What Would Really Happen If You Ejected At Mach 10

Let’s just get this out of the way. You can’t eject from an aircraft at Mach 10 without first being in an aircraft that is traveling at Mach-10. A U.S. Air Force pilot is highly unlikely to find himself in such a scenario because the United States military doesn’t have an aircraft capable of traveling at those speeds. Nor does any other military — at least not one that has been publicly acknowledged. The fastest military plane, and fastest production aircraft, currently in service is still the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” which is capable of climbing to a height of 85,000 feet and traveling at a speed of 2,200 miles per hour — or just over Mach 3. According to NASA, the Blackbird was first developed in the 1960s as a reconnaissance aircraft.

The Blackbird also had an ejection system. That system was used at Mach 3 when a sharp turn coupled with some system malfunctions caused the plane to break apart above 80,000 feet. And one of the men relying on it, Bill Weaver, survived to tell the tale. The man Weaver was flying with, Lockheed flight test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist Jim Zwayer, wasn’t so lucky. At some point during the accident, which lasted around three seconds, Zwayer’s neck was broken, and he was killed instantly. Weaver didn’t exactly eject either, he was actually ripped from the disintegrating aircraft by the massive positive and negative G-forces both testers were subjected to during the accident. Shortly before it all went wrong, Weaver noticed something was up and tried to get the jet to a lower altitude so he and Zwayer could bail conventionally.