Crash test dummies were invent in 1949, which makes it even more surprising that in the 1950s the U.S. Air Force tested ejector seats on top of its aircraft and put live bears in chairs. In 1950, the Atomic Bomb Conveyor B-58 Hostler built. It was a successful bomber capable of 2 March flights (traveling at twice the speed of sound).
It was not so great if you wanted to go somewhere fast in the cold, but if you did not want the place as ground. When the technology was a tremendous improvement, moving so fast meant pilots could no longer get out of their aircraft safely and so a new system had to design.
The idea that came with it had two steps. First, pull the pre-ejection handle to the pilot’s leg and place the piece in the capsule in pieces. The capsule supplied with food and water for the pilot would slowly descend to the ground or above the water floating in the water, waiting for rescue. As you imagined, the capsule not immediately approved and had to go through tests on Baker and Bear (who you could argue were also Baker).
Gizmodo said before conducting further experiments on American black bears, Himalayan brown bears and chimpanzees, Gizmodo said the land used to recruit American citizens from the field of unemployment. The idea was that the animals would mimic the weight and size of a human pilot.
Instead of using crash test dummies to do this, they simply drugged a bear and stamped it on the ejector seat. The bears took it to the final testing stage, where they let out while the plane was flying. Bears and chimpanzees used to learn about potential flaws in capsule design. As you can hear in the video above, finding the broken bones of the bear can lead to the discovery of flaws in how the seats refused.
The capsule was then tweeted and re-tested on animals. Finally, a capsule not designed that was safe for human pilots. The bears suffered various injuries during the test at different heights and speeds. Injuries several bones and other wounds were broken, although all of them survived long enough to euthanized later. After which, they were isolated. The bomber retired less than a decade later.
