As Jeremy Clarkson once famously said, "Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you."

It was a scramjet, so it's safe to assume the altitude was around 35km as per several studies examining optimal alt/velocity for the engines. The dynamic pressure there is pretty low and surviving the ejection is possible. The temperature as you mentioned you, would definitely melt most of the suit parts if it didn't have an ejection capsule Just my 2c Neil be wrong, he be so wrong

Niel DeGrasse Tyson has been one of those scientists I roll my eyes at regularly. Partly because his fame has obviously gone to his head, and the other because... Well: One of the things you end up learning in college, is that you know YOUR field... _And nobody else's._ And you also learn, if you're paying attention, that the higher up your degree, the more narrow it's focus. Associates and Bachelor's degrees are essentially general [field ]1 and 2. When you get a Master's degree, you're focusing on one CORNER of the field. And the PhD is not called the 'Piled Higher and Deeper' for nothing (as it refers to the paperwork hell you put yourself through to earn it). Tyson has a BA in Physics, and a PhD in Astrophysics. He's got a good grasp of general physics across the board, and has piled it higher and deeper for a specific corner of his astrophysics career. If he talks to you about astronomy, sit down and enjoy the conversation. If he tries to tell you how programming works, or electronics, or the hypersonic, high altitude plasma dynamics of scramjet vehicles... Walk away, because he doesn't know jack at that point.

I'm sure that the writers expected the fallout of such ejection speculation, and therefore just showed a long range shot of the Darkstar cloud of disintegration and leaving all the specifics, or lack thereof, to the Monday morning quarterbacks. That way it can always be stated that, yes, it COULD be done and he COULD survive. Great video Scott!

To paraphrase Jeremy Clarkson "speed doesn't kill, suddenly becoming stationary does."

“It’s not speed that kills you, it’s stopping quickly”

Top Gun: Maverick is entertaining on two levels: as a cool piloting action movie and as a target for tearing apart for its inaccuracies. Loads of fun on both counts! I'm pleasantly surprised that this one bit was less ridiculous than I'd thought. By the way, my mom's husband is a retired veterinarian who was involved in the supersonic bear ejection system test and subsequent euthanization and autopsy. I remember being a little disturbed when he told me about it. He noted that the autopsy was done specifically to look for brain injury that wouldn't have been detectable through observation, and that sacrificing a bear to save human lives was worthwhile. I still find it disturbing, but I can't argue with his reasoning. EDIT: I talked with my mom tonight and mentioned this video. (Hi Mom if you read the comments!) Her husband mentioned that every single bear in the ejection tests had hemorrhaging at the base of their brain. It's sad, but the alternative would've been that happening to human pilots.

Neil Degrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist with an amazing case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome and a conviction that he knows literally everything.

I don't think I properly understood how fast Mach 10 was until I saw that 2g turn mapped over the US.... thanks for putting things so neatly in perspective!

Glad someone finally addressed this. There was a reason the details of the ejection were not shown in the film - to leave room for these very rational engineering solutions.

I love it that you did the math for the turn. As an Aerospace engineer I had my doubts about the turn aswell

Neil Degrasse Tyson just likes to hear himself speak

I love the scene because it instantly reminded me about the story of a SR 71 that that broke up after an engine failure and one of the pilots survived.

"Bear would've been fine if not for the autopsy." That cracked me up.

When you started talking about a cocoon ejection system I got a nostalgic flashback to a 90's sci-fi called Space: above and beyond, and their hammerhead fighters. As a 10 year old a loved that show and I still think the design of the fighter is amazing, and the cockpit loading into the ship and launching from a tube system similar to Battlestar Galactica is something I still think would be a viable method for large carrier style spaceships.

He can survive anything, due to plot armor.

6:43 - Imagine being the guy that had to open the escape capsule with a live bear inside of it after having shot it out of an aircraft going super sonic.

8:49 Omg yes, my first reaction to seeing that turn was "there's absolutely NO way you'd be making that at mach 10". Glad to see it addressed

People assume that DeGrasse Tyson speaks for Science. Science is perfectly capable of speaking for itself. Just remember, really he's just another educated guy on the Internet who has a habit of speaking his mind and having people assume this is the official position of 'Science'. It isn't.

Super presentation Scott, on a side note maybe you could do another presentation related to this. During the development and testing phase of SR-71, at approximately Mach 3.2 and SR-71 test plane literally disintegrated around the pilot and operator, instantly placing both in the pressure and heat stream of over Mach 3, pilot was unconscious the automatic deployment system activated as parachute at low altitude he landed in a farmer's field who happened to use a small helicopter to survey his land saw the event and immediately transported the pilot to the hospital where he subsequently survived, however the operator or co-pilot died instantly from broken neck, the automatic deployment system properly deployed as parachute and he landed intact but was dead due to the broken neck. Maybe you could do a full analysis on this incident since it is Declassified and the information is fully available publicly

No one going to mention the real life event that definitely inspired the scene from the movie!? That time a super fast skunksworks plane flew for a test flight, experienced an inlet unstart, disintegrated mid flight, and had the pilot survive? Because that really did happen to an SR-71 pilot!

Hi Scott, pleased you mention this. For the F-111, which was a Mach 2+ aircraft, the 2 pilots had a pod capsule for ejection, and even earlier, the B-58 Hustler has separate clamshells for each of the crew.(the pilot, has visibility and some flight control I believe) Upon ejection, the clamshells were cleverly designed ( after prolonged testing) allow crew survival at Mach 3 at altitude. My Tyson is a debunker by nature.

Great video. I thought of the closed escape pod thing should have been used in the movie. But your observation about the altitude and the lack of atmospheric pressure is spot on. I never thought about that.

I remember seeing a diagram for the X-30 where a 180-degree turn began near the Canadian border and ended near the Mexican border. I forget the Mach number, but it was in the mid-teens.

I'd be curious to hear Mr. Manley discuss the disintegration of the SR-71 952 at mach 3.

The Swiss made "Libelle" Anti-G-suit which is used by Typhoon pilots allow pilots to stay conscious at G-Loads of 9 G and more for a pretty long time. It's an extremely simple principle (working without any external energy or control) and certainly worth a video!

Totally agree with you on the analysis. The thermal protection system for the escape capsule would have to be pretty strong though. But since it’s a single use protection, it could be made of ablative material. It would be fun to compute a free fall trajectory of a non lifting body, such as a sphere, from Mach 10 horizontal flight at say 120 kft downwards and integrate the thermal flux to compare it with some reentry TPS capabilities.

Having mentioned B-58 you could have also bring in the XB-70 Valkyrie. It also had those cool escape pods integrated with the seats

This is both a great learning experience and a lot of fun to see the friendly banter in the space/science world!! Thanks Scott!

I can say I appreciate your specific breakdown and explanation of the Mach-10 ejection. Very insightful. Thank you!

Simple fact: in the universe of the movie, the aircraft was already certified (for safety issues). If they hadn't a in-world feasible solution to the ejection system, he wouldn't even be flying it to Mach 10 in the first place. So be it the pod idea or the whole cockpit, it's only logical that they had it figured out.

I am SOOOO glad you did this video. That scene bothered me a lot at first and everyone in the industry was moaning about it. But the more you think about it, it's perfectly feasible with a system designed for that speed/altitude.

Neil also said you can't see the curvature of the earth at 50km, and at this point I'm wondering why we keep letting him say things?

Super informative! I was also one of the guys who thought Mav would be turned into a long red cloud by the airstream. ^^

When looking at the dynamic pressure and using the Mach number to derive the velocity, what speed of sound did you use?

I guess we don't see the ejection so it's possible that the cockpit throws out an enclosed 'escape pod' that coasts on an aeroballistic arc and then he rejects from that with a regular parachute when close to the ground

Hearing you talk about ejecting in a pod takes me back to when I first found your channel, Scott. That was back in my EVE Online days.

Thank you Scott for clearing up that worry about the "deadly" ejection! I had the same worry when I saw the movie, but your explanation was brilliant, especially since they COULD have given the pilot some sort of ejection cocoon! So I like the movie even better now.

Thank you so much for putting into words what I could not. While watching the movie, that turn had me shouting at the screen, not his survival. Great video. Thank you.

This met and/or exceeded my expectations. 10/10 would share and watch again.

Also regarding the turn... Making that turn with such a small radius, thus increasing the load factor, also would increase the energy needed to maintain speed. So if they wanted to achieve Mach 10.0, a turn was not advisable at all, it would have bleed a lot of speed (energy), moreso in a 7g turn. Great video Scott. Showing how adults make science.

Can I just say I love the way you do your videos. It's like you're sitting right in front of us!

Scott once more I’m tipping my hat. As a former instructor of a certain technology/art form I can attest that usually the following is true. The more one knows about something the easier it is for them to explain it so that mere mortals can generally grasp it. You sir are that kind of teacher. Such a privilege to listen to you. At one moment here you said “you can do the math” to which I responded “No Scott. I don’t have to because you already did.” You made me a little smarter today. I thank you for that. You are a joy to listen to. Tipping hat.

Well put Scott. I immediately pointed out on Neil's Twitter that it is not certain death and there are ejection capsules like the Hustler's. One other thing to note is that the surface temperature is related to the radius of curvature. The shuttle's blunt leading edge allows it to be cooler than the sharp leading edge of a hypersonic vehicle. So you can play with the bluntness of the body to reduce peak temperature. You could also consider inflatable heatshields like we are now testing with the upcoming LOFTID launch!

I didn't know enough to question that scenario when I saw the movie (which I enjoyed immensely), and I didn't see the tweet, but I clicked on your video as soon as I saw the title. Not being a physicist, and having only basic mathematical skills (add,subtract,multiply and divide) and having forgotten pretty much all of my high school geometry and trigonometry (still got my algebra though), I thoroughly enjoyed your explanation. You make it easy to follow. Thank You. 👍🏾👍🏾

Manley schooling De Grasse Tyson made my day. By the way, Maverick's suit after the landing seemed a bit burned, wasn't it? At least he had some smoke marks on his forehead.

One potential "simple" solution to protect the pilot from the hypersonic heat could be something similar to the early MiG-21s, which used the canopy as a "shield" to protect the pilots in case of supersonic ejections. But at the same time it could be hard to make this aerodynamically stable after the ejection, and possibly the same issue could happen with the systems that eject the whole cockpit along with the pilots.

Scott, thank you for clearing this up for those of us who do not think on the edge of space.

I love that plane in MSFS! A bit surreal to see my footage from my video in here at 2:25. Always love your videos!

Don’t forget the air is rarefied at such high altitudes. In terms of thermal energy there’s less air to impart onto an object traveling through the medium. With the DarkStar it’s going Mach 10 for an extended period of time so that it’s leading edges are able to heat up to the extent they do. Maverick would experience this speed for only a brief period of time during his fall being subjected to deacceleration. Especially being in a pressure suit.

Excellent video, up to your usual standard. I found the element on ejection systems particularly interesting, in part because it reminded me of the plane that never flew (the Miles M52) Interestingly, considering that had it actually been allowed to continue to completion, the project could have provided the first aircraft to break Mach 1. Miles, who were the primary organisation behind the project, were already aware of the problems of ejection at high speed, so they incorporated an ejectable cockpit into the design (bearing in mind that this was the mid 1940s) I'm guessing that this would have been the first such escape system, had the project proceeded? Instead, the UK government canned the whole project at 90 percent completion - giving rise to countless conspiracy theories (and the more reasonable observation that no civil servants should be allowed any influence in advanced research)

Just a great topic. I too wondered how Maverick could survive such an ejection. Man I never really thought about the atmosphere being so thin. I cant believe Neil missed that IMPORTANT factor.

Feel like the bigger issue at that altitude would be spinning. With atmospheric pressure that thin, it might be too thin to prevent someone from going into an uncrontrolled high speed spin and black that person out.

Another great video! :-) (One minor nitpick about it: the aero force is proportional to v^2 times the air *density* rather than the *pressure* - although a quick inspection shows that the absolute temperature at that altitude is only around 20% lower anyway ;-P)

Absolutely awesome video, I don’t consider myself a super smart person but you make everything so understandable

Another great explanatory video, you have a gift for making complicated topics manageable. Quick question, I will be in the LA area the 2nd week of Dec (my son and his partner just moved there as she is doing a PhD at Caltech), I have been poking around the web to see if there will be a west coast launch happening that I could go see, which website is your go-to trust worthy source of launch info? Thanks in advance, James

SR-71 turns are not limited by G forces, they are limited by needing to keep laminar airflow into the engine intakes. Too high an AOA will cause the engines to flame out.

I love stuff like this because it triggers great scientific discussion. I think niel is assuming a conventional ejection, like a conventional craft. Given how high and fast mav was traveling, and the space suit he don'd i would assume the ejection was some form of a capsule.

i find it funny Neil has gone on record saying he has no problem with Star trek movie red matter that makes a black hole at the center of a planet but can not conceive of an escape pod that opens up after its slowed down to a safe speed .

I grew up with a guy named Peter Siebold, who has gone on to fly for Virgin Galactic. Whenever I see/hear about a pilot surviving an extreme situation - real or fictional - I always just figure, "Pete somehow did."

The move here i think considering any accident at that speed is going to result in the complete disintegration of the aircraft is to not bother with ejection and have some kind of super durable pod inside it with aerodynamic properties that would re-enter the lower atmosphere and automatically land. You'd need to be bolted into this survival cell and it craned into the aircraft and craned out after you landed. But i think it would work.

This video reminds me of the crash my dad had in the RAF. The aircraft he was piloting caught fire and went into a barrel roll on a training mission. Because of the delay between pulling the ejection handle and the explosives firing he ended up being inverted when he was ejected and hitting the canopy, He was around 3 inches shorter with a broken back when they recovered him and was relegated to flight instructor from active service once he had healed. I can't remember for definite what aircraft it was but was probably a Tornado based on when it happened.

Bailing out from 300,000 feet at Mach 10, a concept illustrated by Lee J. Ames from the 1959 book Man’s Reach Into Space by Roy A. Gallant. This illustration shows exit at 7500 mph over Boston, three minutes later going 3700 mph at 140,000. At 100,000 ft going 700 mph, 75,000 ft going 375 mph, 50,000 ft going 185 mph, parachute deploy at 15,000 ft over NYC. I posted this on rec.skydiving back in the days to a discussion of "parachuting from space" and some of the comments to this illustration were “That would be *very* cool to do” “Your spot would have to be accurate to within inches, wouldn't it? At that speed, at that height, a couple of inches either way and you could be up creek without a paddle! ” “A birdman suit while de-orbiting from 300,000 feet? Not *very * cool* at all...” “Shoot, if the glue and the fabric hold up, ya might make it down to 150,000 before you began to look like a small version of the MIR space station over the South Pacific.” “It would lend a *whole* new meaning to the phrase ‘Smoke'n it down....’”

Poor Buster (from the series Mythbusters) certainly knows a thing or two about F=m•a. I am a meteorologist by trade (so I am far from an expert on the subject) but I am inclined to agree with Scott on this one. Thanks for the great videos!

Tbh, for the Topgun fans out there, the F/A-18c from DCS is super cool (plus you can get the free Maverick livery for the jet). Super fun Love your videos Scott!

My boy Scott setting Neil straight.

I was following your "discussion" about this on twitter and when NDT made his comments I was thinking the same thing about altitude, etc.

Thanks for the video, I was thinking about this while leaving the theatre.

One thing that I liked was the SkunkWorks logos you can spot on the Darkstar, the yoke and the tail, if memory serves. Because obviously, they would be the ones to build something like that.

The Valkyrie used escape pods like the Hustler to make ejection survivable - in principle. The one time that the pods were used, one crew member died and the other was injured, trapped in the pod. As far as I know, the ejection occurred at relatively low speed, not the Mach 3 that the Valkyrie was designed for. The crash was caused by a collision with a chase plane.

Scott, you are such a joyously pleasent soul; thanks for adding a little more light to our world.

Wonderful presentation. Thanks

I love it Scott! When I saw Neil’s post, I was wondering about the possibility of a capsule/cockpit ejection. Did Skunkworks build the mockup for the movie?

I did read that if you ejected from a F111, a) you could open the window for ventilation on the way down and b) if you landed on water, the control stick could operate a manual bilge pump. I hope it’s true, because it’s quality triv!

Thank you for this, I commented on his FB post because I had issue with the conclusion of his post.

the size of that turn for mach 10 made me laugh out loud. Going that fast just makes things silly in a lot of ways.

I think the interesting thing about this argument is how one of the smartest people in the world can still have a Dunning-Kruger moment.

What a fun video! Thank you, Scott.

I was fortunate enough to have dinner in San Diego with the SR-71 test pilot that sort of ejected at Mach 3.2. I say sort of because he does not say he ejected, he says he found himself flying without an airplane. There was an unstart and the plane disintegrated. He was ripped out of his ejection seat in his pressure suit. Shoot deployed and he was rescued by a rancher who brought him to a hospital with his helicopter. His backseat man did not survive. He was retired when we stayed at his house. In a side room he had his orange pressure suit and helmet on a scarecrow in a rocking chair. A few SR-71 pictures high on the wall in his kitchen. Absolutely remarkable! There are several KZfaq clips about this incredible event. Find them and you will be absolutely amazed!

I am really glad this was cleared up because it had been at the back of my mind from the beginning of the film I'm really spoiled it for me thinking about what it should be or not

I have a feeling that an aircraft like the Darkstar would indeed have a dual-mode capsule/cockpit ejection system that can eject the cockpit first and then a secondary ejection seat later, or if you're at lower altitudes it would just fire the secondary ejection seat because the heat protection of the primary election capsule is not required and there is not enough altitude for both ejection systems to fire in sequence

Ward Carroll (ex F-14 RIO) did a debunk on the same subject. Interesting to hear your thoughts too Scott.

I thought of the B-58 capsules right away. From the reactions I've seen online, actual combat aviators choose to ignore the dozens (and dozens) of unrealistic things seen in the movie, and just enjoy the show. ... Probably the best line in the movie is when Maverick asked "Where am I?" and the little kid answered "Earth." LOL. And yes, many of the aviators mentioned the obvious Star Wars parallel. :)

“Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you.” - Jeremy Clarkson Clarkson’s genius has gravity.

My cousin, who was test pilot in late 60's, had a test pilot friend with a terrible ejection at near M2 speed. It wasn't the speed which was his problem, but the canopy which didn't blow off! He lost both arms to the canopy edges ....

I had this exact question when I watched it: How tf did he just walk it off? Thank you for the explanation!

Scott, a question I hope you see When we're talking about Mach25 at 100km altitude (random numbers), is that mach number adjusted for air pressure? Ie, is it 25 times the speed of sound at that altitude? Or is someone going, ok that's the normal speed of sound at sea level, it's 25 times that? Cause I'd swear Mach was created exactly to counter that..

Hi! Would you let me know where you got the launch pad for your Lego Saturn V?

also, Darkstar didn't go unstable due to the turn. It went unstable because he went into a dive to reach Mach 10 and could not pull out of the dive.

Good to see I wasn't the only one that was more concerned with the turn at those speeds than anything else. Seemed WAY too tight.

8:58 Was exactly what I was thinking when watching the movie , "How is that thing making such a tight turn at Mach 10 - the radius would have been the size of USA.

Very nice video. You covered almost everything I was thinking when Neil made that comment. We didn't see the ejection, it very well could have been a capsule/pod ejection system. If a capsule on a rocket was ejected on midlaunch, would the astronauts inside splatter? Don't think so Neil, and that rocket is going over twice as fast as this fictional plane.

On thing people may not realise, is you don't want to open your parachute at high speed, high altitude. You need to wait until you are lower. First you get out of the zone where you need oxygen. However the big one is your true airspeed is very high, indicated airspeed low. It's the true airspeed that destroys your parachute. That's why the mars parachutes are very special. High true airspeed, low pressure.

Thanks Scott for explaining the variables and forces involved Neil often gets things wrong but that's another subject.

Great video, love to see NDT get dunked on. I was expecting you to bring up the XB-70's escape capsules, but I guess they're similar enough to the B-58's as to be redundant.

Maybe this is not the place to ask but i have tried different times on different channels. Is an ejection seat "aware" of its position? i mean, can it maneuver/level itself? I have seen different ejection video's and sometimes when the aircraft is tilted 90 deg its almost if the ejection seat makes a correction upward but in other video's the seat just shoots out horizontally?

Whos to say it didnt have a crew pod like a F111 as you said, I think this would be quite feasable.

To me this scene was a more of a combination of the SR-71 crash and Neil Armstrong's X-15 flight, where he accidentally got too high and fast with the wrong AOA and skipped off the atmosphere, resulting in overshooting Edwards AFB, having to make a huge turn over Pasadena, and barely having enough speed and altitude to make the edge of the range at Edwards. It's not specified in the movie there's an escape pod system, but it's logical to infer it as Scott has.

One thing I have to say against the escape capsule theory is that the suit was visibly scorched when he went into the cafe, so at some point he got exposed to high temperatures. Or maybe we can interpret that as dirt from trudging through the forest.

The real eject question I have is with Phoenix needing to eject and returning to active the next day. I thought ejection would take someone out of flying for longer than that.