to begin with one of the biggest challenges of bailing out was actually first opening the cockpit after getting hit oftentimes planes were difficult to pilot and went into an uncontrolled spin called a death spiral these harsh turns and rolls combined with the g-forces of a to NUMBER_TOKEN mile an hour dive towards the ground made it extremely difficult for the pilot to control his movements especially fine-tuned movements like the releasing of a canopy because of this one of the biggest challenges pilots faced when bailing out was opening of the cockpit to get out now some aircraft of the time actually had an emergency handle in the cockpit that could be pulled to automatically release the canopy in the event of a bailout but some were not equipped with this feature and some pilots chose to open the canopy manually anyways obviously depending on the damage done to their aircraft it could sometimes be easy for example if a plane was hit and simply lost its engine this was often a much easier and controlled bale as the pilot could keep the plane level with relative ease another common obstacle faced when bailing out of an injured plane was the fact that many pilots were actually physically injured themselves when they were hit it was extremely common if not expected that when a plane took major damage the pilot would likely be wounded this could include bullet penetration shrapnel or even burns from a plane that was on fire often times the toxic fumes from a damaged aircraft could also hinder the ability to exit a doomed plane many pilots were able to overcome this and bailout after receiving minor injuries but there are an untold number of pilots who were not able to leave their aircraft due to the severity of the injuries sustained in combat it should be noted that these points on bailing out do apply to all sides except for the japanese in japanese culture at the time honor was by far the highest priority when making decisions in war it was believed that being captured by the enemy and becoming a prisoner of war was completely unacceptable and highly dishonorable it was simply not an option because of this the vast majority of japanese pilots chose not to bail out their pilots were given parachutes and even encouraged to wear them since pilots were so hard to replace but they often chose not to bring them some even used them as seat cushions or simply never strap them on if they did bring them
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