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First Emergency Use of Whole-Aircraft Parachute
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."
I heard this guy interviewd on NPR on the way to work about a month ago...
Here's the link: NPR Story It's a real audio file.
... before these things were working 99+% of the time during real failures.
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
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
For the most part flying is VERY safe. Not the most comfortible way to travel unless you are in First Class or Buisiness Class.
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.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
This aircraft was produced in my hometown. It is made by Cirrus Designs Corporation. They just started delivering their planes a couple years ago. Their aircraft are called the SR20 and SR22. These aircraft are designed and built in Duluth, Minnesota. Their test pilot, who was a jet fighter pilot in the Air National Guard(I knew him) actually died during a test flight about 4 years ago...the parachute had not been installed on the test platform. Very sad to see a test pilot killed in an aircraft that is designed to have the parachute for exactly that purpose. The next week our fighter wing flew the 'missing man formation'. I shed a tear. On the positive side, this system will probably help save numerous other lives in the future. I highly recommend this company's aircraft to any pilot...
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Ah, but what if the problem is with the control surfaces of the craft itself. It's damn hard to 'dead stick' a plane to a safe landing when you have an aeleron stuck in the down position.
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.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
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?
747-400ER's max take-off weight is 910,000lb (412,775kg).
.855 mach. Certainly you would not want to deploy them at cruise speed but they would have to deploy at some airspeed which is just enough to keep a big bird like that aloft which is probably many times faster than the Cessna's max speed!
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!
Thanks,
--
Matt
A dead stick landing is only possible if you have altitude to trade for airspeed. The same is true for autorotation. Speed over the rotors and all...
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.
"I'm just here to regulate funkyness." - James Gandolfini, as Winston in The Mexican
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
This is real old news to aviation types. Cirrus has been producing these things for a couple of years now. A few points:
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.
I agree. I'm a CFI (Certificated Flight Instructor) and we do indeed train for engine failures. The problem is that training is no guarantee of anything. Terrain, weather, obstacles, these things are not controlled by the pilot.
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?
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
While not a general aviation aircraft, wasn't the F-111 the first aircraft overall to employ the idea of ejecting the whole cockpit on a parachute?
* If the wings are removed, it will be easier for the parachutes to bring down the important part slowly.
Actually, this may not be true, and infact the opposite may be true. As was pointed out in the article, ultralights have been using this system for a while. What they didn't mention is that hangliders have been using a whole aircraft 'chute system for years. There are even rocket powered chutes for hangliders. Some of the newer hanglider parachutes are said to be so good that the impact is no more then that of steping off a high chair. Mine is an older one that you have to throw out by hand, and lands you at about 35mph . That's pretty hard, but it's better then 120mph. But, to my point, all hanglider 'chutes I'm aware of are made to bring down your glider and you at the same time. They count on the drag of the glider (broken or not) slowing your decent, and thus make the needed size of the parachute much smaller then parachutes ment for stand alone use. That allows my parachute to be about the size of a couple of kid's lunch boxes put together, where as stand alone parachutes take up a space the size of a very very large hiking pack (though admitedly reserve 'chutes are smaller).
The same might not be true for a conventional aircraft, but it's something to consider. 747 or a hanglider, the wings have to supply enough lift to keep the aircraft in the air, and thus have a certain amount of drag associated with them. Even 'copters can auto rotate if an engine fails, though they need to be above a certain height known as the "dead-mans" zone, where they don't have enough drop distance to spin up to auto-rotation speed. I've even heard a 'copter pilot claim to have been practicing auto rotation when he caught a thermal strong enough for him to GAIN elevation while applying no power. But that's a different topic.
The U.S. Air Force developed special parachutes for nuclear weapons that allowed a high-speed aircraft to drop a parachute-retarded bomb on a target. These parachutes can be deployed at high-speed without self-destructing or putting unacceptable loads on the nuclear weapon.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.