When the RAAF bought the French Mirage III back in the 60's, most of them were assembled and tested in Australia.
A Royal Air Force Test pilot on loan to the RAAF, Sqn Ldr Tony Svensson, lost control of the first one to be assembled and he ejected at 750 knots (952 MPH) at 7000 feet and survived.. although badly injured.
Martin-Baker, the British company that made the seat, considered it to be a record at the time. The Caterpillar Club pin presented to all Martin Baker seat ejectees went for auction at Christies earlier this year.
http://content.yudu.com/Library/A14vmx/ ... es/131.htm
Whether this equates to ejecting at Mach 2 is a little subjective. Wind blast causes most of the injuries at high speed, and that is a function of IAS. 750 knots is an awful lot of IAS. The other cause of injuries, apart from back injuries caused by the seat itself, is the opening shock from the parachute. This is a function of True Airspeed (TAS). The TAS for this ejection was roughly 855 knots. No wonder the guy was in a coma for 10 days!!!
Some interesting facts about the Mirage III. Although limited to Mach 2 a friend of mine who flew it said the design was aerodynamically capable of Mach 3; the Mach 2 limit came principally from blade creep in the turbine and metallurgic problems.. i.e. the airframe would start to melt.
The Mirage used no thermal anti-icing, the airframe temperature was never low enough to require it when flying.
The standard climb speed was mach 0.9.
Australia wanted to operate them in Vietnam but the French threatened a spare parts embargo if we did so... this is one of the main reasons the RAAF went for the F-18 in the 80's.
The fuel system was a nightmare apparently. It was difficult to know at all times how much fuel you had on board at any one time. An acqaintance of mine was doing a practice ACM ride and thought he was flying a real dog. It turns out he flew almost the entire fight in A/B but with the speedbrakes inadvertently extended. This was a sure way to land without much fuel.. in fact he declared an emergency, landed and flamed out on the taxi-way on his way back in!
It was one of the last true fighter pilots aircraft, similiar in many ways to the F-104.... Glided like a brick but had only two speeds... fast and faster!
I had two back seats rides in them and the experience stays with me to this day. I also lost a very good friend when two of them collided but that is another story.
Quite a few pilots are on record ejecting at Mach 2+ and living.
