From a series of incidents that befell the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet, Martin Baker indirectly won a free promotion when the pilot was able to eject and land safely. For example, in the incident of the downing of a British F-35B shortly after taking off from the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Mediterranean Sea on November 17, 2021.
Not only that, the incident on the F-35C that occurred on January 24, 2022 in the South China Sea, suddenly increased the prestige of the Martin Baker MK16 ejection seat. However, recently there was bad news regarding the ejection seat on the F-35, especially those operated by the United States Air Force.
Quoted from TheDrive.com (29/7/2022), the US Air Force has grounded the F-35A Lightning II fleet for an indefinite period of time due to concerns that a faulty explosive cartridge in the ejection seat could hinder the pilot's ability to self-eject quickly. safe in an emergency. "Most of the Air Combat Command's (ACC) 113 F-35s have been grounded for the time being," said Alexi Worley, a spokesman for the ACC.
Following initial inspections of a small number of F-35 aircraft and discussions with our logistics professionals and Air Combat Command, the ACC commander has directed an operational pause on the F-35A fleet starting Friday, July 29 to allow the logistics team to further analyze the issue and speed up the inspection process.
The US Air Force currently has a total of 349 F-35s, however, it is unclear how many are affected by this issue. Indications of problems with the ejection seat could have far-reaching implications, given that there are hundreds of F-35s operated by the air force, navy and Marines, not to mention F-35 assets scattered across US and NATO allies.
The problem with the F-35A was with the cartridge actuated devices (CAD) in Martin Baker's ejection seat. The CAD initiates a series of automatic functions when the pilot pulls the ejection handle to safely exit the aircraft and deploys the crew parachute. As per procedure, CAD is checked regularly, and replaced if necessary, during the aircraft maintenance period but it can be affected by environmental and operational conditions.
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The CAD issue with the F-35A was discovered after the Air Force carried out what it called a “Time Compliance Technical Guide” on July 19 to inspect all cartridges in the ejection seat within 90 days. Due to extreme caution, the ACC unit will conduct a stand-down on July 29 to speed up the inspection process.
In the aftermath of the CAD issue on the ejection seat, now hundreds of F-35s across the Air Force, Navy and Marines have also been grounded as a result of the concern.
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