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THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE F-104’S STANLEY C-1 DOWNWARD FIRING EJECTION SEAT

written by Todd DePastino



Former USAF pilot Dick Westerhoff recently mentioned that when he flew the F-104
in the late 1950s, the ejection seat fired downward out the bottom of the
aircraft. If you think that sounds like a bad idea, you’re right. It was.

Dick’s Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was the leading edge of jet propulsion, the
first airplane to fly twice the speed of sound.



The F-104’s tremendous speed presented a problem for ejection. It flew too fast
for pilots to clear the tail assembly if they were thrown out of the plane with
standard upward-firing ejection seats. Older aircraft were easier to escape due
to slower speeds, but the high velocities of the new airplanes required new
ejection engineering.

Stanley Aviation provided a solution with the Stanley C-1 Ejection Seat. It
fired downward, which at the time was the only way to save crews in emergency
situations for aircraft like the F-104 and the B-47 bomber.

The seat had a series of complex mechanisms, including metal “spurs” on the
heels of the pilot’s boots that slotted over steel balls at the foot rest
(giving F-104 pilots the nickname “Cowboy”). The balls attached to cables that
kept the pilot’s feet in place during the ejection sequence.

The sequence initiated by pulling a yellow handle. The seat moved downward
slightly, then the ejection seat’s rockets would ignite. This would propel the
seat and the pilot on a trajectory that would further distance them from the
aircraft. Once a safe distance was achieved, the seat would deploy a parachute
to slow down the descent of the pilot.

Courtesy ejectionsite.com

While downward-firing seats prevented collisions with the tail, they introduced
a new set of problems. The whole ejection system was far more complex than
traditional upward ejection seats. More moving parts meant more chances for
malfunction and more time and expertise required for maintenance. It was also
highly specialized and couldn’t be adapted to other aircraft.

Finally, a forceful downward ejection meant that surviving a low-altitude escape
was almost impossible.

Twenty-one test pilots were killed using such ejection seats, including Korean
War Ace Iven Carl “Kinch” Kincheloe Jr. Kinchloe was chosen for the NASA Space
Program, but on July 26, 1958, he ejected at low altitude from an early model
F-104 at Edwards Air Force Base. The catapulted seat fired him into the ground
before his parachute could slow his decent.

Soviet aircraft like the Tupolev Tu-22 “Blinder” bomber also used
downward-firing seats due to unique design challenges. In the West, the Soviets
surprised observers with their advanced ejector seat technology, featuring an
auto gyro system that could fire the seat clear of the ground in any direction.
This innovation motivated Western engineers to upgrade their own seats.

Stanley Aviation eventually came out with the Lockheed C-2, which fired upward
using more powerful rocket catapults. The era of the downward ejection seat came
to a quiet end.

Watch the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum’s walk-through the upward
ejection seat on a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter:







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