78 years after attending the very first Farnborough International Airshow in 1948, Martin-Baker is pleased to be exhibiting our latest range of Mk18 ejection seats this year.

The Mk18 continues to be our flagship product that provides world leading ejection performance against the very latest physiological requirements.

The technology that the Mk18 seat has introduced has enabled safer ejection for aircrew equipped with helmet mounted displays (HMD) while offering the widest possible aircrew weight range making the occupancy of these ejection seats gender neutral from an ejection safety perspective.

Equally important for the operators is the Mk18 modular design which enables seat removal and installation without canopy removal – these features together with a longer inspection period, lower the cost of ownership through reductions in maintainer man-power.

The Mk18 originated from the US16E ejection seat that was developed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II for which the ejection count has increased to 12. The first Mk18 flew in the Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) KF-21 for the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) during July 2022 and is now in rate production.

The next Mk18 first flight occurred in December 2025 in the Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 destined for the air forces of Taiwan, Morocco and Jordan.

Much interest has been shown across many existing F-16 operators world-wide for the US18E Ejection Seat Upgrade Programme (ESUP). As the legacy F-16 aircraft fleets continue to be upgraded by Lockheed Martin in the field with new HMD capabilities, the operators also seek an expanded aircrew range to increase the pool of available aircrew.

Two new Mk18 seat configurations are presently undergoing qualification ejection testing destined for the Turkish Aerospace Hürjet and KAAN aircraft programmes.

Against the backdrop of an increasingly large worldwide fleet of F-35 aircraft, the operation of the latest generation HMD is now becoming the norm. The Mk18 is being offered to existing legacy aircraft platforms to enable a more modern HMD to be retrofitted, providing these aircraft with new mission capability while retaining ejection safety.

Looking further ahead, the Mk18 is being offered to new aircraft platforms such as the tri-national Global Combat Aircraft Programme (GCAP), US Navy Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS), F/A-XX and Indian Advance Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) competitions.

Please come by and see our range of Mk18 ejection seats on display in Hall 1 stand #1260.