The Martin-Baker seat therefore had to be proven independently.
The man who would provide the most important early proof was Bernard Lynch.
James Martin had already seen what happened when escape failed
The company that would become famous for ejection seats had not begun as an ejection-seat company.
James Martin and Captain Valentine Baker originally worked together designing aircraft. Martin concentrated heavily on engineering. Baker was an experienced pilot whose practical knowledge helped turn ideas into flying machines.
Their company became Martin-Baker.
During World War II, they developed several fighter designs, including the MB3.
On September 12, 1942, Valentine Baker was flying the MB3 prototype when its engine failed.
Baker attempted an emergency landing.
The aircraft struck an obstacle and crashed.
He was killed.
Martin-Baker's own history connects Baker's death closely with James Martin's later concentration on aircrew safety. The loss was not simply a statistic from wartime aviation. Baker had been Martin's friend, business partner, and the pilot who had trusted Martin's aircraft enough to test them personally.
The accident exposed a problem that aircraft designers could not solve merely by improving engines.
An aircraft could fail.
Even the best pilot could reach a situation where the machine could no longer be saved.
At that point, the engineer still had one final responsibility.
Could the person be saved?
In 1944, the British Ministry of Aircraft Production approached James Martin about assisted escape from high-speed aircraft.
The timing was important.
The war had forced fighter technology forward at extraordinary speed. Propeller-driven fighters were already operating at velocities that made bailout hazardous, while jets promised even greater performance.
Martin began examining ways to mechanically remove the pilot.
Several concepts could theoretically work.
One possibility was to move the canopy or a section of the cockpit and then physically assist the pilot outward.
Another was a detachable cockpit or capsule.
A simpler concept gradually became more attractive.
Keep the pilot in the seat.
Then launch the seat.
This eliminated one of the worst parts of the traditional bailout.
The pilot would no longer have to climb out before the system began helping him.
The escape machine would carry him from the protected cockpit into clear air.
The idea solved one problem by creating several new ones.
The seat had to move violently without killing the pilot
Clearing a fast aircraft required speed.
If the seat moved upward too slowly, the aircraft's tail could reach the pilot.
That meant the seat needed a powerful launch.
The most obvious method was some form of explosive or cartridge-driven catapult.
Yet acceleration that feels acceptable to a piece of machinery may be dangerous to a human spine.
The pilot would be sitting directly above the mechanism.
When it fired, the force traveled through the seat and into his body.
A badly designed impulse could compress the vertebrae.
The pilot might clear the aircraft and arrive outside already seriously injured.
The problem was not simply the maximum force.
The way that force developed over time mattered.
A short and extremely violent acceleration could be more damaging than a force that rose more progressively.
Posture mattered as well.
A pilot leaning forward at the moment of ejection could place his spine in a poor position to receive the load.
His head and neck could also be vulnerable.
James Martin therefore faced a problem involving both mechanical engineering and human physiology.
He needed a launch strong enough to save the pilot while remaining survivable.
No amount of confidence could replace testing.
Martin-Baker constructed a special vertical tower.
Experimental seats could be mounted on the tower and fired upward. Engineers could measure travel, acceleration, cartridge behavior, and structural loads without needing to risk an aircraft.
At first, dead weights and equipment were enough.