphere, thinking that Mach 1 is always 343 m/s when you talk about aircraft is wrong.
@@57thorns what does that have to do with the video
@@57thorns clearly you’re Ukrainian because you’re a loser and a dick
@@joshh2410 The video assumes that mach 10 is five times faster than Mach 2, which it is not as the altitude is different.
@@57thorns Sigh... Mach is always expressed compared to the True Aispeed or even the Ground Speed, not the Indicated one. Of course the plane would only be at 200 knots IAS at this altitude.
“It’s not speed that kills you, it’s stopping quickly”
Also for the theoretical altitude he would have been at. The air is way thinner, so less friction. Its very do-able. Navy SEALs have pulled off similar stunts in the past.
Or as we say in bad Swenglish; "it's not the fart that kills you, it's the smell".
Coz "fart" is Swedish for "speed" and "smäll" (roughly pronounced "smell") means "bang".
Jeremy Clarkson 😁😁
@@kenrickohlson1989 correct!
Yeah!
Seems like many people have hard to get that, after all the "speed kills" bullshit on the roads and the police trying to justify their big source of revenue from speeding tickets 😛
Glad someone finally addressed this. There was a reason the details of the ejection were not shown in the film - to leave room for these very rational engineering solutions.
I love it that you did the math for the turn. As an Aerospace engineer I had my doubts about the turn aswell
The turning issue was the first thing I thought of when I saw the movie, given the SR71 took a whole State in which to turn, the Darkstar probably should have taken the entire Continental United States in which to turn.
They did it with the SR-71.
@@seyumaiayami3536he SR-71 only went Mach 3. Do you know the difference between Mach 3 and Mach 10? It's exactly 3.3333.... times faster than the SR-71. So the turning radius should at least be the entire continental United States. He's not arguing if it could turn, but how small that turning radius is.
To paraphrase Jeremy Clarkson "speed doesn't kill, suddenly becoming stationary does."
Exactly. It's like my own theory of relativity. You can happily walk along a high-speed train at 3-4mph. If you step out before it's arrived at the station, it's going to hurt. Heat gets a bit more complex though with standard stuff being based on STP, rather than factoring in air/molecular densities.
I am not afraid of speed, it's those sudden stops that suck.....
Welcome to Bottom Maverick, mates
@roll ah, projection.
The basic idea of that statement far precedes Clarkson. The oldest one I can think of right now is "I'm not afraid of falling. I'm an excellent faller. It's those inconvenient landings that I never could get the hang of." Now your statement was more succinct I admit, but I think mine has more flavor. (Not sure where it comes from. I'm thinking Douglas Adams, but I could be wrong.)
And then there's this: _“Tiffany was not afraid of heights at all. She could walk past tall trees without batting an eyelid. Looking up at huge towering mountains didn’t bother her a bit._
_What she was afraid of, although she hadn’t realized it up until this point, was depths.”_
― Terry Pratchett _A Hat Full of Sky_ 2004
Top Gun: Maverick is entertaining on two levels: as a cool piloting action movie and as a target for tearing apart for its inaccuracies. Loads of fun on both counts! I'm pleasantly surprised that this one bit was less ridiculous than I'd thought.
By the way, my mom's husband is a retired veterinarian who was involved in the supersonic bear ejection system test and subsequent euthanization and autopsy. I remember being a little disturbed when he told me about it. He noted that the autopsy was done specifically to look for brain injury that wouldn't have been detectable through observation, and that sacrificing a bear to save human lives was worthwhile. I still find it disturbing, but I can't argue with his reasoning.
EDIT: I talked with my mom tonight and mentioned this video. (Hi Mom if you read the comments!) Her husband mentioned that every single bear in the ejection tests had hemorrhaging at the base of their brain. It's sad, but the alternative would've been that happening to human pilots.
Thanks for the additional information and context! People hate animal testing... but pretty sure they would hate people dying or suffering more. AI is getting good enough where hopefully the need for animal testing will drop off significantly.
The main reason it initially 'seems' silly to most people... is that far to many think "open up a window and jump out" as the ONLY type of ejection system on aircraft..
So many people forget that Space crew Launches like SpaceX's Dragon, and whatever Blue Origin's is? both have 'capsule ejection' systems. Rockets are not the only vehicles with humans on board that have that same type of system. F111's have it (as stated in this video), and a few others have various variations of it.
Once you put asside the "jumped out a window at Mach10" and start thinking "entire cockpit separated and he crawled out of it after landing", it starts making more sense :D
I thought you were going for the usual Utube funny comment with the bear ejection seat and the testing
But wow! That factoid is very interesting!
Lol why a bear though?
Why does the ejection seat need to launch a 600 lb grizzly?
@@BlooCollaGal They didn't use grizzly bears. I don't know what species it actually was or if they used juveniles, but they used subjects roughly approximating the size of adult humans.
"Bear would've been fine if not for the autopsy." That cracked me up.
it’s the most British joke i’ve ever heard lolll. idk if he’s actually British though, never been to his channel
It also cracked the bear up. Roughly in half, right between the ribcage.
@@randgrithr7387this is so underrated hahahahaha
@@cloud041089 Scottish
I love the scene because it instantly reminded me about the story of a SR 71 that that broke up after an engine failure and one of the pilots survived.
But only one. The other pilot wasn't so lucky.
Also, this is supposed to happen at over 3x that speed.
But Scott Manley is right. There are systems for this stuff.
SpaceShip Two suffered an almost identical fate, it broke up at supersonic speed, and the pilot literally fell out and survived (the aircraft broke up around him, as did the SR-71!). Unfortunately, just like the SR-71, his copilot passed away.
... and then walked into a bar and ordered a glass of water. sounds like a joke to me.
@@ondrejzelazko5266 a joke like your intelligence? Bill weaver 1966.
@@ondrejzelazko5266 It's a movie not a documentary, a saying that's been slapped onto both top gun movies. he could survive but the bar bit is just to add a humorous tone
He can survive anything, due to plot armor.
Much like the Enterprise in Star Trek
Sounds like he didn't even need plot armor
@@worldcomicsreview354 The Enterprise did get destroyed a few times but it certainly survived a lot.
Neil Degrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist with an amazing case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome and a conviction that he knows literally everything.
aren't all physicists like that ?
@@monad_tcp - Nope. They're not. Richard Feynman. I rest my case.
@@Garryck-1 exception that confirms the rule.
I'm kidding, its foolish to reduce a complex human to that.
With his warm voice and serious face, NDT is a great host and good at telling stories. His 624 citations collected in about 40 years on Google Scholar indicate that he is not a remarkable scientist.
@@monad_tcp Not even close. Most physicists have actually been very humbled by the universe, and they realize how little they know.
I'm a physics major, and the physics professors have been the most humble professors I've had.
NDT is just a good host with an arrogance problem. I recommend looking into the guy he claims to be copying, Carl Sagan.
Sagan was an absolute humble king, I wish I were alive at the same time as him.
8:49 Omg yes, my first reaction to seeing that turn was "there's absolutely NO way you'd be making that at mach 10". Glad to see it addressed
7Gs though would be just fine, I don't get what he's on about. Some of the extreme centrifuge F-16 profiles are 9G for a minute and a half.
@@mobius7089 There is a clip of a Hungarian pilot testing for Gripen in Sweden, he keeps 10Gs for 30 Seconds in the centrifuge test and handles it like a champ. Video is named - More 30 seconds at 9g - the G-Monster is back!
6:43 - Imagine being the guy that had to open the escape capsule with a live bear inside of it after having shot it out of an aircraft going super sonic.
Remote detonated explosive bolts.
Bear was drugged, guess the Air Force had a bear problem, as normally they did these sort of experiments using a full grown pig, as it very much approximates the human body in accidents. Normally after the test the pig has an invite to the BBQ, as guest of honour, after the autopsy.
Imagine being the bear, slaughtered for stupid F W man creating war machines
IIRC the recovery crew reported that the bear was "not happy"
Update - the bear I'm thinking of wasn't fired from a B-58. He was fired from a rocket sled.
that may or may not still be drugged.
Neil also said you can't see the curvature of the earth at 50km, and at this point I'm wondering why we keep letting him say things?
He apparently inspires the kids
Because he's Token's Dad! :)
@@farvatron Holy shit! XD
@@farvatron So he knows how to play bass guitar ?
He is slightly better than Bill Nye. I believe that Tyson is just lazy and flippant sometimes while Nye is just a grifter. I would love to hand Nye my Mater's level Statics and Dynamics final and compare our scores. Lol
When you started talking about a cocoon ejection system I got a nostalgic flashback to a 90's sci-fi called Space: above and beyond, and their hammerhead fighters. As a 10 year old a loved that show and I still think the design of the fighter is amazing, and the cockpit loading into the ship and launching from a tube system similar to Battlestar Galactica is something I still think would be a viable method for large carrier style spaceships.
Easy as eatin' pancakes...
Super presentation Scott, on a side note maybe you could do another presentation related to this. During the development and testing phase of SR-71, at approximately Mach 3.2 and SR-71 test plane literally disintegrated around the pilot and operator, instantly placing both in the pressure and heat stream of over Mach 3, pilot was unconscious the automatic deployment system activated as parachute at low altitude he landed in a farmer's field who happened to use a small helicopter to survey his land saw the event and immediately transported the pilot to the hospital where he subsequently survived, however the operator or co-pilot died instantly from broken neck, the automatic deployment system properly deployed as parachute and he landed intact but was dead due to the broken neck. Maybe you could do a full analysis on this incident since it is Declassified and the information is fully available publicly
I was hoping someone would mention this, thank you.
The Crash investigation revealed that the pilot rode the fuselage part of the way down and was not instantly exposed.
@@imjashingyou3461 this is blatantly false and this is just another CZcams created troll block it These type Trolls are created by the Twelve IQ anti-American anti-free speech Trolls that work for CZcams period that combined IQ of all CZcams employees is likely less than 12 combined Simply block these trolls period These pop up immediately they have no content or they have one or two items designed to look like they have some content period just block them
I was wondering if he mentioned this
@@keithb7981 what are you ranting about?
Hi Scott, pleased you mention this. For the F-111, which was a Mach 2+ aircraft, the 2 pilots had a pod capsule for ejection, and even earlier, the B-58 Hustler has separate clamshells for each of the crew.(the pilot, has visibility and some flight control I believe) Upon ejection, the clamshells were cleverly designed ( after prolonged testing) allow crew survival at Mach 3 at altitude.
My Tyson is a debunker by nature.
I was gonna say this... Thx
Being in SAC I remember the FB 111. The most scared I've ever been was watching our nuclear armed alert FB 111's take off full afterburners. The Iranians had just taken over the American Embassy
I'd be curious to hear Mr. Manley discuss the disintegration of the SR-71 952 at mach 3.
Just looked for this incident - interesting story.
I remember seeing a diagram for the X-30 where a 180-degree turn began near the Canadian border and ended near the Mexican border. I forget the Mach number, but it was in the mid-teens.
... probably the diagram at 10:20
@@robertkeddie Similar, but there was a slightly nicer one in Aerospace America back in the day.
The Swiss made "Libelle" Anti-G-suit which is used by Typhoon pilots allow pilots to stay conscious at G-Loads of 9 G and more for a pretty long time.
It's an extremely simple principle (working without any external energy or control) and certainly worth a video!
Having mentioned B-58 you could have also bring in the XB-70 Valkyrie. It also had those cool escape pods integrated with the seats
Or the F-111 escape pod.
@@barryscott6222 - Which directed the design of the B-1A crew escape pod.
@@barryscott6222 ?? You kidding? F111 was shown
No one going to mention the real life event that definitely inspired the scene from the movie!? That time a super fast skunksworks plane flew for a test flight, experienced an inlet unstart, disintegrated mid flight, and had the pilot survive?
Because that really did happen to an SR-71 pilot!
but that was at Mach 3. for an ejection to be survivable at over 3 times that speed, considerable engineering challenges would need to be considered.
@@ihatemegatron216 They have considered considerable considerations, considering.
Yep. Though, the crew didn't eject. The plane actually disintegrated around them. The pilot's seat even remained in the plane. One of the things that saved him was his flight suit, which inflated and acted like a mini-capsule. The flight test specialist that was with him broke his neck, unfortunately.
@@ihatemegatron216
It also happened 60 years ago.
Technology has improved somewhat since than.
+1 because you used the word *unstart* 😁
Totally agree with you on the analysis. The thermal protection system for the escape capsule would have to be pretty strong though. But since it’s a single use protection, it could be made of ablative material. It would be fun to compute a free fall trajectory of a non lifting body, such as a sphere, from Mach 10 horizontal flight at say 120 kft downwards and integrate the thermal flux to compare it with some reentry TPS capabilities.
Great video.
I thought of the closed escape pod thing should have been used in the movie.
But your observation about the altitude and the lack of atmospheric pressure is spot on.
I never thought about that.
Reminds me of that NASA "coffin" made as a single-user reentry pod somewhere in the 50s. The time when everything rocket science and nuclear engineering was crazy.
Neil Degrasse Tyson just likes to hear himself speak
He seems to have verbal diarrhoea these days...
👍 that is so very true!!!😂
Definitely!
Someone else who sees him for the pompous windbag he is. Refreshing.
He does have a very buttery voice
People assume that DeGrasse Tyson speaks for Science. Science is perfectly capable of speaking for itself.
Just remember, really he's just another educated guy on the Internet who has a habit of speaking his mind and having people assume this is the official position of 'Science'. It isn't.
Well, he has a PhD in astrophysics. Most people do not. That doesn't mean he's always right but he's pretty likely to be when speaking about his own field of expertise. In this case, he wasn't.
@@mgscheue
Yup, that's the thing, he's not stupid, but there is no person in the world who is right about _everything_ , you can see where his reasoning comes from, but his knowledge was incomplete, this is far from rare on the Internet...
If Tom Cruise had said in the Movie that the Sun comes up in the West every 24 Hours, and DGT wanted to be pedantic about that, it's fine, he spent years earning the right to be pedantic about it, but as you say, Astrophysicist is not Aeronautical Engineer. Leave Rocket Science to the Rocket Scientists ;)
@@mgscheue well.. the thing is that astrophysics is not quite what a lot of People think it is. Its still a narrow field that dont automatically inply you know things around it.
Its also a missunderstanding that the smartast People are the one who get tge PhD. That might be the case at some places, but not everywhere. In reallty it tend to be a comitty that chose really a person they like.
And during some period specially the 80tys. There was very few candiates.
@@mgscheue astrophysics is not not really related to fluid dynamics, which is the issue here.
Many people have PhDs but not all of them wave it around in your face. The actor of Walter White's brother in law has a PhD, too btw. If your'e not active doing research etc your academic titles from 30 years or longer ago mean nothing.
I can say I appreciate your specific breakdown and explanation of the Mach-10 ejection. Very insightful. Thank you!
Bailing out from 300,000 feet at Mach 10, a concept illustrated by Lee J. Ames from the 1959 book Man’s Reach Into Space by Roy A. Gallant. This illustration shows exit at 7500 mph over Boston, three minutes later going 3700 mph at 140,000. At 100,000 ft going 700 mph, 75,000 ft going 375 mph, 50,000 ft going 185 mph, parachute deploy at 15,000 ft over NYC. I posted this on rec.skydiving back in the days to a discussion of "parachuting from space" and some of the comments to this illustration were
“That would be *very* cool to do”
“Your spot would have to be accurate to within inches, wouldn't it? At that speed, at that height, a couple of inches either way and you could be up creek without a paddle! ”
“A birdman suit while de-orbiting from 300,000 feet? Not *very * cool* at all...”
“Shoot, if the glue and the fabric hold up, ya might make it down to 150,000 before you began to look like a small version of the MIR space station over the South Pacific.”
“It would lend a *whole* new meaning to the phrase ‘Smoke'n it down....’”
I guess we don't see the ejection so it's possible that the cockpit throws out an enclosed 'escape pod' that coasts on an aeroballistic arc and then he rejects from that with a regular parachute when close to the ground
The B-58 Hustler had an escape capsule but that flew at Mach 2. A snail's pace compared to how fast the Dark Star was going. I'd say that what's more likely is that the entire front of the plane can separate.
@@twistedyogert also. It works in kerbal space program! :D
@@victor_silva6142 The old nose and cockpit escape glider, 9/10 Jeb safety rating (he said it needs more explosive bolts)
@@alexanderglass2057 kudos if your escape cockpit has enough deltav to a full orbit! :D
@@twistedyogert the Dark Star was probably also flying a lot higher since it was a SCRAMJET, meaning with that speed the effective range of the dynamic pressure can be achieved at much higher altitudes. so like Scott said, its possible that the air resistance the pilot would feel while ejecting from the Darkstar at mach 10 would likely be lower than a lower altitude jet at mach 2
I am SOOOO glad you did this video. That scene bothered me a lot at first and everyone in the industry was moaning about it. But the more you think about it, it's perfectly feasible with a system designed for that speed/altitude.
and considering that maverick (and maybe to a lesser extent Tom Cruise) is barely human with a lot of protagonist power behind him, its also possible to imagine he would survive that turn.
There is a theory that the entire movie is actually a dream sequence Maverick experiences right before he dies. This theory kind of seems legit since you actually don't need a PHD in physics to assume ejection at Mach 10 is lethal.
@@plmarshall30 you just watched an entire video saying its possible and not that surprising to survive it, and you still come here and say that its definitely lethal ?
@@danilooliveira6580 Yup, that's exactly what I am saying. I guess the only way to really figure out if it is possible to survive or if it is lethal, put some poor soul in a rocket and give it a go. Hope I didn't ruin the movie for you :)
@@plmarshall30 you mean like the SR-71 that disintegrated at mach 3.2 78,000ft high in 1966 after a inlet control system failure ? because there both pilot and copilot ejected at supersonic speeds (or more precisely were ejected from the airplane as the forces ripped them out of the ejection seat) and one of them survived with nothing more than a few bruises, the copilot sadly died from a broken neck.
considering that the darkstar was a scramjet and operated at much higher altitudes on possibly smaller dynamic pressures compared to the blackbird, was a modern plane and not something made on the 60's, and very likely had a fancy ejection system, its not strange at all that Maverick survived.
Super informative!
I was also one of the guys who thought Mav would be turned into a long red cloud by the airstream. ^^
Thank you Scott for clearing up that worry about the "deadly" ejection! I had the same worry when I saw the movie, but your explanation was brilliant, especially since they COULD have given the pilot some sort of ejection cocoon! So I like the movie even better now.
This is both a great learning experience and a lot of fun to see the friendly banter in the space/science world!! Thanks Scott!
Also regarding the turn... Making that turn with such a small radius, thus increasing the load factor, also would increase the energy needed to maintain speed. So if they wanted to achieve Mach 10.0, a turn was not advisable at all, it would have bleed a lot of speed (energy), moreso in a 7g turn.
Great video Scott. Showing how adults make science.
EXACTLY!!! This is a point I was thinking when I watched the movie. If the aircraft struggles mightily to make M 10.0 in straight line flight, even a 10 degree bank angle would add about 35% more drag and the speed would drop dramatically.
But I didn’t bother mentioning it because, as others have pointed out, this movie is not a documentary. A little literary license is entirely justified to make for a good story. And this movie was very entertaining.
It was a very good movie, I think, and I think they stretched to keep as much as "reasonable" and as grounded as possible. I guess today, right now, I like to think of it as what the idealistic daydream of a 14 year-old aviation nerd would be when looking to the future. :)
Well put Scott. I immediately pointed out on Neil's Twitter that it is not certain death and there are ejection capsules like the Hustler's. One other thing to note is that the surface temperature is related to the radius of curvature. The shuttle's blunt leading edge allows it to be cooler than the sharp leading edge of a hypersonic vehicle. So you can play with the bluntness of the body to reduce peak temperature. You could also consider inflatable heatshields like we are now testing with the upcoming LOFTID launch!
Simple fact: in the universe of the movie, the aircraft was already certified (for safety issues). If they hadn't a in-world feasible solution to the ejection system, he wouldn't even be flying it to Mach 10 in the first place. So be it the pod idea or the whole cockpit, it's only logical that they had it figured out.
that's like a really lame bad way to explain anything.
absolutely not. SR-71 flew at M3 and had no feasible way of surviving an ejection at that speed. the only way was to slow down the speed enough before ejecting
@@olbakk1645 oh wow! I didn't know that, thanks. But these were other times, I don't see something like that being allowed nowadays, not even for military aircraft
@@olbakk1645 I mean there was an instance where it fell apart at mach 3 and the pilot survived
I didn't know enough to question that scenario when I saw the movie (which I enjoyed immensely), and I didn't see the tweet, but I clicked on your video as soon as I saw the title. Not being a physicist, and having only basic mathematical skills (add,subtract,multiply and divide) and having forgotten pretty much all of my high school geometry and trigonometry (still got my algebra though), I thoroughly enjoyed your explanation. You make it easy to follow. Thank You. 👍🏾👍🏾
Well, a lot of math can be done specifically with just those operations and some algebra.
The part where it becomes a pain in the ass is following all the notation, variable encoding, and all of the other obfuscation in order to just save space on a paper.
@@Ilyak1986 Yes super easy. Then the algebra becomes coordinates in a vector and the entire (5 dimensional) vector becomes part of a differential equation and then you start sobbing violently and question your life choices.
@@user-lv7ph7hs7l oh, right...well, I work in data science/statistics/buy side quant finance, so...I don't need to deal with that. Once you get into mixing calculus with a bunch of linear algebra, things start to go to hell in a handbasket in a hurry.
@@Ilyak1986 Yes the damn linear algebra amd vector analysis. Gives me heart palpitations thinking about those exams. Still haven't even gone to the exam for vector analysis. Yuck.
@@Ilyak1986 Been thinking about going into finance, probably know enough maths for that and they pay is way better than if I finish it and go into research or some boring crap like that. At this point I don't care anymore I just want to be paid well no matter how menial or boring it is.
I love that plane in MSFS! A bit surreal to see my footage from my video in here at 2:25. Always love your videos!
He should have given you some credit!
Let's get this to be a top comment
Oh is that where the footage came from? I’ll be honest, I just asked my son Orion to get some. It was faster than booting up MSFS
@@scottmanley The legend has spoken! I figured it was innocent. But maybe throw Brian's channel in the description?!
@@scottmanley It's all cool! I've caught myself signing off with "Fly Safe" on a few videos.
Scott, thank you for clearing this up for those of us who do not think on the edge of space.
Excellent video, up to your usual standard.
I found the element on ejection systems particularly interesting, in part because it reminded me of the plane that never flew (the Miles M52)
Interestingly, considering that had it actually been allowed to continue to completion, the project could have provided the first aircraft to break Mach 1. Miles, who were the primary organisation behind the project, were already aware of the problems of ejection at high speed, so they incorporated an ejectable cockpit into the design (bearing in mind that this was the mid 1940s)
I'm guessing that this would have been the first such escape system, had the project proceeded? Instead, the UK government canned the whole project at 90 percent completion - giving rise to countless conspiracy theories (and the more reasonable observation that no civil servants should be allowed any influence in advanced research)
This met and/or exceeded my expectations. 10/10 would share and watch again.
Hearing you talk about ejecting in a pod takes me back to when I first found your channel, Scott. That was back in my EVE Online days.
One potential "simple" solution to protect the pilot from the hypersonic heat could be something similar to the early MiG-21s, which used the canopy as a "shield" to protect the pilots in case of supersonic ejections.
But at the same time it could be hard to make this aerodynamically stable after the ejection, and possibly the same issue could happen with the systems that eject the whole cockpit along with the pilots.
Thank you so much for putting into words what I could not. While watching the movie, that turn had me shouting at the screen, not his survival.
Great video. Thank you.
Manley schooling De Grasse Tyson made my day. By the way, Maverick's suit after the landing seemed a bit burned, wasn't it? At least he had some smoke marks on his forehead.
Hollywood burn marks. His skin was flawless, but the smoked suit turned the gag of the kid thinking he was an astronaut even more funny! 🤣
Could have been from the ejection seat, especially if he punched out of an enclosed escape pod!
Tyson is extremely smart but he's a notorious butthead. An ur-example of the savant narcissist.
It’s real hot up at that altitude. Makes sense
I mean many actual fighter pilots have agreed with Neil on this subject. But yeah take the word of someone who isn't a pilot, has never gone mach themselves, and has never had to eject at high speeds and high altitudes.
SR-71 turns are not limited by G forces, they are limited by needing to keep laminar airflow into the engine intakes. Too high an AOA will cause the engines to flame out.
I think the pilot is though.
@@crackedemerald4930 yeah, i don't think it's very healthy to turn that much in Mach 10 in any way
@@crackedemerald4930 you didn't read my comment. SR-71 turns are NOT high-G. They are generally less than 1.5 G. They have to turn VERY slowly because if the shock cone of the intakes get too far off center, the shock waves get sucked into the engine and cause a flame-out.
The Darkstar in this video has no such shock cones because it is operating SCRAMjets, not RAMjets like the SR-71 does. Airflow in a SCRAMjet is supersonic
@@davisdf3064 consequently, a Darkstar flying at Mach 10 with the same turn radius as an SR-71 at Mach 3.5 means the pilot is enduring Mach 4.5, which is ENTIRELY reasonable for a test pilot, they're trained to handle up to 9 G's without issue.
I grew up with a guy named Peter Siebold, who has gone on to fly for Virgin Galactic. Whenever I see/hear about a pilot surviving an extreme situation - real or fictional - I always just figure, "Pete somehow did."
Can I just say I love the way you do your videos. It's like you're sitting right in front of us!
Scott once more I’m tipping my hat. As a former instructor of a certain technology/art form I can attest that usually the following is true. The more one knows about something the easier it is for them to explain it so that mere mortals can generally grasp it. You sir are that kind of teacher. Such a privilege to listen to you. At one moment here you said “you can do the math” to which I responded “No Scott. I don’t have to because you already did.” You made me a little smarter today. I thank you for that. You are a joy to listen to. Tipping hat.
Feel like the bigger issue at that altitude would be spinning. With atmospheric pressure that thin, it might be too thin to prevent someone from going into an uncrontrolled high speed spin and black that person out.
While dangerous, I think as you go lower in altitude, your body would eventually come out of the spin and you'd regain consciousness.
It was a real concern for Baumgartner during his Red Bull parachute drop from the stratosphere, recreating the 1950's Excelsior project jump: he started to spin very fast in the upper atmosphere and could have become incapacitated or die, even though the parachute systems would have deployed automatically I think.
They could have a drogue shute to stabilize the fall.
He would free fall for about 12 minutes before he could even open a chute.
@@lxndrlbr What I thought of too. I think he spun out of controlled but ultimately stabilized. Been a while since I read on it though.
I love stuff like this because it triggers great scientific discussion. I think niel is assuming a conventional ejection, like a conventional craft. Given how high and fast mav was traveling, and the space suit he don'd i would assume the ejection was some form of a capsule.
Yep F-111 was a ejection capsule , as they were potential ejections at high speed and high altitudes at the upper end of which the crew would not survive.
The problem is that Neil is assuming a whole lot and doing a very small amount of calculations
I was fortunate enough to have dinner in San Diego with the SR-71 test pilot that sort of ejected at Mach 3.2. I say sort of because he does not say he ejected, he says he found himself flying without an airplane.
There was an unstart and the plane disintegrated. He was ripped out of his ejection seat in his pressure suit. Shoot deployed and he was rescued by a rancher who brought him to a hospital with his helicopter. His backseat man did not survive. He was retired when we stayed at his house. In a side room he had his orange pressure suit and helmet on a scarecrow in a rocking chair. A few SR-71 pictures high on the wall in his kitchen.
Absolutely remarkable!
There are several CZcams clips about this incredible event. Find them and you will be absolutely amazed!
Just a great topic. I too wondered how Maverick could survive such an ejection. Man I never really thought about the atmosphere being so thin. I cant believe Neil missed that IMPORTANT factor.
Neil barely comprehends physics, it is no surprise.
Not only, but it's never stated (but realistically assumed) that the Darkstar would have an escape capsule like the F-111 or B-1B.
Another great video! :-) (One minor nitpick about it: the aero force is proportional to v^2 times the air *density* rather than the *pressure* - although a quick inspection shows that the absolute temperature at that altitude is only around 20% lower anyway ;-P)
Don’t forget the air is rarefied at such high altitudes. In terms of thermal energy there’s less air to impart onto an object traveling through the medium. With the DarkStar it’s going Mach 10 for an extended period of time so that it’s leading edges are able to heat up to the extent they do. Maverick would experience this speed for only a brief period of time during his fall being subjected to deacceleration. Especially being in a pressure suit.
Guess you somehow also survived an explosion
He clearly said that.
He didn't forget it - he specifically took it into account!
@@dutchthespitfire3204 Probably less of an explosion and more the aircraft disintegrating around itself. Just take a look at the Darkstar itself. it's got a lot of aerodynamic surfaces which will probably ripped off before the cockpit disintegrates.
@@martijn9568 Its a joke bruv
You never heard of the battle of the denmark strait?
"-Sir, we tested the new ejection-seat today. The test was a success.
-Did you use a payload?
-Yup, a bear."
Oh I wish I could have been there 😂.
I was following your "discussion" about this on twitter and when NDT made his comments I was thinking the same thing about altitude, etc.
This video reminds me of the crash my dad had in the RAF. The aircraft he was piloting caught fire and went into a barrel roll on a training mission. Because of the delay between pulling the ejection handle and the explosives firing he ended up being inverted when he was ejected and hitting the canopy, He was around 3 inches shorter with a broken back when they recovered him and was relegated to flight instructor from active service once he had healed. I can't remember for definite what aircraft it was but was probably a Tornado based on when it happened.
My father crashed 2 aircraft. One a Gypsey Moth during training, and the other was a Lancaster, that sort of fell apart around him over the Bodensee. All he remembered, before the 6 weeks of black, was the plane, and his parachute, being on fire, and him telling his crew to bail out. Austrian nurses told him they picked up his body in a snow bank under a pine tree, and thought he was dead till the coroner found a heartbeat. Then patched him up, removed most of the broken pine tree, broken glass and shrapnel from him, and did a massive skin graft to fix the burn that covered his entire back. Basically broke almost every bone in his body, but the Austrian doctors and nurses put him back together.
Both of your stories remind me of how my own father who started piloting when he was just a crop-dusting farm boy, got promoted to Commander within just months of joining the alliance and was almost shot down by a Tie-Fighter during a trench-run on the Death Star as it orbited the forest moon of Endor.
Unfortunate to hear that. Good thing is that he was alive. My family apparently has a thing for ejections. My dad and uncle are both former US military doing contractor work. They had a failure of some sort and had to eject. Dad was fine other than some bruises. My uncle was in a much older jet with an older ejection seats causing him to need some PT afterwards. The good thing is that they’re both alright now.
Ward Carroll (ex F-14 RIO) did a debunk on the same subject. Interesting to hear your thoughts too Scott.
That wasnt a debunk. Especially not when he ran the "its just a movie!" Tweets. You either lay it out like Scott or you accept that a lot doesnt make sense in this movie and just suspend your disbelief.
I unfollowed Ward when he went full HAM on the "Ghost of Kiev", and didn't back down when it was proven to be pure propaganda, instead doubling down on his rhetoric, because "Russia Bad". I don't like the situation there as much as anyone else does, but when you are content with circumventing the truth for the sake of your feelings, you lose all respect.
@@bigbuckoramma "to be pure propaganda". It was hardly propaganda, and if it was it was very bad, considering how quickly it was debunked or even before that with some critical thinking. However, by the time even the original source on the story came through tabloids and the like had already copied the story by which point there wasn't much able to be done.
@@martijn9568 It was nothing but propaganda. Just like the shelled island martyrs that surrendered, and we're dropped off, and not even taken as POWs. There has been a continual stream of disinformation and propaganda flowing from this conflict, from both sides, and the media is lapping it up, and stooges like Ward that desperately want to believe a particular narrative but into it hook, line, and sinker. We are living in a seriously fucked up time, when telling the truth is problematic because it paints the "wrong picture".
Poor Buster (from the series Mythbusters) certainly knows a thing or two about F=m•a. I am a meteorologist by trade (so I am far from an expert on the subject) but I am inclined to agree with Scott on this one. Thanks for the great videos!
i find it funny Neil has gone on record saying he has no problem with Star trek movie red matter that makes a black hole at the center of a planet but can not conceive of an escape pod that opens up after its slowed down to a safe speed .
Not hard to believe really, he says a lot of things. That's the problem with someone who says a lot of things.. they don't know when to shut up. :P
One thing that I liked was the SkunkWorks logos you can spot on the Darkstar, the yoke and the tail, if memory serves. Because obviously, they would be the ones to build something like that.
Without Kelly Johnson, Lockheed could never do it.
They assisted in making the prop for the movie. Talk about advertising a product that normally is never seen...
@@bindingcurve skunk works was not just kelly johnson so i guess the f 117 and f22 dont work
@@xkgbciax5286 well, you can look to Ben Rich for that, but they are not exactly a speed shop anymore.
The move here i think considering any accident at that speed is going to result in the complete disintegration of the aircraft is to not bother with ejection and have some kind of super durable pod inside it with aerodynamic properties that would re-enter the lower atmosphere and automatically land. You'd need to be bolted into this survival cell and it craned into the aircraft and craned out after you landed. But i think it would work.
6:46 That poor Bear = (
"Bear would have been fine if not for the autopsy," deserves to be on the shortlist for top Scott Manly quotes of 2022.
I did read that if you ejected from a F111, a) you could open the window for ventilation on the way down and b) if you landed on water, the control stick could operate a manual bilge pump. I hope it’s true, because it’s quality triv!
indeed it is.
Tbh, for the Topgun fans out there, the F/A-18c from DCS is super cool (plus you can get the free Maverick livery for the jet). Super fun
Love your videos Scott!
Finally someone who knows now
Prodding holes in the movie with other virtual pilots is good fun. I warched the film last week and I still have a palm print on my face from all the dumb shit. But tbh it was so damn cool that it doesn't matter at all.
If I have to voice one complaint, it's not enough Tomcat. The star of the movie only gets a few minutes screen time!
@@VikingTeddy Also, that's not what the F-14's M61 sounds like : (
@@pogo1140 they made it sound like some average assault riffle or something, I was pretty disappointed when I heard the SFX on the gun
@@kelditas7778 Yeah, they could have used any sound clip from the F/A-18E which uses the same gun
8:58 Was exactly what I was thinking when watching the movie , "How is that thing making such a tight turn at Mach 10 - the radius would have been the size of USA.
Absolutely awesome video, I don’t consider myself a super smart person but you make everything so understandable
The Valkyrie used escape pods like the Hustler to make ejection survivable - in principle. The one time that the pods were used, one crew member died and the other was injured, trapped in the pod. As far as I know, the ejection occurred at relatively low speed, not the Mach 3 that the Valkyrie was designed for. The crash was caused by a collision with a chase plane.
That ejection attempt happened in a flat spin, though, with the long "neck" of the XB-70 further increasing the spin forces. It is likely that a non-spinning ejection at Mach 3 would have resulted in far less force to the crew and capsules.
@@brienandrebekahhartung7806 I knew it was at low speed. It didn't occur to me that it might be worse than high speed.
The vertical stabilizers were both ripped off by the F-104 flown by Joe Walker. Without those, the aircraft totally lost stability and the forces went crazy. Same with the Columbia when the wing ripped off. I saw something comparable once with a model airplane jet which probably lost a stabilizer too and was instantly ripped apart from the air pressure due to its very lightweight build. Looked very spectacular - one moment flying straight and regular, then the stabilizer rips off and the next - instant debris cloud.
I had this exact question when I watched it: How tf did he just walk it off?
Thank you for the explanation!
granted, in the scene it's unclear that he _could_ punch out and no punch-out was shown, so they intentionally didn't tell that part of the story for cinematic effect (suspension).
simplest explanation: the in-story engineers designed it to be survivable at those speeds (in whatever manner). test pilots may be adrenaline junkies but they aren't suicidal. such systems have to have a good chance of working or else everybody keeps that plane standing still on the ground.
Thanks for the video, I was thinking about this while leaving the theatre.
“Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you.” - Jeremy Clarkson
Clarkson’s genius has gravity.
My cousin, who was test pilot in late 60's, had a test pilot friend with a terrible ejection at near M2 speed. It wasn't the speed which was his problem, but the canopy which didn't blow off! He lost both arms to the canopy edges ....
also, Darkstar didn't go unstable due to the turn. It went unstable because he went into a dive to reach Mach 10 and could not pull out of the dive.
Having half of your thrusters suddenly burn out wouldn't help with stability either...
I thought of the B-58 capsules right away.
From the reactions I've seen online, actual combat aviators choose to ignore the dozens (and dozens) of unrealistic things seen in the movie, and just enjoy the show.
... Probably the best line in the movie is when Maverick asked "Where am I?" and the little kid answered "Earth." LOL.
And yes, many of the aviators mentioned the obvious Star Wars parallel. :)
When looking at the dynamic pressure and using the Mach number to derive the velocity, what speed of sound did you use?
I think the interesting thing about this argument is how one of the smartest people in the world can still have a Dunning-Kruger moment.
Well Neil has PhD in astrophysics, but this topic is not part of it.
NDT wants to think he’s one of the smartest people in the world
@@Vel_In_Love No, that's bullshit. I have a science education and I assure you that NDT abso-fucking-lutely took enough university physics courses to damn well know better. Or, he was simply pushed through college as part of an affirmative action program. Hmm....
DK is more likely for smart folks.
My boy Scott setting Neil straight.
Another great explanatory video, you have a gift for making complicated topics manageable. Quick question, I will be in the LA area the 2nd week of Dec (my son and his partner just moved there as she is doing a PhD at Caltech), I have been poking around the web to see if there will be a west coast launch happening that I could go see, which website is your go-to trust worthy source of launch info?
Thanks in advance, James
the size of that turn for mach 10 made me laugh out loud. Going that fast just makes things silly in a lot of ways.
Whos to say it didnt have a crew pod like a F111 as you said, I think this would be quite feasable.
When all the hoopla started up that was my first thought. Lot of aircraft used them back in the day.
No one big, has stated this yet, having a capsule is not impossible
I love it Scott! When I saw Neil’s post, I was wondering about the possibility of a capsule/cockpit ejection. Did Skunkworks build the mockup for the movie?
Wonderful presentation. Thanks
Neil's goal in life is to make more people talk about science and learn about science. So even if he gets it wrong and everyone points it out, he's still succeeding in his mission. So you gotta respect the guy for that. He leverages his fame to get more poeple talking about science even if its people calling him out about a mistake.
Thanks Scott for explaining the variables and forces involved Neil often gets things wrong but that's another subject.
Neil is right more often than not. The only way he could survive that ejection was if he was in a pod.
Neil isn't just wrong a lot. He's also arrogant. Not a good science ambassador. I miss Carl Sagan.
Carl Sagan never talked down to anyone. Neil is a condescending prick who needs to apologize for what he did to Cosmos.
@@grog3514 Well said. I miss the days when science "experts" were rather cagey about what they wanted to commit themselves to say in public, rather than just give us a good lecturing with a bit of preaching thrown in for good measure.
I have a feeling that an aircraft like the Darkstar would indeed have a dual-mode capsule/cockpit ejection system that can eject the cockpit first and then a secondary ejection seat later, or if you're at lower altitudes it would just fire the secondary ejection seat because the heat protection of the primary election capsule is not required and there is not enough altitude for both ejection systems to fire in sequence
And, to get pilots to actually go up in this plane, the escape system would've at least been able to provide _some_ shelter at those speeds. If they were told _"Hey. If you experience an unrecoverable failure at any speed other than around take-off/landing, forget about ejecting. 100% guaranteed fatality. Stay in the plane, say your last goodbyes for the black box and prepare to die,"_ I don't think many sane pilots would sign up to fly that thing. (And, yes, I know about the space shuttle, but that's a different situation.) Another thing I've been thinking about: At the speeds the Darkstar would operate, any structural failure would probably go from zero to a loose flying formation of formerly very expensive aircraft parts quicker than a pilot could go "Oops…"
Given the look of the flight suit, I would expect the Darkstar to use a capsule ejection system also.
ward caroll (former F14 pilot) also did a video on this. the examples like the SR71 that only had their pressure suit and the F111 escape capsule (as discussed here). Neil really should check the equipment used before commenting.
I am really glad this was cleared up because it had been at the back of my mind from the beginning of the film I'm really spoiled it for me thinking about what it should be or not
On thing people may not realise, is you don't want to open your parachute at high speed, high altitude. You need to wait until you are lower. First you get out of the zone where you need oxygen. However the big one is your true airspeed is very high, indicated airspeed low. It's the true airspeed that destroys your parachute. That's why the mars parachutes are very special. High true airspeed, low pressure.
That's a lesson from KSP
@@5ch4cht3l7 "mk2 parachute has been detroyed by aerodynamic forces"
@@fask69 not just one, but more like 10 of these. Because after adding moar Boosters you then add more Chutes for the second landing (you forgot the chutes on the first try obviously) :D
Actually it’s the equivalent airspeed.
What a fun video! Thank you, Scott.
In January of 1966 Bill Weaver and his back seat Jim Zwayer were testing the SR-71. At mach 3.18 and 79,000 feet they experienced a catastrophic failure that cause an automatic ejection. Both men ejected at M 3.2. Unfortunately Jim was killed with a broken neck, but Jim survived even though he was literally ripped from the ejection seat in the process. His suit functioned superbly and he was flying another SR-71 two weeks later.
Great video, love to see NDT get dunked on. I was expecting you to bring up the XB-70's escape capsules, but I guess they're similar enough to the B-58's as to be redundant.
"he was fine except for the autopsy" that's such a good sentence
Since we’re nit picking things here, felt it’s only right to mention the proper term is “necropsy”. Autopsy is reserved only when a human is performing a post-mortem on another human.
Good to see I wasn't the only one that was more concerned with the turn at those speeds than anything else. Seemed WAY too tight.
My "he's dead" moment came when I saw the turn
Very nice video. You covered almost everything I was thinking when Neil made that comment. We didn't see the ejection, it very well could have been a capsule/pod ejection system. If a capsule on a rocket was ejected on midlaunch, would the astronauts inside splatter? Don't think so Neil, and that rocket is going over twice as fast as this fictional plane.
Scott, you are such a joyously pleasent soul; thanks for adding a little more light to our world.