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{{trope}}
[[File:eject.jpg|link=Star Wars Expanded Universe|
{{quote|"Eject! EJECT! I can't shake him!"
|'''Porkins''', ''[[Star Wars]]''}}
{{quote|'''Q:''' Now this I'm particularly proud of. You see the gear-stick here? Now if you take the top off, you'll find a little red button. Whatever you do, don't touch it.
'''[[James Bond]]:''' And why not?
'''Q:''' Because if you do, you'll release this section of the roof, and engage and fire the passenger ejector seat. ''Whoosh!''
'''James Bond:''' Ejector seat? You're joking!
'''Q:''' I never joke about my work, 007.
|''[[Goldfinger]]''}}
[[Space Fighter
It should be pointed out that shooting an airman after he or she's ejected is a war crime, though this is a relatively recent idea and wasn't in force until 1977.<ref>Yes, it doesn't make much sense when you think about it. Can you imagine anyone letting a crewman jump out of his tank, wrap a bit of silk around himself and walk away from the battle? Perhaps the most bizarre example of this is that if you shoot down a plane carrying paratroops (who are not granted the same protection), you ''can'' shoot at the parachuting soldiers, but shooting at the plane's actual aircrew is a war crime. Erm... The technical answer is that an airman without a plane is no longer unable to discharge his or her functions and is therefore ''Hors de combat'', whereas paratroops are still able to do some damage. (Tank crews, though...)</ref>
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Distinct from just Abandon Ship; rather than just getting the heck out of (the) Dodge, a machine's helping you out (the door).
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' has ejector seats as a major feature of the Knightmare Frames. In fact, according to [[All There in the Manual|the backstory]], this trope is the very reason Knightmares exist to begin with.<ref>Britannia looked into putting Ejector Seats in traditional war machines like tanks, but then they added legs so they could escape the battlefield and it kind of snowballed from there</ref>
** [[Failsafe Failure]] is mostly averted, but there are a couple of moments. In one episode, we see a character ({{spoiler|Kewell}}) die when the [[Super Prototype|Guren Mk-II's]] radiant wave fries his machine's internal computers. In another, Lelouch is badly injured because the seat activates when he doesn't have a clear vector of escape, making it bounce off the ground and nearby objects like a rubber ball; it's frankly quite amazing that he didn't get whiplash.
* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]]'', the "entry plugs" that the EVA pilots rode in could be ejected in case of emergency. They [[Failsafe Failure|didn't always work]].
* ''[[
** The original Gundam's Core Fighter somewhat subverts this, since its main purpose is to preserve the Gundam's learning computer and its compiled combat data moreso than it is to protect the pilot.
* While most Variable Fighters in the ''[[Macross]]'' universe have standard ejection seats, the VF-25 ''Messiah'' from ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' is unique in that it doesn't have a seat, per se, but the pilots wear exoskeletons/mini-mecha (called EX-Gear) that dock with the cockpit. The pilot can then eject and fly away, even in outer space, using their own self-propelled EX-Gear, which has its own wings, thrusters, and limbs.
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* [[Axis Powers Hetalia|Italy and Poland]] both of them used it in different moments. Sadly, they got stuck in a tree immediately after.
== Comic Books ==
== Comics ==▼
* Given its appearance in no fewer than two other media, it is a pretty safe assumption that every iteration of [[Batman|the Batmobile]] has an ejector seat.
** The same goes for the [[Cool Plane|Batplane/Batwing]].
** One of the ''Batman vs [[Predator]]'' titles features a borrowed single-pilot police attack helicopter with an ejection seat, which is odd, because there are very few helicopters with ejection seats. There was only one single-pilot attack helicopter produced ever.
* In ''[[Green Lantern]]'', an airplane went down and Hal Jordan thought that maybe the pilot had forgotten where the lever was. He himself had managed to persuade Kyle Rayner to take a
* In one ''[[Archie]]'' comic book, Jughead as Captain Hero faces a courteous villain who left his own car via ejection seat, while the car is in motion.
== Films -- Animation ==
* At the beginning of ''[[The Incredibles]]'', Mr Incredible uses the ejector seat to get Buddy out of his car.
* ''[[Yellow Submarine]]''. Ringo is steering the sub as they pass through the Sea of Monsters. Old Ferd tells him "Whatever you do, [[Schmuck Bait|don't touch that button]]." Of course Ringo does so, and is ejected out of the submarine.
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* During the test of the [[Cool Car|Jet Car]], [[The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension|Buckaroo Banzai]] gets someone [[Locked Out of the Loop]] over his radio going "Eject, Buckaroo! Eject!" but Buckaroo refuses and goes on to go through the mountain and into the Eighth Dimension.
* ''[[Iron Man (
* In ''[[Stealth]]'', the [[Love Interest]] pilot is forced to eject in enemy territory. There's a long scene where she can't get her chute to deploy. She finally does, but she ends up injured because she was at a lower altitude than optimum for the chute.
* [[James Bond (
** In ''[[
** During one scene in ''[[
** In ''[[
* The quote at the top of this page comes from ''[[Star Wars]]'' during the assault on the Death Star (unfortunately for him, he gets blown up before he has time to eject). The starfighter is designed so that the cockpit and couch would separate from the fuselage and engines, thus leaving the pilot drifting in what was effectively a survival capsule. The suit is air tight and has a small force field that will keep you breathing for about three or four hours. Now being next to a giant moon-sized space station that explodes isn't exactly survivable so it was still a waste of time.
* ''[[Top Gun]]'' shows that ejecting doesn't always help, as Goose smacks into the canopy and breaks his neck. This was a real risk at one time; now the ejection seat in many fighters is designed with a mechanism to shatter the glass before the pilot could hit it in the case that the canopy is not out of the way already.
** Additionally, the F-14's canopy had a tendency to get sucked into a low-pressure zone directly above the cockpit during ejection.
* ''[[The Cannonball Run]]'' features the Aston Martin DB V from ''[[
* ''[[Space Mutiny]]''. "I LOST POWER!"
* In contrast, the ejector seat on [[Pee
* The [[Cool Car|Batmobile]] in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' has an unconventional ejector seat which converts into a kickass Bike from hell.
* Used in the [[Show Within a Show]] ''Austinpussy'' in ''Goldmember''.
* ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]'' (2004). [[Action Girl]] and [[Ace Pilot]] "Franky" Cook ejects from her [[Military Mashup Machine|submersible airplane]] just in time to avoid a [[Macross Missile Massacre]]. After breaking the surface of the water, a [[Jet Pack]] boosts her the rest of the way up to her [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]. Even the [[Love Triangle|rival for the hero's affections]] is impressed.
* ''[[Death Race]]'' has an ejector seat in the hero's car. The eject was never for the Hero, just [[Ms. Fanservice|the navigator]]. Assuming it's the same for all the vehicles, it makes sense seeing as how viewers would like to think the ladies don't die.
* The ''[[Speed Racer (
* ''[[The Fast and
* Parodied in ''[[Hot Shots]]'', where a character successfully ejects... right into another plane. His head is stuck in another pilot's cockpit for a good long while, his arms and legs flailing around uselessly as he begs said pilot "Don't land!"
* In ''[[Chitty Chitty Bang Bang]]'', when Baron Bomburst commands Grandpa to make the eponymous car fly, Grandpa presses a button at random that sends the Baroness shooting skyward out of her seat (she is saved by her [[Parachute Petticoat]]).
* ''[[Flight of the Intruder]]'' has several. They also work in an opportunity for [[Exact Words]].
{{quote|
"Goodbye asshole!" *ejection seats fire* }}
== Literature ==
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' Expanded Universe uses this a lot more than the films, so that people can and do survive that way. Sometimes, however, the ejector seat malfunctions, sometimes the canopy doesn't open. Both the successful and the tragic versions happen in the ''[[X Wing Series]]'', both books and comics. With the mag-con field active over their flight suits, pilots can survive for something like ten minutes before freezing, since [[Space Is Cold]]. There was actually a plot the Darklighter comic which [http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5131/blz10.jpg hinged] on [http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/1857/blz11.jpg ejecting] in better suits while their modified TIEs got shot down.
** Averted with the [[
* Averted in ''[[The Laundry Series|The Jennifer Morgue]]'' by [[Charles Stross]], which goes into some detail as to why an ejection seat in a car is an insanely bad idea; when Bob Howard presses the eject button on his [[Cool Car]], the ''entire car ejects'', which is only slightly less so. It's made clear that only time you should press the button is if ''not'' pressing it is ''definitely'' going to kill you. The explanation also deflates the idea of the "easy eject"; Bob describes how, due to the G-forces involved, the pilot is likely looking at weeks in traction ''at best''.
* As in the games on which they're based, the ''[[Wing Commander (
== Live-Action TV ==
* The Vipers in
* When Wendy Watson flies to rescue ''[[The Middleman]]'', [[Ridiculously Human Robot|IDA]] triggers the Middlejet's
* Fighters in ''[[Babylon
* ''[[Knight Rider]]'': KITT's ejection seats never left the car, they simply catapulted the occupant a couple stories in the air. Which makes less sense.
* ''[[
* The ''[[
* In the [[Stargate Verse]], the F-302, being space-worthy fighters, can eject the whole two-place cockpit, as to make sure the pilots can survive in space. Most of other races' [[
* In ''[[
* An episode of ''[[Good Eats]]'' had Alton ejecting "James Bond" from his bar with an ejection ''stool'', complete with a [[Shout
* Documentary series ''[[Pawn Stars]]'' had someone try to sell this to the pawn shop. It was appraised as genuine.
** And they learned it was still functioning and in all the years it had been owned and used as a chair in someone's living room, no one decided to randomly try the eject button.
* Played straight, averted, and subverted in several episodes of ''[[JAG]]''. Appropriate, as several of the characters on the show are fighter pilots. Even part of the story behind Harm's [[Disappeared Dad]].
{{quote|
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' had some fired employee [http://dilbert.com/strip/2009-07-31 leave a meeting]. Also, [https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-05-28 CEO panic button].
== Tabletop Games ==
* Some tau Battlesuits in Warhammer 40k has an option for this.
*
** The eject button is marked as "Bouncy Bubble Beverage Dispenser" or something along those lines.
** The presence of an ejector seat was not considered when armour plating was added. (See also, head trauma.)
** The seatbelt, if you used it at all, was poorly designed and disconnects as soon as the seat ejects.
** And many, many more.
* ''[[
* An option for a ''[[Car Wars]]'' vehicle, too. It boasted three accessory packages: a hang glider to fly away, a parachute to waft down, or (the 'Mother-in-law special') absolutely nothing, for the Wile E Coyote impersonation scene. No restrictions on vehicle (although helicopters did lose their rotors after ignition request). Fellow [[Steve Jackson Games]] product ''[[GURPS]] Vehicles'' also, naturally, had these.
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Critical Mass 1995 (
* In ''[[Escape Velocity]]'', playing on [[Final Death|"Strict Play"]] mode makes buying an escape pod a wise move. There's an auto-eject option which automatically launches it if your ship is breaking up.
* Featured prominently in the ''[[Wing Commander (
* ''[[Steel Battalion]]'' would delete your save if you didn't use the molly-guarded [[Big Red Button]] on the insanely expensive custom controller to bail out of your [[Humongous Mecha]].
* The ''[[Mech Commander]]'' series had ejection as part of the gameplay. Your Mechwarriors would typically successfully eject (with some injury, which was another gameplay mechanic) should their 'Mechs be disabled by anything but destruction of the head. Understandably (as the head contains the cockpit), destruction of the cockpit results in the death of the Mechwarrior. In either case, death of your Mechwarrior would result in him being removed from your roster permanently; a fairly big issue, as Mechwarriors get better with experience and recruited Mechwarriors cost credits and are typically worse than the ones you currently have.
* ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' had escape pods built into the cockpits that gave pilots a chance to survive losing their BattleMechs. They were seemingly powerful enough to get back to orbit under their own power, which is a good bit beyond the normal capabilities of ejection seats in the board game.
* In ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'' pilots routinely bail out from their badly damaged helicopters. (It's not ejection in the usual sense of the word, they simply jump out and pull their chutes, but it's still absurd, since they usually go through the still-turning rotors and yet ''remain unharmed''.
* One of the devices you can equip on your vehicle in ''[[Banjo
* Ejection seats play a major role in [[Faking the Dead]] at one point in ''[[Ace Combat]] 5.'' {{spoiler|A jammed ejection seat kills Chopper earlier.}}
** Enemy aces in ''Ace Combat Zero'' sometimes manage to eject and survive the battle, according to the Assault Records.
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== Web Comics ==
* [[Metal Gear Solid|Liquid Snake]] wound up in Alaska after accidentally ejecting himself from a helicopter in ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]''. He then guesses that he must be in the North Pole, and wonders where the [[Polar Bears and Penguins|penguins]] are.
* ''[[Freefall]]'' has it in cockpit of the "Savage Chicken" as Helix [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff200/fv00177.htm found]. And later [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00265.htm pointed for Sam] as the way to "get into the air as soon as possible". Of course, this involved blowing up a chunk of the "roof" and checks it's actually done ("[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00267.htm Two words]. [[Too Dumb To Live|Roof pizza]]"). Which needed replacement, especially [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff600/fv00576.htm explosive bolts that do this]. Also, the crew doesn't wear helmets in cockpit anyway (except Sam, but how well his suit is sealed is another question).
== Western Animation ==
* During the 1980s, the [[Moral Guardians]] were all concerned about damaging fragile child minds, so [[Never Say "Die"]] was in full effect. This was particularly noticeable on ''[[G.I. Joe]]''. Any aerial dogfight between the Joes and Cobra ended up with the loser ejecting and parachuting to safety before their plane was destroyed. [[
* ''[[Batman:
** The animated Batmobile ''does'' have ejector seats, as evidenced in [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?|the episode with Earl Cooper]].
** In the episode "Joker's Millions" of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'', [[The Joker]] is so poor that he could afford only one ejection seat. Boy, was Harley mad!
* Batman in ''[[Batman:
* The first season finale of ''[[Megas XLR]]'' features one of these, with the button "Bet You Can't Guess What This Button Does". Next season, there was an "Eject Skippy" button, conveniently anticipating where the annoying kid would be sitting.
* An episode of ''[[The Smokey Bear Show]]'' had one character installing an ejector seat in another character's newly acquired sports car.
* In the "Rhode Island Road Race" episode of ''[[Wacky Races]]'', Penelope Pitstop uses her ejector seat to expel Dick Dastardly.
* Freddy installs an ejection seat in the desert racing episode of ''What's New, [[Scooby Doo]]?''.
* The ''[[
* ''[[Space Ghost]]'': Jan and Jayce's little space coupe has ejector seats.
* The Javelins used by ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' have ejector pods.
* Brock Sampson of ''[[Venture Brothers]]'' owns a '69 Charger with an ejection seat.
* In the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Elementary, My Dear Stacey", Agent "Double 0" 0's car has an ejector seat. Agent P triggers it.
* ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (
* In ''[[
== Real Life ==
* In real life, 20% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot sustaining career-ending injuries, such as death. Also, 100% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot losing several inches of height, due to the sudden compression of being flung out of your plane at anywhere from 12 to 22 Gs (depending on what ejection seat your plane was equipped with). Most air forces impose a career limit on the number of ejections permissible before it's desk job city for you.
** Indeed pilots don't eject at the first hint of trouble, either. Considerable effort if first put into ''slowing the aircraft'' because at supersonic or just plain fast speeds the wind the pilot is slamming into could possibly rip the mask off of a pilot's face and ram the air down his esophagus, [[Squick|inflating his stomach like a balloon]], which makes simply impacting the ground sans parachute sound like a better option. Slowing down to a more reasonable speed to eject into is a good idea, if you can do it. A 200
** Note that in one extraordinary case, not only the pilot survived the ejection, but so did the aircraft, as it managed to land sans pilot, and sustained so little damage that it was returned to service. (See [https://web.archive.org/web/20110914000635/http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=4085 here] for more details). Even more [
** Before ejection seats were invented, escaping an aircraft by "bailing out" was even more dangerous. If you were lucky, there was a control that would blast off the canopy with explosive charges. If not, you had to open the canopy yourself, either climb out or roll the aircraft over and ''fall'' out, and essentially perform an impromptu skydive. Unlike a normal skydive however, the aircraft is likely to be violently spinning and rapidly losing altitude due to loss of engines, control surfaces, entire wings, or all of the above. If the plane was flying low enough or couldn't be controlled at all, many pilots chose to stay in their planes and die instantly in the crash instead of risk bailing out and dying a slower, more horrible death. At least 50% died on the way out (not counting the ones who didn't make it out at all), and only around a quarter made it back home safely, the rest of the survivors either being taken prisoner or horribly wounded. Early-model Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Bell P-39 Airacobras were notoriously difficult to bail out of because the wind would literally hold the side-folding canopy shut, making it almost impossible to escape the plane.
*** Production Airacobras didn't have sliding canopies, they had ''doors'', but that didn't make them easier to bail out, for a different reason. The relative positions of the cockpit door and the stabilizer effectively made sure that if any pilot taller than a midget would forget to take a fetal position after bailing out, his legs will be broken by a stabilizer, this usually being a career ending injury even if the pilot managed to land on his own territory and was saved by the groung troops. More than a few pilots suffered such a misfortune, the most famous of them being a Soviet ace Boris Glinka (29 victories).
*** The Lockheed P-38 Lightning, likewise, had a nasty habit of killing or permanently injuring anybody attempting to bail out of it. The plane basically had 2 fuselages, with a boomlike horizontal stabilizer stretching the entire width between them. Bailing out of the cockpit (located in the middle between the 2 fuselages) would likely slam you into the boom, whether you curled into a fetal position or not. Rumor has it that it was this plane that inspired the invention of the ejection seat in the first place.
** There's a close up photo of F-16 ejection at Mountain Home airshow in 2003. [//www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/fighter/f16/pics03.shtml] [//fearoflanding.com/accidents/ejection-0-8-seconds-before-impact/] — note the pyrotechnics. At which point the photographer finally realized that there's an aircraft (now certainly uncontrolled) apparently flying straight at him and it's evacuation time. The pilot (Captain Chris Stricklin) managed to steer away from the crowd, but not pull up, and ejected 0.8 second before crash (didn't even ram the observation tower in which the photo was taken, and walked away with minor injuries, so the only loss was the plane itself). He had to leave the stunt squadron after this, but in 2009 got an award for good work on safety programmes.
* [[Tom Wolfe]], in ''[[The Right Stuff]]'',
* Ejection system are attached to manned space launchers to blast the manned bit clear if the launcher is danger of exploding on the launchpad. This has only ever been used once for real, when the two-man crew of Soyuz T-10-1, waiting for a trip to Salyut 7 in 1983, were ejected clear of their launcher just before a fire destroyed it.
* In 1975, another Soyuz mission had its capsule ejected while heading for orbit as the third stage was deviating too much.
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[[Category:Escape Tropes]]
[[Category:Tropes On a Plane]]
[[Category:
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