Here's what it's like to eject from a jet at 600 MPH (video)

When it finally goes into the air forces of the United States and the United Kingdom, the F-35 Lightning II will become the world's first stealthy, supersonic, multi-role fighter. In the meantime, however, development continues. At at an estimated cost per airplane of $156 million, however, it's too expensive to send real pilots into the skies to bail out of their aircraft. So it is that engineers at BAE Systems, one of the subcontractors involved in the project, came up with a more cost-effective way to test the ejection technology. At a site in Oxfordshire, England, where this video was filmed, they are able to send replica F-35 cockpits down the track at over 600 miles-per-hour and then eject test dummies. As you can see from the clip, it's still quite the speed rush.