During the 1950s, the fastest bomber around was the B-58 Hustler, which could travel twice the speed of sound. Pilots at that velocity could not survive an ordinary bailout, so the U.S. Air Force developed a special ejection capsule (pictured below) for supersonic use. In the early 1960s, it tested the capsule by using Himalayan and black bears. The capsules, each containing a bear, were blown out of the aircraft while they were going 1,100 miles per hour and parachuted to the ground.
The bears all survived the bailouts with only minor physical injuries but with some psychological stress. The Air Force expressed its gratitude towards the ursines by killing them after their flights in order to perform necropsies.
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| J Clear at en.wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
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