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F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots

Posted by timothy on from the it's-the-little-things dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Writing for Defense News, Lara Seligman and Aaron Mehta report that "[c]oncerns about increased risk of injury to F-35 pilots during low-speed ejections have prompted the US military services to temporarily restrict pilots who weigh less than 136 pounds from flying the aircraft. During August tests of the ejection seat, built by Martin-Baker, testers discovered an increased risk of neck injury when a lightweight pilot is flying at slower speeds. Until the problem is fixed, the services decided to restrict pilots weighing under 136 pounds from operating the plane, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, F-35 integration office director, told Defense News in a Tuesday interview."

3 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. 136 lbs? by germansausage · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was going to ask how many pilots in the whole US Air force weigh less than 135 lbs, and then it occurred to me that this was just a way of keeping women out of their "no girls allowed" fighter jock club.

  2. Re:The F-35 is having problems? by rahvin112 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is no bug. This is airforce discovering the best way to keep a woman out of the cockpit, you kill them with the ejection system.

  3. The F-35 seat fears ground?? by rduke15 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does this title use a convoluted syntax, or it it just me? (English is not my first language)

    I had to read the summary to finally understand what was meant by "F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots". Before that, I was stuck with a seat fearing the ground, and some lightweight pilots whom I couldn't quite fit into that fearful seat.