First Emergency Use of Whole-Aircraft Parachute 342
Ahotasu writes "Over at SpaceFlightNow, there is a short NASA news release discussing the development of and first emergency use of a production parachute system for a general aviation aircraft. Whole-ultralight parachute systems have been available and used for some time, but this is apparently the first use in a "certified general-aviation aircraft". From the article: "In October 2002, a pilot released his single engine aircraft's parachute and landed safely in a Texas mesquite- tree grove. The pilot was uninjured, and there was minimal damage to the plane. The safe landing made aviation history, as it was the first emergency application of an airframe parachute on a certified aircraft." Here's the company's website. Looks like right now, they only have models for a select few gen. aviation aircraft, probably the most popular models."
Wonder if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wonder if... (Score:4, Insightful)
Realistically, one would assume that they would put a large number of parachutes on a larger plane. The article talks about a small single engine plane, but you wouldn't want to try and hold a 747 up by one attachment point even if you had a big enough prarchute.
Re:Wonder if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, a parachute and cords strong enough to support a 747 - that is another story entirely.
The real trick (Score:4, Insightful)
I vaguely remember a Discovery-type special on this years ago, where they were trying for chutes that would only open partway (using some sort of ring) until it slowed the plane enough to survive full opening, but I've forgotten the details.
Re:The real trick (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The real trick (Score:4, Funny)
Finally we can install the feature that every trainee pilot has always dreaded- the legendary "Wings Fall Off" switch!
Nuclear Weapons (Score:3, Informative)
idea! (Score:2)
Re:Wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just the dead weight too. Since a large commercial jet, even a dying one, would be flying at hundreds of miles per hour, deploying a chute in mid-air will essentially bring it to a halt (in terms of forward velocity). Not only will that exert a huge force on the chute, but it'll also practically be like a crash for those inside.
A cessna, on the other hand, can stay aloft at 45mph...
Re:Wonder if... (Score:2)
Man...talk about airsickness then...
Swinging back and forth...back and forth...
in a 747 and scared out of your skull...
Re:Wonder if... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wonder if... (Score:5, Informative)
A Cessna 150's max take-off weight is 1600lb. So, you'd need 569 such-sized parachutes to hold a fully-laden 747. Who knows if they can be made that large, or strong. Plus the Cessna goes far slower than the 747's
In short, it might be easier and more feasible to give parachutes to all the passangers!
Re:Wonder if... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wonder if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus all the liabilities from people killing themselves under the parachutes afters steering them into trees and powerlines.
I say a malfunction on a plane that big which could only be saved by a huge parachute is not destined to make it through... in other words, you're fucked.
Cheers,
CvD.
Old News (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the link: NPR Story [npr.org] It's a real audio file.
This is one small step for aviation... (Score:5, Funny)
Rocket! (Score:3, Funny)
Cool!!! A rocket-propelled parachute!
Now it just needs a nuclear-powered life raft for the 'water landings'.
Re:Rocket! (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was an air traffic controller, we referred to them as "aluminum lawn darts," for obvious reasons.
Re:Rocket! (Score:5, Funny)
Er... I would think that would be a pretty common problem among planes, fully-loaded or not...
Re:Rocket! (Score:2)
Takeoff is when the engine is generating maximum power, continuously. It's the most stressful time on the aircraft's systems.
Re:Rocket! (Score:2)
Again, I'm thinking single-engine planes might not be a real comfortable place to be in that situation either....
Re:Rocket! (Score:3, Interesting)
In a single engine plane, you're landing, one way or another, and if you're smart, you just land straight ahead, trees or not. That rarely kills you, but it does mess up the plane. (Turning around is often fatal unless you have a lot of speed or altitude.)
In a twin-engine plane, you apply full power to the other engine (during takeoff, it may already be at full power.) This creates a large yaw force that tends to cause the plane to roll, sometimes so much that it can't maintain altitude and it becomes a lawn dart. It can all happen very quickly, and you're probably not very high up, so you don't have much time to correct for it.
Re:Rocket! (Score:3, Funny)
True. The saying goes that in a twin engined plane, if one of the engines fail, the other engine will take you to the scene of the crash.
I might be stupid.... (Score:2)
just wondering....
nbfn
Re:I might be stupid.... (Score:2)
Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
If this works as well as I've heard, look for it to eventually become mandatory on small planes.
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
This is presuming that the parachute is only deployed in extreme situations where gliding or a glide landing was no longer viable of course.
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, if you need to pull the handle, it strongly suggests that not pulling the handle would have also destroyed the plane.
With handle=probably will save your life, might save the plane.
Without handle= Both are doomed.
Am I missing something?
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:2)
Ughh... well, I just had a nice long reply to this, but then good old IE crashed. Here was the main point:
According to people I've talked to, basically every time you pull the handle, the insurance company buys you a new plane. That's not going to be cheap.
That's completely wrong. And just plain silly. Who are these people you're talking to? Obviously, they're not pilots.
The GARD-150 costs $10,995 (Score:2)
Re:Hopefully drive down costs. . . (Score:2)
As you said, the airframe is but one part of the plane. I believe that for smaller planes it is a fairly small portion of the overall cost. I'd expect that inspectors might hesitate in how they deal with engines and other parts that just took such a crash. So I can't speak to that, but portions of the plane may indeed be salvagable. Even in a "write-off" many of the parts will enter the used plane market. Of course that would hurt plane manufacturers who make their pofits selling planes. Every time a Beaver or old school Cessna gets sold no manufacturer makes money.
However people who can walk away from injuries are less likely to sue on general principles. Sort of like if you got a fender-bender. You might be pissed, but you are not likely to enter into a bunch of liability suites. However if you are in the hospital or a family member dies, you may be pissed enough to do so. Even beyond the payouts it is this general attitude of torte that I think this will help prevent.
Further this is a reasonably new technology. (Yes I know that whole-plane chutes technically have been around a long, long time) I wouldn't be surprised if, for small planes, this continues to advance so that the plane itself can be saved.
What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:3, Interesting)
But any pilot has to demonstrate the basics of unpowered flight to get their license. The engine dies - so what! Just look for a place to land.
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:2)
I guess dead stick takes on a whole new meaning then.
I'd much rather come down vertically and slowly into a stand of trees as opposed to horizontally and fast.
.
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:2)
It's funny how, when I was getting my Private, the engine always mysteriously failed on every flight, usually at the worst part of the flight (from a workload point of view).
An airplane like a Cessna 172 can be landed at 50 mph. A 10 g deceleration will not cause any injuries to occupants (if they're all wearing shoulder+lap seat belts). You need about 10 feet to slow down from 50 mph at 10g. (Damn non-metric units, I didn't want to convert and find the exact answer.)When that parachute leaves you and the airplane stuck in a tree 50 feet off the ground, what's the next move? There are no magic bullets in aviation (just like anywhere else). You weigh both sides and decide which option works for you. For my kind of flying, the BRS chute is not good. For others, it may be just like mother made.
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:2, Interesting)
"Look for" != "find". This gadget could be the difference between life and death for a pilot rapidly running out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas in a dense forest or crowded urban area -- not to mention the people on the ground.
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:5, Informative)
Or there are the many times I've seen small craft crashes where the control surface fell off the plane.
Or (as we have seen with alarming frequency here in NJ) mid-air collisions. How do you dead stick a plane that has it's wing sheared off by some moron who isn't paying to the traffic while he's showboating?
And there's problems even if you have only a dead engine. in the case of a dead engine over water perhaps. Ditching in the drink was and is the fear of every neval pilot since there is no garantee that the water will not swell at the last moment and slap you hard.
It's an added safty feature that gives the pilot more chances to have a good landing...one that they can walk away from.
Anecdotal evidence is not an argument (Score:2)
I'm going to call you on this bullshit. How many instances are there where a control surface "fell off" an airplane? This only happens with completely crappy maintenance. An airplane that was that badly maintained is not likely to have a $15,000 BRS chute.
How many instances of mid-air collisions where a BRS chute would have saved lives? I'll grant that this number is non-zero. Is this number large enough that we will see (or should have) large-scale deployment of BRS chutes? No.
What kind of person thinks only engines fail? (Score:5, Interesting)
Controls can stick, birds can impact the plane in flight. The list goes on, and on...
This is useful for those situations
The kind of pilot that can't dead stick: (Score:2)
Passengers can also hit the emergency button if the pilot is totally incapacitated or even dead.
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a private pilot, and you're right--we're all taught to land a plane without an engine. But landing a plane like that depends on rather ideal conditions: VFR, fairly high off the ground so you have time to glide, and relatively flat terrain.
I could list several instances where this device would be very useful.
These are not fail-safe devices, from what I have read. You will likely total the plane upon landing, even with one of these thing deployed. But any landing you can walk away from is a good one...
Peace,
LinuxScribe
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:4, Informative)
One of the hard facts of life that we have to teach students is that they may not find a good field when the engine quits. They may just have to find the field that sucks the least. Even more aggravating, the perfect field may lie only 100 yards beyond a point you can reach safely; but you must choose the field you can reach, then do your best to ensure survivability.
It is by no means a cut and dried procedure, or a sure thing. The idiot who simply spouted out "What kind of pilot can't dead stick?" obviously has no idea how complex the task can be.
As for the chutes, the design in the Cirrus is good. It destroys the airframe upon deployment. This will (hopefully) prevent people from just pulling the handle as soon as something makes them nervous.
The pilot in this case should be applauded. He didn't just pop the chute when the problem occurred (and it was a MAJOR problem). He used his own skills to fly the airplane to a less populated area. He demonstrated a great deal of composure and guts; but I doubt he could have dead sticked the airplane in its condition. Does that somehow make him a bad pilot?
Idiot... (Score:2)
WINGS FALL OFF (it happens). PARTS FALL OFF (it happens). ENGINE DIES, STRONG WIND CONDITIONS (it happens).
Re:What kind of pilot can't dead stick? (Score:2)
Many tough engineering issues had to be dealt with (Score:5, Informative)
I read that it was difficult to get the parachute to open quickly with minimal altitude loss if deployed at low airspeeds, while at the same time limiting the inflation loads to a tolerable level if deployed at high airspeeds.
"The concept is comparable to automotive safety systems, which utilize energy absorbing structures, airbags, inertial restraint systems, padded interiors, and occupant protection cages working in unison to promote a very controlled and survivable crash condition." - http://www.aviation-engines.co.za/brs.htm
Re:Many tough engineering issues had to be dealt w (Score:2)
I saw a news story on one variant. It used a really nifty limiter ring around the shroud lines. At high speed, the wind pushed the ring up towards the chute, thus pinching it mostly closed. As the speed reduces, the chute's expansion force overcomes the wind's push on the ring, and it slides forward, allowing full deployment.
Plane Safety (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree that reliability of the plane as a whole is far more important in terms of R&D investment, but a real sustained focus on emergency procedures would be extremely welcome too.
Re:Plane Safety (Score:2)
Here's an interesting Nova link [pbs.org] to one show. (Not the one I was thinking of)
Re:Plane Safety (Score:2)
As to the oxygen masks and other gear aboard airliners, I don't know whether the gear has saved lives but at least it gives the passengers something to do in case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure while the pilots are diving for 10,000 feet. In smaller planes that safety gear (life rafts and such) have saved lives when they've gone down over water.
Duck & Cover (Score:2)
Just because it can't protect everyone doesn't mean it should be ridiculed as useless.
Deployment upside down? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Deployment upside down? (Score:2)
I fail to see how this will work (Score:3, Interesting)
It'll have just as much effect as giving Red Bull to all passengers, i.e. none
This is an aircraft manufacturer.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is an aircraft manufacturer.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well there is reason to be wary of these planes, and that reason has something to do with the parachute. Every other manufactured small plane has had to undergo a spin recovery demonstration. That is, the manufacturer has had to demonstrate in a flight test that the plane can be recovered from a spin. Not so the SR20 and SR22. Cirrus did not have to demonstrate spin recovery because their official spin recovery method is to deploy the parachute. Because they haven't had to demonstrate spin recovery, we don't really know how these planes behave in a spin. There have been a few accidents in the Cirrus that may be attributed to an unrecoverable spin condition. It's possible that by the time the pilot realized his situation he couldn't deploy the parachute.
Deploying the chute is a final act. Once you do that you have put your fate in the hands of the winds and chance. That's not something that pilots are comfortable doing -- we never want to give up flying the plane in any situation. So a pilot would want to be absolutely sure that there was no other reasonable course of action before pulling that handle. Because that will be his last act as pilot in command for that flight!
Re:This is an aircraft manufacturer.... (Score:2)
My worry about the Cirrus aircraft is icing. That neato high performance wing may not behave nicely if there are icy bumps on the lift generating areas. Take a look here [ifrwest.com] for pictures of some nontrivial ice I picked up in a Cessna 182 over South Dakota. That kind of ice on a Cirrus would scare the dogpoop out of me, and might be a reason to use the built-in chute.
Are there any Cirrus drivers on Slashdot who have dealt with ice before?
Re:This is an aircraft manufacturer.... (Score:2)
True, but that is (usually) a slow skidding (too much rudder) turn from base to final. A stall in that situation is a horrific spin entry which is usually unrecoverable.
My original comment (stall followed by hard rudder) is the entry for a delibrate spin. I should have allowed for simultaneous events (stalling with too much rudder.)
Re:This is an aircraft manufacturer.... (Score:3, Informative)
Disclosure: I own one.
Re:This is an aircraft manufacturer.... (Score:5, Informative)
Also this year, there was an A.D. related to the trim system on the airplane that required removal of the left aileron. The pilot of the October flight was returning home after having the mechanics perform the A.D. maintenance on his plane. They had apparently not tightened/safety-wired the attachments for the left aileron, resulting in separation after departure.
Fortunately, the other A.D. seemed to do the trick.
Disabled airplane ... (Score:2)
If you lose your engine in a single engine plane, and you have somewhere reasonably flat to land, you're probably better of just making a normal (emergency, dead-stick) landing.
Even helicopters don't just `fall out of the sky' when the engine shuts off :)
Let's hope these things never deploy accidently. It would get really interesting really fast if one accidently deployed close to the ground (right after takeoff, or before a landing, for example), or while your plane was cruising at 180 mph ...
(they must be strong enough to survive a deployment at Vne (Velocity to never exceed), but I can see where it could easily cause structural damage j
Re:Disabled airplane ... (Score:2, Informative)
This wasn't in the article but it did make the news here in Texas. The pilot was taking off when the airplane became "disabled". Therefore no altitude to trade for airspeed = instant stall. Otherwise known as falling out of the sky. This is the way most plane crashes occur and is exactly what this parachute is designed to prevent.
If you are near VNE you don't need the parachute.
Re:Disabled airplane ... (Score:2)
Glad to hear it didn't turn out bad. That would likely be a fatal crash.
Just what I would buy ... (Score:2, Funny)
If we start putting these things on planes... (Score:5, Funny)
Not True! Not True! (Score:2)
Uh oh, we're gonna need another Bobby!
make sure you sit in the parachute section. (Score:2)
I've always heard stories of airlines breaking up in mid air from over stress. So now people will be rushing for the seats next to the parachute section.
I'm curious if there will ever be an commercial airline version. I could see an application that has a parachute for sections of the fusalodge(sp). Then in a catastrophic event charges could fire seperating the plain into compartments which could be carried to earth safely. Each section could have air tight emergency doors which seals when the charges fire.
Cirrus Plane (Score:2)
Saw this on CNN a couple weeks back (Score:2, Interesting)
My other thought on this (and I must admit that I am not a pilot and have never done any "flying" more realistic than flying a fighter plane in a number of "flight simulators" except the really realistic ones) is that it would seem to me that aviation accidents tend to happen in such a sudden and severe manner that this chute would have limited success. I question whether the chute can be useful in an uncontrolled spin. In addition, I suspect that most fatal aviation accidents (start to) occur under 500 feet, at which height I doubt the chute would have enough time to deploy effectively.
I'm not weird, am I? (Score:5, Funny)
You think that's bad... (Score:2, Funny)
Great in combination with rotary wing craft (Score:5, Interesting)
Happened near my home (Score:2, Interesting)
One pilot's view: This is not a panacea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the airplane has to be designed for it, and the chute is custom designed for the airplane. Just like any system on an airplane, pilots have to be trained in its use, and they need to maintain that knowledge; and the chute itself needs to be maintained. The whole thing is covered by much FAA paperwork, and anyone who's a pilot knows how expensive that is. There are a couple of airplanes that BRS has an "STC" (Supplemental Type Certificate, i.e. FAA permission to install) for the chute, but they are smaller training aircraft like the Cessna 152 and 172.)
The number of people that can afford a new Lancair [lancair.com] is small. Pilots like me will continue to fly older and cheaper airplanes, and if there's an emergency, we will just land the airplane. Structural failures are rare, and there is not much country where a forced landing will result in injuries to occupants. Prudent pilots won't fly at night over hostile terrain. (In an emergency, I don't give a shit about saving the airplane; at that point it belongs to the insurance company, and I'd rather save life than their money.)
Re:One pilot's view: This is not a panacea! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll tell you what'll save lives, better than a parachute. Get some of friggin' paperwork and ridiculously expensive testing out of the hair of aircraft electronics manufacturers, and give them a measure of defense against lawsuits...that'll give more and more planes a sophisticated gps/terrain system, like the big boys fly, and it'll save lives.
If you want to see something really cool, check out Blue Mountain Avionics [bluemountainavionics.com]. I don't know if Greg Richter reads SlashDot, but companies like his should have the government beating down his door to help him test, for free his avionics suite. It's cheap, awesome, and could save a lot of lives.
Re:One pilot's view: This is not a panacea! (Score:2)
And about onerous FAA requirements -- a couple of months ago they were trying to pass a regulation requiring that only certificated GPS installations be allowed in an aircraft. Since no portable GPS will ever be certificated, the FAA was saying "we don't care if portable GPS can save people's lives, if we can't control it you can't have it inside the airplane!"
I see writeups and pictures of MFDs (multi-function displays) and digital engine-monitoring and control systems (including FADECs, full-authority digital engine control). They leave my mouth watering, but I wonder if they'll be common enough that I'll actually get to fly them in my lifetime. It's laughable to think that ADF installations are approved routinely, but MFDs and GPSs have these incredible hoops to jump through.
(ADF is automatic direction finding, a medium-wave -- like AM radio -- device. A little needle in the airplane points at the station, an NDB -- non-directional beacon. A friend of mine once said to me "if I have to fly an NDB approach in IMC [instrument meteorological conditions] -- it's an emergency." I sympathise. I don't ever want to fly NDB approaches again, and I will just not fly an airplane where I might have to resort to the ADF. I'll use it if one is there, but not for an approach.)
Fuel!
Good news for rock stars (Score:2)
"...eyewitnesses report seeing a bright flash, before the senator's plane began to tumble earthward. A moment later the safety chute deployed. There was a second bright flash, and the plane mysteriously seperated from the chute..."
Answer to Why this took so long to come around? (Score:2, Insightful)
The military doesn't need one.
Note about parachute use (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there's the matter of "spillover" -- the state that a parachute will quickly find itself in if deployed behind a fast-moving heavy ballast. If this happens, the chute will collapse and begin to work a little more line a streamer than a parachute -- it won't inflate after the air gets forced out of it. To combat this, a "speed ring" -- essentially a small baffled airfoil attached to the chute harness -- blocks the air entering the chute from the bottom. As forward momentum decreases, gravity causes the ring to slowly fall downward, allowing the chute to slowly and safely inflate.
A really fascinating thing about the BRS type parachutes: Once they deploy the aircraft is totalled. It can never fly again. First, a deployment typically stresses an airframe in two ways that it usually never is stressed -- the wing spars are pulled backwards while in flight, and the vertical impact of the ground with the aircraft at a relatively high speed. The FAA will never allow the aircraft to be flown again.
The second reason: the parachute tethers are typically stowed under the skin of most aircraft, and in deployment can actually rip through the skin. Damage of this type is very difficult to repair, so the pilot that chooses to use the BRS system _knows_ that he will lose the plane permanently.
That usually keeps pilots looking for that tempting field or road if they have an in-flight emergency.
Old News (Score:5, Informative)
1. The Cirrus safety record is pretty poor compared to other plane types. There have been at least six fatal crashes in Cirrus planes already, which is unusually high, statistically. There have been a number of theories advanced as to why this is -- mostly it seems that there are pilots who buy one thinking it's a "lexus in the sky" and who get themselves into conditions they can't handle.
2. This was a good scenario for deployment. Stuck aileron means the plane is gonna be almost impossible to land.
3. You might have a parachute out there but you're dropping at 2600 fpm in an SR-22. I would not want to hit the ground going that fast. If you still have control authority I'd be going in for an emergency landing unless the terrain below prohibited it, or it was night.
4. This guy landed in some trees which may have helped out with the 2600 fpm factor noted above.
Light general aviation aircraft don't suffer very many airframe problems -- they're pretty damn strong. You can get yourself into trouble if you exceed Vne which is how most airframe breakups happen. And that usually happens because of sensory confusion during flight into weather the pilot can't handle (clouds).
Ultralights are where the BRS parachute system has saved at least a hundred people's lives. Who the hell would ride in one of those things anyway? Crazy fools.
All you slashdot types should start flying planes. I did. It's the best way I know to burn money.
Re:Old News (Score:2)
Wow. I read up a bit on helicopter autorotation during the thread the other day. An unpowered Blackhawk descends at around 1800fpm! And then of course you can pitch up at the end to bring it to 0.
2600fpm is 30mph. If you don't have an ideal landing at that speed, it could still kill you.
it's after 2000... (Score:2)
Where are the flying cars?!
seriously though, if falling out of the sky is the main concern, just give everyone's car a parachute!
C'mon, I want my holographic video telephone to be mounted on the dashboard too.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire (Score:2, Funny)
I once spent a spring break picking the immature ones (1' tall at most) out of some dry, rocky soil, and it was horrible. Those plants were created by cross pollinating pure evil with cruelty.
If all the parachute does is drop you into something WORSE than a cactus patch, well, maybe I wouldn't deploy...
Landed safely in a Texas mesquite-tree grove... (Score:3, Funny)
While I don't doubt the validity of the article, comments like this make me wonder.
We have Mesquite trees here in Hawaii (we call 'em Keawe). The trees support 2 to 3 inch thorns and drop branches like there's no tomorrow. I've been lost in a Keawe forest and let me tell you , by the time I made it out I was slashed dotted.
A friend of mine once pulled his car under a Keawe tree and popped two tires.
While I don't doubt that he landed safely thanks to the parachute... I DO doubt that he got out of the grove safely :))
Of course, maybe he just hunkered down... lit a few branches and grilled a delicious dinner and waited for helecopters to drop him a ladder.
Aloha
The major good case (Score:2)
F-111 (Score:2, Informative)
Worthless (Score:2, Insightful)
Apart from the fact that a fully loaded airliner is just too dang heavy, there are a few facts..
1. Most (a very high percentage) of airline accidents occur during take off and landing. This is due to the fact that flying itself is inherintly safe, but throw takeoffs and landings in the mix and it gets hairy. At such low altitudes, parachutes become worthless..
2. If a plane has any sort of problem short of exploding, then a parachute would do no good (although im not sure it would do much good in that case either). An airplane can glide for more miles than you can see without any engine power. (Assuming you loose all engines at once, most planes can cover ALOT of distance with one engine). It is much more prefferable to glide the plane down to a safe landing spot, be it an empty field, or even the ocean. A parachute would render the all remaining control that the pilot has worthless..
Mind you, terrorism can put the destiny of the flight beyond pilot control, but heck, not even a parachute can save that...
Mostly Worthless (Score:3, Informative)
The people who made the thing know it, and aren't trying to install any on airliners. It's used mainly in ultralights, where catastrophic structural failures (ie, a wing (or two) falls off) are common enough for a system like this to be useful, and are light enough that a parachute the size of a few large city blocks wouldn't be required. The exceptionally low speed of ultralights is also very very helpful.
The only reason this case is special is that it's the first time it's been used successfully in anything other than an ultralight in a real emergency.
So yes, a system like this won't be used in airliners anytime in the near future. They probably won't even be used in the majority of civilian single engine airplanes. But they will be used in some, and will probably be present in a lot of ultralights.
Also, this system isn't intended to be used when an engine fails. (well, it would be useful if an engine failed immediately after takeoff- keep in mind it can be used effectively in as little as 300 feet of altitude) It's main intent is for when the plane is incapable of landing safely. In this case, it was because an aileron was stuck.
What About the DEAD pilots?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The glaring drawback to the BRS system is that, once deployed, the acft is almost gauranteed to be damaged in the crash-landing, so pilots are reluctant to give up control.. it goes against the lessons pounded into them by (competent) instructors. The BRS system is a waste of money and weight if pilots aren't trained to utilize it properly.
Re:Oh please! (Score:3, Insightful)
This parachute system for planes is meant to bring the plane down to the ground slowly, not to simply act as an aide to braking.
Re:Oh please! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yes! (Score:3, Informative)
As for small planes, those are also very safe IF you have a competent pilot behind the yoke. Percentage wise, you have far fewer plane crashes than car crashes, for ALL types of planes.
As for the big airlines, most of the guys flying these things are ex military jocks who have thousands of hours of jet time and can and many can put a fighter plane onto the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier on the ocean. At the very least they have flown many types of jets large and small and they know what they are doing. 99.9% of all Airline captians and crew are very professional. The horror stories you hear or experience are the rare events which the media always blow out of proportion.
So don't be afraid to fly. The worst I fear when flying is dry skin and nasal passages (due to low humidity on board) and leg cramps from sitting in one place too long.
My biggest worry is that I won't get the window seat.
Re:Yes! (Score:3, Insightful)
The good news is that an awful lot of crappy, outdated and falling apart nav and atc equipment was replaced courtesy of the Y2K scare. No more radar screens blanking out and frantically changing consoles. Well, not nearly as often, anyway.
But seriously, you are quite correct. Flying is still much safer than most other forms of transport. People just have a hard time understanding probabilities (hence the success of lotteries). It's the same with Indian trains. One might think they crash all the time, but the staggering number of trains they run daily means that in relative terms, it's very unlikely to be involved in a crash even if you ride them daily your whole life.
The important thing to remember is that safety improvements almost always highlight dangers. Often in the past that dissuaded companies from making those improvements. We cannot afford to take that attitude.
Re:Yes! (Score:2)
Re:What's next? (Score:2, Informative)
Not a bad idea! Surround hulls with a multi-chamber, rapidly deployable, self-inflating 'life-ring'.
Sitting at my keyboard, I can't see why this wouldn't be feasible or cost-effective :)
Fishing boats? Pleasure yachts?
Re:What's next? (Score:2)
It would even lower costs elsewhere since lifebots would be rendered obsolete and you would only need just enough for your boat to look stylish.
Re:What's next? (Score:3, Funny)
But if the worst happens and it does sink, then there's a chance that someone might one day make a really really terrible film about it.
Re:It is this sort of thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Airliners full of people and baggage and fuel are incredibly heavy and you would need multiple chutes of massive size.
To get an idea of how massive these things are, when I took a trip to Australia back in September, on the way there the captain announced that we were going to "burn 130 tons of kerosene on the way there". That is 130 *tons* of jet fuel for, in this case a 15 hour flight. Even a domestic flight of just a couple hours is going to have a lot of weight just in fuel. Add on the plane itself, passengers and crew and baggage and you start to see the problem.
So I don't see this working even on a small commuter jet such as the Embraer or the MD-88.
Now NASA does use parachutes to recover spent boosters from Shuttle launches and they are fairly heavy, but they are also different shaped and maybe its easier to slow them down than a large jet.
So it could be possible, but only time and research will tell.
Re:21 Balloons (Score:2)
~geogeek