Eject! Eject!

‘Catapults you into the heart of the most epic experiences of ejection, escape and survival’
Andy McNab

‘I thought the ejection seat was a rather dangerous, somewhat curious contraption. But that I would never need it . . .’

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. Since those first post-Second World War ejections, many tens of thousands of lives have been saved by increasingly sophisticated escape systems. When John Nichol’s Tornado was blasted out of the sky during the 1991 Gulf War, a mere 2.5 seconds elapsed between pulling the ejection handle and his parachute opening. Today, the newest seats can automatically initiate ejection if the system decides the pilot faces mortal danger and cannot react quickly enough.

Now, Nichol tells the incredible story of the ejection seat in war and in peace – of the pioneers who risked everything during the early days of development in the 1940s and 50s, of the designers who went head to head with the authorities in order to realise their vision, and of the extraordinary men and women who were given a second chance at life after facing disaster.

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.

Packed with gripping action and cutting-edge science, Eject! Eject! is fuelled by dramatic, deeply moving and previously unheard first-hand accounts by ejectees and their families.

Because pulling the yellow-and-black ejection handle is just the start of the story.

About the Author

John Nichol served in the Royal Air Force for fifteen years. On active duty during the first Gulf War in 1991, his Tornado bomber was shot down during a mission over Iraq. 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.

John is the bestselling co-author of Tornado Down and author of many highly acclaimed Second World War epics including Spitfire and Lancaster , both of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. 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.