Eject! Eject!

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Nichol is perhaps at his best in his account of the early work of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company, the pioneering British manufacturer of ejection seats, whose products – as of the date of publication – have saved 7,681 lives. As the author has had to be diplomatic in some areas, feelings run deep and memories are long, the book has a feel of 'now it can be told' just not completely. No one would ever want to have to use an ejection seat, but thank goodness some people have – and have lived to tell the tale.

As a final aside, I love the design of these books and how good they all look together on the shelf! We see how the technology was adapted when the prospect of crashing in North Vietnam was sometimes preferable to ejecting and risking capture; what happens to the body when it is catapulted from an aircraft under great force; how an ejectee can be rescued from enemy territory. Captured, tortured and held as a prisoner of war, John was paraded on television, provoking worldwide condemnation and leaving one of the most enduring images of the conflict.He has made a number of TV documentaries with Second World War veterans, written for national newspapers and magazines, and is a widely quoted commentator on military affairs.

There was clearly an urgent need for such a device: early aircraft escape techniques, notes Nichol, “were rudimentary at best: strap on parachute and jump. Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you. Out of the 4 books in the group I thought this would be the one I least enjoyed, but it was fascinating and told the stories of each ejection featured very well. John is a member of The Royal British Legion's Gulf War Group helping veterans with Gulf War Syndrome and a patron of the British Ex-service Wheelchair Sports Association. A few days later, having been beaten and tortured, images of Nichol and his pilot John Peters were broadcast around the world.The fact that he’d never designed or built a plane and had never even flown did not seem to deter him. Packed with interviews with aircrew who know exactly how it feels to 'Bang Out' from an aircraft at high speed, both in peace and in war, the book gives the reader a vivid sense of what that life-saving experience feels like, but also features the moving accounts of what happens next, from the viewpoint of both the crews and their families, who often have little or no information about whether or not their loved ones have survived.

You'd think that all the stories would get samey- banging out of an aircraft- but they really don't. The tales they told about, of course, being lucky to be alive were accompanied by lifelong disability and regrets like the poor young woman who would have loved to have been able to wear a skirt and a nice blouse - an option forever lost to her. He apparently kept them in the fridge at his factory, “causing those looking for milk during tea breaks no little distress”.When Jo Lancaster, the first British pilot to eject in an emergency, triggered his ejection seat in 1949, it took thirty seconds before he was safely away from the aircraft and under his parachute. Most works of popular narrative non-fiction could be written by anyone with a small amount of talent, as well as enough time, energy, commitment and a decent library. Spitfire, Lancaster, and Tornado all followed the same format of using the often fascinating stories of those involved to tell a bigger story, and Eject! Sadly, although I chose it because I was fascinated by modern ejection-seat technology , it was the human stories that achieved most impact on me. Packed with interviews with aircrew who know exactly how it feels to ‘Bang Out’ from an aircraft at high speed, both in peace and in war, the book gives the reader a vivid sense of what that life-saving experience feels like, but also features the moving accounts of what happens next, from the viewpoint of both the crews and their families, who often have little or no information about whether or not their loved ones have survived.

It was partly due to the death of Squadron Leader William Davie, a 25-year-old test pilot who died after attempting to bail out of his Gloster Meteor in August 1943 – plummeting through the roof of a hangar at Farnborough – that prompted the Air Ministry finally to commission Martin to come up with a workable British system.

In the wake of the war, that technological race to save aircrew lives using explosive seats continued at an incredible pace. In Germany, Heinkel had fitted their turbojet-powered fight He-280 with a catapult seat escape system, and on January 13 1942, the Luftwaffe’s Wolfgang “Bombo” Schenck became the first man to use an ejection seat in an emergency.