July 24, 1946 brought the tower experiment into real air
On July 24, 1946, the Meteor climbed with Lynch seated in the rear cockpit.
Martin-Baker's historical record gives the test conditions as 320 mph indicated airspeed at 8,000 feet.
The altitude was important.
The early system was not designed to save a pilot automatically at extremely low level.
Lynch still needed time to stabilize, separate from the seat, open his personal parachute, and descend.
Eight thousand feet gave him a safety margin if the sequence took longer than expected.
The speed was equally important.
At 320 mph, the aerodynamic environment was severe enough to provide meaningful evidence.
If the seat worked only at gentle speeds, it would not solve the problem Martin had been asked to address.
Lynch knew the sequence.
He knew what the tower tests had shown.
He knew what the engineers expected.
He also knew that nobody had yet proven this exact British system with a human being leaving a real aircraft at high speed.
There was no engine fire behind him.
The controls had not jammed.
The Meteor was not diving toward the ground.
Remaining in the aircraft was the safe choice.
The test required Lynch to choose the dangerous one.
When the conditions were correct, he pulled the handle.
The first fraction of a second decided whether the system worked
The two-cartridge ejection gun fired.
Gas pressure drove the seat upward along its guides.
Lynch's body accelerated with it.
The acceleration compressed him into the seat.
For a brief moment, the experimental calculations became physical reality.
The engineers needed the seat to gain vertical separation quickly enough to escape the aircraft's path.
The first important result appeared almost immediately.
The seat cleared the cockpit.
Lynch had survived the initial acceleration.
Then came the second test.
The external airflow struck.
The face screen shielded his head as he entered a 320-mph slipstream.
The seat moved farther from the Meteor.
The static line operated the drogue mechanism once the required separation was reached.
The small drogue deployed.
Drag developed behind the seat.
The system began stabilizing.
Instead of entering a violent uncontrolled tumble, Lynch remained within the sequence the engineers had planned.
The larger seat parachute then deployed after the delay.
The violent high-speed escape began turning into a slower descent.
Martin-Baker's system had completed its portion of the rescue.
Now Lynch had to perform his own.
Lynch still had to leave the seat in the sky
The early Martin-Baker seat was not a fully automatic survival system.
Lynch remained strapped to the experimental structure after it had slowed.
He unfastened the harness.
Then he pushed himself away from the seat.
This stage introduced another risk.
He needed enough separation to prevent his personal parachute from becoming entangled with the seat or its parachute.
Once clear, Lynch reached for the ripcord.
He pulled it.