The F1 thread

stickyfiddle

CavemanGrogg said:

stickyfiddle said:

CavemanGrogg said:

sinbaadi said:

CavemanGrogg said:

It wasn't just a laminated thick glass roof, there was a bloody driver ejection system with parachute in the system a la James Bond in the cockpit design, just like a fighter jet, I even believe the early test where done with repurposed fighter Jet cockpits.

That is definitely not one of the options that was ever seriously considered.

But even if it was, an F1 car isn't a fighter plane and the circumstances of an incident are very different. In a plane, if something goes wrong you have a few seconds before it hits the ground, even in all but the most extreme situations, giving the pilot time to pull the eject. In F1 you usually only have maybe 1s between realising you're having an accident and being buggered (noting that the ejection would have to be triggered manually because the car doesn't know it's crashing until it's too late).

Not to mention that probably 95% of accidents would actually be less dangerous than the 30G+ forces of an eject. 

Haych

stickyfiddle said:

That is definitely not one of the options that was ever seriously considered.

But even if it was, an F1 car isn't a fighter plane and the circumstances of an incident are very different. In a plane, if something goes wrong you have a few seconds before it hits the ground, even in all but the most extreme situations, giving the pilot time to pull the eject. In F1 you usually only have maybe 1s between realising you're having an accident and being buggered (noting that the ejection would have to be triggered manually because the car doesn't know it's crashing until it's too late).

Not to mention that probably 95% of accidents would actually be less dangerous than the 30G+ forces of an eject. 

Where does the ejected cockpit go exactly?  If cars are potentially spitting out drivers in a crash how do you stop the ejected cockpit crashing into one of the other dozen or so cars that could be in the vicinity? 

Heartfeltdawn

Simonh said:

Obvious troll is obvious.

Drew is that you?

Oh come on. It's not like Mr Grogg joined the forum the same day that Drew was banned or something silly. 

Simonh

stickyfiddle said:

CavemanGrogg said:

stickyfiddle said:

CavemanGrogg said:

sinbaadi said:

CavemanGrogg said:

It wasn't just a laminated thick glass roof, there was a bloody driver ejection system with parachute in the system a la James Bond in the cockpit design, just like a fighter jet, I even believe the early test where done with repurposed fighter Jet cockpits.

That is definitely not one of the options that was ever seriously considered.

But even if it was, an F1 car isn't a fighter plane and the circumstances of an incident are very different. In a plane, if something goes wrong you have a few seconds before it hits the ground, even in all but the most extreme situations, giving the pilot time to pull the eject. In F1 you usually only have maybe 1s between realising you're having an accident and being buggered (noting that the ejection would have to be triggered manually because the car doesn't know it's crashing until it's too late).

Not to mention that probably 95% of accidents would actually be less dangerous than the 30G+ forces of an eject. 

Exactly this - how long did Grosjean have between loss of control and impact? I'd wager even less than a second certainly no time to punch an eject button

danishbacon

it was considered at one point....https://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/2015/09/25/f1-considered-installing-ejector-seats-in-cars-to-boost-safety/?sh=51888314729b

Heartfeltdawn

stickyfiddle said:

That is definitely not one of the options that was ever seriously considered.

How could it? An ejector seat would have to fire a driver high enough to be able to allow a parachute to deploy and for the driver to land safely. There is no control as to where the ejector seat would land. Given that wheel tethers are in place to stop wheels going into crowds and marshalls, an ejector seat would be absurd. 

Heartfeltdawn

danishbacon said:

it was considered at one point....https://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/2015/09/25/f1-considered-installing-ejector-seats-in-cars-to-boost-safety/?sh=51888314729b

Ah, Christian Sylt. From Joe Saward's blog published 24 hours before the Sylt story:

https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/notebook-from-japan/

"However, the prize for the least likely story of the weekend goes to former FIA President Max Mosley who had some fun by convincing a naive journalist, who likes to think he understand the sport, that F1 cars could be fitted with ejector seats. The hack swallowed this story hook, line and sinker, clearly unaware of the operational restrictions of both Formula 1 cars and ejector seats. One idea suggested in the F1 Press Room in Suzuka was that the hack in question should do a test with the system on the circuit, just after the Degner Curve, where the track passes beneath the start of the 130R Corner – or in the tunnel at Monaco."

The Saward-Sylt arguments have ben going on for years...

Simonh

Tell you what testing has been going on for a couple of hours and I am already pissed off with the references to the lewis and max interactions.

stickyfiddle

Something being mooted once - 15 year ago - isn't really the same as the halo and aeroscreen development where they spend serious time and money looking into it and testing prototypes. I'm sure it would have been brought up in a brainstorming session but never seriously considered.

If you think about the practical implications of it for more than 5 minutes it's obviously a non-starter. 

Haych

Heartfeltdawn said:

stickyfiddle said:

That is definitely not one of the options that was ever seriously considered.

How could it? An ejector seat would have to fire a driver high enough to be able to allow a parachute to deploy and for the driver to land safely. There is no control as to where the ejector seat would land. Given that wheel tethers are in place to stop wheels going into crowds and marshalls, an ejector seat would be absurd. 

Eject, eject!

fretmeister

Indycar has screens but the way they've been done they seem to have even less viewing angle than the halo.


As for the ejector seat nonsense - the ones designed for the Harrier do get the pilot high enough from ground level.
And the pilot is expected to pass out due to the 0-500mph in 0.1 second acceleration that the seat has. Sometimes they regain consciousness on the way down, and sometimes they land unconsicous with all the risks that has with it. Leg injuries, swallowing own tongue (and on a race track) landing in the path of another car / on a spectator etc etc.

A parachute landing isn't a gentle touchdown - it's still like jumping off something 3-4 feet high. 

And there's the other main issue -  the pilot will suffer unavoidable and permanent spinal compression from the rocket blast of the seat. Compression fractures are also a common side effect.

Tim will no doubt know this better than me, but when I was a cadet a long time ago I was informed that in peace time pilots were limited to 2 ejections and would then be relieved of all duties flying anything with an ejector seat because it was then far too dangerous to have a third.

The spinal discs get compressed to the point that an ejection can cause a 2 inch loss of height, and only a tiny bit of that comes back over several years. If they are lucky.

So - if a driver were to eject they would likely suffer injuries that would cause them to miss the rest of the season, and possibly never come back. If a similar 2 ejection limit were imposed then nearly everyone on the grid would have retired already based on their past crashes.

Never going to happen. 

TimmyO

I suspect our interloper considers his work here done :-) 

I was an engineering officer in the RAF. I've met people who "have their tie" (that they get given after surviving an ejection). One got ejected into the runway with the nose of the aircraft at about 95-100 degrees down. The seat took most of the brunt as he skidded down the runway (my friend was in the tower at the time and described it in horrifying detail.) The notion that either a seat or a full cockpit would either be command ejected or some system would decide to do it is silly. 

stickyfiddle

Don't be silly, he's obviously referring to all the other massive crashes in recent history...

CavemanGrogg

stickyfiddle said:

Something being mooted once - 15 year ago - isn't really the same as the halo and aeroscreen development where they spend serious time and money looking into it and testing prototypes. I'm sure it would have been brought up in a brainstorming session but never seriously considered.

If you think about the practical implications of it for more than 5 minutes it's obviously a non-starter. 

Tests where being done at the same time as the halo was being developed, there are videos of them test firing frozen chickens, and I think even a wheel at fighter jet cockpit screens.

FIA tests fighter jet canopy on F1 cars, but teams object  - article less than 15 years old

Video of tests being conducted 10 years ago -

stickyfiddle

CavemanGrogg said:

stickyfiddle said:

Something being mooted once - 15 year ago - isn't really the same as the halo and aeroscreen development where they spend serious time and money looking into it and testing prototypes. I'm sure it would have been brought up in a brainstorming session but never seriously considered.

If you think about the practical implications of it for more than 5 minutes it's obviously a non-starter. 

Tests where being done at the same time as the halo was being developed, there are videos of them test firing frozen chickens, and I think even a wheel at fighter jet cockpit screens.

FIA tests fighter jet canopy on F1 cars, but teams object  - article less than 15 years old

Video of tests being conducted 10 years ago -

I know. That was canopies not ejector seats. 

Heartfeltdawn

There's also footage of FIA officials testing possible canopy structures by firing alt accounts at the canopy from a range of distances. Apparently an alt account hitting a screen at 150mph causes less than 0.3G of impact damage. 

stickyfiddle

TimmyO said:

I suspect our interloper considers his work here done :-) 

Entirely possible but joke's on him because I enjoy talking about this stuff. 

stickyfiddle

In other news, Russell and Leclerc have been trading top times so far all morning. I know it doesn't mean shit but it's not a bad thing and no signs of reliability issues so far. 

CavemanGrogg

stickyfiddle said:

CavemanGrogg said:

stickyfiddle said:

Something being mooted once - 15 year ago - isn't really the same as the halo and aeroscreen development where they spend serious time and money looking into it and testing prototypes. I'm sure it would have been brought up in a brainstorming session but never seriously considered.

If you think about the practical implications of it for more than 5 minutes it's obviously a non-starter. 

Tests where being done at the same time as the halo was being developed, there are videos of them test firing frozen chickens, and I think even a wheel at fighter jet cockpit screens.

FIA tests fighter jet canopy on F1 cars, but teams object  - article less than 15 years old

Video of tests being conducted 10 years ago -

I know. That was canopies not ejector seats. 

It was also the first stage of the testing, to qualify for a license drivers must be able to both get into, and out of the car in under a certain number of seconds, they didn't get much further than this due to push back from the teams and drivers, it's a shame as it was a brilliant concept and idea. Litterally ypu could drop the entie driver cockpit into a spare car, and the contol elements, pedals, steering wheel, seat... would already be setup, so could easily be transferred between bodies setup for different track and race conditions.

But the Halo design won out in the end.

fretmeister

CavemanGrogg said:

stickyfiddle said:

But the Halo design won out in the end.

And it has saved several lives.

I do hope you don't actually want a sport to have a higher risk of death just for the altar of entertainment!