Huge Parachute Saves Crashing Planes

theodp writes "When his small plane banked uncontrollably and began spiraling toward earth, Canadian rancher Albert Kolk and his three passengers were saved by a single parachute. Big-as-a-house parachutes made by Ballistic Recovery Systems are stored behind the rear seats in small planes and fired with a rocket through the rear windshield; they're attached with high-strength lines to the plane's wings, nose and tail. Deployment videos here."

Comments

Chutes are "the law"

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Europe, in my case Germany, a rescue parachute is mandatory by law for ALL ultralight aircrafts. That are single and 2 seaters with max 472kg weight. (Similar to microlights in the US ?)

All planes have that rescue system. A small rocket which pulls the parachute out in about a second.

There are not many cases when you need it, but it saves your life if you make a fatal mistake.

Most cases are pilot errors, ie. flying in a cloud without instruments.

Wings dont break off and planes do not fall to the ground when the engine stalls.

I rather do a safe glide landing than pull the cute, EXCEPT I am over a forest or rocky terrain (which can also be put under pilot errors)

Such a backup is a good thing to have. Larger aircrafts can benefit from it too.

Re:Not So Awesome

[wjsteele]

Obviosly, you're not a pilot. With your engine out, you glide to the ground in a controlled decent... not an uncontrolled decent as with the BRS.

If you loose your engine in a boat, does it sink??? No. If you loose your engine in a plane, it still flys.

Case in point, I had a "catastrophic" engine failure in my Cessna 172 a while back. Engine gone... pieces left the aircraft. I landed on a road and turned into some guys driveway. He was pissed because I was blocking his drive. Never asked me how I was or what happened. When he started yelling, I pulled him over to my plane... pointed at the big hole in my cowling and all the oil running down the side of my plane. He suddenly got quiet.

I had full control of the plane the entire time... there was a sudden Roll when the engine seized, but I could fly it no problem. Went through the standard saftey checklist... shut down fuel, electrics, picked my spot... got to best glide, tuned radio to 121.5. Delcared emergency... switched the box to 7700 and flew it down. It took me about 10 minutes to get down... I even circled my landing site and then dumped 40 degrees of flaps to get it down.

Now, I see planes like the SR22 with these BRSs installed and hear stories about guys who hit turbulance and pull the cord. That's a costly mistake if there ever was one. I'm not going to pull a handle that turns my $250,000 plane into a pile of junk unless it's already junk.

Lesson here... fly the plane if it can fly. A plane is nothing but a glider with an engine... if you loose the engine... it still flys just fine.

Bill

Bill