The Mk16A grew out of the early work undertaken by Martin-Baker on the EF Demonstrator in 1984. This aircraft was fitted with the Mk10LX seat and through various iterations, the Mk16A was developed between 1990-95 culminating in the delivery of seven seats for the Development Aircraft (DA) programme.
The development of the Mk16A ejection seat was carried out at Martin-Baker’s facilities at Denham and Chalgrove and Langford Lodge in Northern Ireland. Because of the capabilities and wide operating envelope of the aircraft, Martin-Baker was presented with a series of challenges which have had to be overcome during the development of the seat such as the accommodation of a wider range of pilot models covering height, weight and sex requirements as well as achieving compatibility with equipment such as the Head Mounted Display (HMD), Chemical and Biological protection units (CB) and general aircrew equipment.
Furthermore, the Mk16A seat utilizes a second generation digital seat sequencer which incorporates a strategy of continuous sensing of external environmental parameters. Under certain speed and altitude conditions the recovery timings at which the parachute is deployed are varied in order to optimise the terrain clearance.
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- Seat firing handle pulled
- Command firing initiated
- Harness retraction unit operated
- Emergency oxygen supplied to aircrew
- Electrical/crypto-erase connector disconnected
- Canopy jettison initiated
- Thermal batteries activated, electronic sequencer powered up
- Ejection gun time delays initiated
- Ejection guns initiated after delay
- Bottom latches engage, top latches disengage seat rises up rails
- Aircraft services disconnect
- Leg and arm restraints operate
- Secondary cartridges fire as seat rises
- Multi-purpose initiators fire
- End of ejection gun stroke reached
- Underseat rocket motor fires
- Leg restraint lines become taut and rivets shear, freeing lines from floor brackets
- Lower aerodynamic surfaces deploy
- Pitots deploy
- Barostatic back-up unit initialised
- Start switches open to begin sequencer operation
- Low speed, Low/Medium altitude
- Sequencer senses low speed and low altitude
- Sequencer selects immediate mode
- Headbox deployment unit operates
- Medium/high speed, Low/Medium altitude
- Sequencer senses low speed and low altitude
- Sequencer selects drogue mode
- Drogue deployment unit operates
- Sequencer restarts environmental sensing after delay
- Headbox deployment unit operates when speed sufficiently reduced
- Any speed/High altitude
- Sequencer senses high altitude (any speed)
- Sequencer selects high drogue mode
- Drogue deployment unit operates
- Drogue stabilises and decelerates seat
- Emergency oxygen supply continued
- Seat descends, stabilised by drogue
- Sequencer continues to sense altitude
- Emergency oxygen supply continued
- Sequencer senses parachute deployment altitude
- Drogue and bridle released
- Headbox deployment unit operates
(In the unlikely event of sequencer failure, the barostatic back-up unit initiates headbox deployment and harness release below the pre-determined height.)
- Parachute deploys and begins inflation
- Harness locks and aircrew services package/liquid suit connector assembly man portions released
- Inflated parachute pulls aircrew from seat
- Personal locator beacon activated
- Personal survival pack retained (regardless of automatic deployment unit setting)
- Headbox clears ejection path and is made safe using auxiliary drogue
- Aircrew descends on parachute
- Personal survival pack automatically lowered after 4 seconds (if automatic deployment unit was set to auto)
- Liferaft inflates automatically when immersed in water