People bemoan the future has no jetpacks and robots to make our beds, but I’m still waiting for ejection seats.
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Gerek reached his arm around Audri, and pressing something on the dashboard, said, “We’re at the spaceport. Come on, one of you hold onto each side of me. Let’s leave this mad chase. I’ll just pop it into auto-pilot here.” A little indignant, Val said, “Do you mean I’ve been doing all this cool driving, when it could have been doing it the whole time?” Putting his other arm around Val, Gerek pointed out, “It would have followed traffic laws.” Val admitted, “I suppose I may have possibly stretched one or two.” Gerek said, “Erm… possibly.” Looking up at Gerek, Audri said, “Um, I don’t suppose you want to tell us what we’re about to do?” Gerek said, “It’s probably best if I didn’t.” Audri asked, “Why not?” Gerek pressed a button labeled “eject” and he was flung high into the air over the wall of the spaceport, Audri and Val under his arms. As they flew up, Audri said, Ah. I see.”
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Are we there ye- -yiiieee!!!
“Ah. I see.” seems so much calmer than I’d expect Audri to be. Maybe she’s getting used to life in space.
So, Gerek holds onto Audri with the right arm, then seemingly has to let go of Audri to push the ‘eject’ button?
Seems to me there should be a couple seconds delay.
There’s always a brief delay between ejection trigger and actual ejection. In our real-world aircraft, that delay is so that the canopy can be ejected first. This is done through explosives. Then the seat itself is ejected, along with anyone sitting on it. It’s important to do things in this order!
Now on this hovercar, things are fancier. The roof isn’t blown away, it merely flips open. The seats also don’t get ejected, instead it’s only the passengers that are thrown out. This leaves the hovercar pretty much intact. Presumably, the delay between hitting the button, waiting for the roof to flip open, and tossing out the pilot was long enough for Gerek to grab Audri.
(On our real-world aircraft, the assumption is that after the pilot eject, the plane will crash somewhere, so there’s no point in making the ejection non-destructive. Though it has happened, on planes with more than one crew, that some people ejected, perhaps accidentally, while the pilot didn’t and then successfully landed the plane.)
Really?
Granted that it does not show here, but it so happens that you just “explained” how an aircraft ejection seat works to an aerospace engineer…
By the way, and for the record, not every ejection seat equipped plane will include a canopy jettison sequence, some have it shattered with explosive.
Anyway, my point was to imply that it is pretty futile for Garek to grab hold of Audri, then let go to push a button, and then grab her again. In terms that even non aerospace engineers could appreciate.
Sometimes you have to take a leap of doubt.
This reminds me of Masten Gregory, F-1 race driver circa early 1960s. He didn’t wear seatbelts, preferring to bail out, or be ejected, in a crash. I can’t say as I blame him much. The design standard of the era was to put the gas tank over and alongside your legs. Fly and bust stuff or stay and fry…..
Technically, hitting a pole without seatbelts will eject you, but I guess it’s not what you are longing for, Chris.
I recently was at an aircraft museum that had a display and a movie about ejection seats, and it was mentioned that a not-insignificant percentage of people who used ejection seats had spinal injuries as a result. It was probably better than dying in a crash, but not a harmless result.
Say what you will about wanting flying cars… I go for a drive, look at all the tire tracks and smears and broken edges of the concrete barriers, and I’m glad we’re on wheels.
If we ever do get flying cars, I bet we will lose the freedom of being able to fly manually wherever we want.
Good golly, I hope so. The freedom to do [what]ever I want is the freedom to ignore everything you want and, as we have seen all too often, that way lies madness and rage.