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One hears of many stories of ejection seats but rarely of ejection by capsule. Probably because seats are so much more common.
So are there any known incidents of ejections by capsule? F-111 was one such aircraft that had an ejection capsule I recall.
While the F-111 had a custom build escape capsule integrated with the cockpit, escape capsule designs have been used in the past. One notable type was the Stanley Corp. Ejection Capsule. It was a special type of ejection seat which used a pressurized clamshell-type enclosure which could be deployed rapidly once the ejection process had been initiated. It was designed specifically to protect a pilot against a supersonic, high altitude ejection which would have almost certainly been fatal using a conventional ejection seat. The system was used on both the B-58 and XB-70 aircraft.
The system was pressurized allowing a flight crew to use standard life support equipment as opposed to a full body pressure suit for high altitude flight.
One notable ejection involving the Stanley capsules was the loss of XB-70 prototype No 2 on 8 June, 1966 near Barstow, CA. During a formation flight of several other aircraft with the XB-70 for a General Electric photo shoot, an NF-104 collided with the starboard wing and tailfin of the XB-70 and disintegrated in flames, killing NASA test pilot Joe Walker in the process. The Valkyrie continued on straight and level, then waltzed out of control and began tumbling toward the desert, spilling plumes of fuel vapor as it went. Commander Al White initiated the ejection process using his Stanley capsule and egressed the aircraft but was seriously injured by failing to clear his arm from the clamshell enclosure during deployment. The copilot, Carl Cross, failed to initiate ejection and rode the crippled Valkyrie to the desert floor, killing him in the process.
The F-111 capsule was great and I always felt glad to have it, especially at high speed. However in my 8 years flying in it, I'm not sure that the ejections I knew about were much different statistically. The fatal outcomes were late, upside down in a rapid roll or otherwise outside the parameters and the successful ones were mostly okay with a few non-grounding back injuries caused by the impact. One case in Mountain Home, the Wing CC pilot broke his back after ejecting a few seconds after takeoff. He was paralyzed but the WSO was not seriously hurt. My impression is that these results are probably comparable to seat ejections.
Yes, in the B-70 accident, one of the crew members escaped inside a capsule, but had part of one of his elbows shaved, as it was caught by the shell and cut on launching from airplane, and some backbone fractures on landing, as the parachute didn't work properly, speed when capsule hit ground was too high.
