I met a guy over the weekend who fly quite a few military aircraft. He went through the Top Gun school, was a test pilot, and flew contract cargo into war zones in the Middle East for awhile. While flying jets he had the joy of having to eject twice, and made it clear that really sucked. He has no interest in flying private aircraft, and could care less about fast cars. His opinion is nothing compares to the flying he did. Now he is basically a chauffer for his wife who is a pathologist who needs to travel to various hospitals daily.
For as far as I know, you cannot fly a fighter jet anymore if you had to use the ejection seat twice. Due to the acceleration, the spine is compressed hard. After two ejections there can be permanent damage to the spine.
I didn't ask and he didn't say if that is why he went over to being a test pilot and contract pilot, but that may explain why he left the military.
If you mesure the lenght of a pilot before and after using twice the ejection seat, you will see that his lenght after is shorter than before. The compressing caused by the huge acceleration is irreversable. To protect the pilot, he cannot fly anymore as a third ejection might/will have very severe consequences. This is an old article that gives more information: https://militaryhealth.bmj.com/content/jramc/148/1/22.full.pdf https://www.smh.com.au/education/how-dangerous-is-it-to-eject-from-a-fighter-jet-20120730-239mp.html Are injuries common? About one in three will get a spinal facture, due to the force when the seat is ejected - the gravitational force is 14 to 16 times normal gravity and it might be applied at 200G per second. Bruising and abrasions are typical from the shock of the chute opening or the air blast. In the early days, there were cases where pilots would eject into very-high-speed air and it would whip their arms behind and break them, pop their shoulders out; same thing could happen to the legs. What about neck injuries? People have hit their chins on their chest. The weight of a standard head, plus helmet, plus mask, is about seven kilograms. At 9G it is 63 kilograms of mass. If you have a 25G ejection, with a standard seat-back angle, the force driving your head forward and down is about eight times the force of gravity. There is also a risk of leg fracture.
Sweet, right? Boyd built em. That middle one up there is called CadZZilla "Coddington's team, led by body man Craig Naff, started with a 1948 Cadillac Series 62 Sedanette, The very first sketches were done on a bar napkin.[4]" (Of course, like most visionary ideas, lol.) Hot Rods: ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons’ Car Collection https://teamspeed.com/articles/hot-rods-zz-tops-billy-gibbons-car-collection/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CadZZilla https://www.boydcoddington.com/ Conceived in 1989, CadZZilla is a customized Cadillac, built for Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. The car's appearance was designed by Jack Chisenhall and Larry Erickson.[1] It is acclaimed as one of the great expressions of automotive customization.[2] Drawing inspiration from the lead sleds and Mercs of the 1950s, it was different from anything that had gone before it. CadZZilla attracted considerable attention. Hot Rod's Gray Baskerville called CadZZilla "the most incredible transformation he'd ever witnessed",[1] and in their "History of Hot Rods & Customs" the auto editors of Consumer Guide praised it as "the first really new type of custom since the heyday of the 1950s".[3] Coddington's team, led by body man Craig Naff, started with a 1948 Cadillac Series 62 Sedanette,[4][5] it went (as custom projects do) from mild, as originally proposed by Gibbons, to wild.[4] The very first sketches were done on a bar napkin.[4] The top was chopped.[4] The hood and front fenders were sectioned and combined into a tilt nose.[4] Headlights were frenched[4] and late-model Cadillac taillights frenched into the rear fins.[5] The front bumper is fitted with high-mounted dagmars, with a Moon tank between them in the grille opening.[5] The engine is a 500 cu in (8 l) Cadillac V8 with custom-built Holley fuel injection, mated to a Currie 9 inch rear axle.[4] The exhaust pipes exit through the rear bumper.[5] Springs are Koni coilovers, with a steering box from a 1985 Corvette.[6] The wheels are a 22 in (560 mm)-diameter billet aluminum design by Coddington.[4] The exterior was finished in deep purple from House of Color.[4] CadZZilla cost Gibbons about US$900,000.[5] CadZZilla is also available as a Hot Wheels car.[7] Guitar Art