Are planes with parachutes really safer?

[danny_galaga]

I like Paul's stuff on AVWEB. 

Watch the whole thing before commenting 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

[skippydiesel]

Great topic!

 

Not sure how it could be quantified/explored but I always wondered just how many pilots/aircraft with a ballistic parachutes :

• could have been flown to a survivable conclusion without the chute.
• take additional risks because they have one - a well documented effect of enhanced safety features in the automotive world.

[kgwilson]

There have been deployments when the engine is still running, just not developing full power. That is going from a position of some control to one of no control. I haven't watched the video. May get to it when i have time but in most cases unless the aircraft is unable to glide due to some catastrophic failure I'd sooner fly it in to the crash as far as possible.

[spacesailor]

Is there a minimum hight to deploy the chute .

spacesailor

[danny_galaga]

It's all in the video guys! Pretty illuminating stats. But I will say that it seems the chutes have been of some use as low as 300 ft 😲

[turboplanner]

A key point in the video is that the Cirrus has not just a parachute, but

26G energy absorbing seats, and structure, energy absorbing materials in the floor, cowling, firewall and engine mounts and fixed gear.

That makes a big difference to survivability.

[Freizeitpilot]

The attached article sums it up : “One more roll of the dice” ; “You should pull the handle only when a forced landing can’t be carried out”.  These circumstances are very rare, but also as the article mentions, when you need a BRS, you really need it.

 

The expectation of deployment in a Cirrus is that the airframe will be totally destroyed, but the occupants will most likely survive. In Europe there was one deployment in an ELA for a seemingly needless reason, where the composite aircraft was inspected and repaired and flying again in 6 weeks.  The key difference here is inertia, where the BRS debate really fires up.

 

Bottom line is if you can afford the extra weight and expense of a BRS and it doesn’t lull you into ‘pushing the envelope’, why not have one ?  Of course in Europe, in a number of countries BRS is compulsory and is a standard fitment in the aircraft anyway.

 

Parachutes, ejector seats and whole airframe recovery systems - Pilot.pdf

[turboplanner]

7 minutes ago, Freizeitpilot said:

The expectation of deployment in a Cirrus is that the airframe will be totally destroyed, but the occupants will most likely survive.

Whoever came up with that hasn't studied accident and crash technology.

As I mentioned in my post above, Cirrus builds in collapsible items; it's those that are designed to be destroyed; if you look at the many photos they show the airframe mostly intact, not totally destroyed.

 

Early crash studies quickly showed that the instant stop which slammed the person's brain into the skull was the big killer.

In the car industry Toyota Land Cruisers with heavy bull bars were a good example of unnecessary deaths. Today's Land Cruisers with collapsible components including bull bars along with the same system in trucks saves a lot of lives.

In cars, the collapsibility of the items ahead of the windscreen and deflection of the engine downwards also save a lot of lives.

Airbags which are actually blown up by explosives deflate as the person's torso is thrown forward, all for the slower deceleration.

 

 

[Freizeitpilot]

I believe the inference in a totally destroyed airframe would be ‘not economically repairable’.

 

FP

[RFguy]

yeah, topic well covered.

With the fatal nearby here last yeat at Gundaroo of the grandfather and a bunch of children, assuming the pilot DID brief the pax on how to pull the chute, it's possible the 22kg pull force  wasnt able to be mustered by young children, especially if the aircraft was in a spin. 

Some hydraulics there might assist.... (or provide some cable length/gearing / mechanical advantage.)

 

[danny_galaga]

I think when they say the expectation is the airframe is destroyed, they mean exactly that. EXPECT it to be destroyed. The saying is HOPE for the best, EXPECT the worst 

 

So if your airframe survives the crash, then YAY! But destroyed or not, YOU will survive. 

[kgwilson]

16 hours ago, kgwilson said:

There have been deployments when the engine is still running, just not developing full power. That is going from a position of some control to one of no control. I haven't watched the video. May get to it when i have time but in most cases unless the aircraft is unable to glide due to some catastrophic failure I'd sooner fly it in to the crash as far as possible.

Watched the whole video & my comments still stand. I note that some deployments when the pilot lost control & then eventually regained control landed successfully pulling partial deployed CAPS & survived without injury also.

[Garfly]

 

 

Regarding the pull force needed in typical BRS devices, this is from an article by Thierry Couderc in the French "Bulletin of Flight Safety" Sep 2017

 

"The length of stroke and the force to be applied are nothing like the gesture of squeezing a brake lever or pulling the engine choke. The action to expect is more akin to the effort required to start a small chainsaw engine with a cord. Moreover, the user manuals for the most widely distributed parachutes mention, depending on the model, a pull force which will gradually increase until reaching 6 to 9 kilos at the end of its run of approximately 40 centimeters."

 

bsv-40-septembre-2017.pdf

 

 

 

For anyone interested, the full article, below, is actually a discussion on the best placement of the red handle in the cockpit. 

(This translation is my own gloss on Google's best efforts.)

 

 

 

The parachute handle

By Thierry COUDERC

 

The relatively high number of ultralights equipped with airframe parachutes which weren’t deployed in accidents where they might have helped, had us wondering why. Could it be explained by the fact of the victims simply having had problems triggering the rocket?  People who've had the experience of using ballistic ‘chutes often mention how surprised they were by the force and length of pull needed to ignite the rocket.

 

It appears that quite a few of us have some wrong ideas about how these things work. Of course, it's essential to treat the handle with care to avoid inadvertent launches - with potentially serious consequences. But contrary to what we might think, it's not like a mouse trap, primed to snap as soon as the safety pin's removed. The firing device is actually not that sensitive; not easily triggered by mistake - at least not with the current pyrotechnic devices (*).

 

Their design meets proven principles of safety and reliability. At rest, no element of the mechanism is in tension. It is the pulling of the handle which causes its arming, then, towards the end of the stroke, it's triggered. Thus, pulling on the cable will cause three successive actions (**):

 

1.Tensioning a spring to arm the percussion mechanism.

2.The removal of the mechanical safety devices which protect the primers against

unwanted ignition, particularly in the event of a violent impact.

3. The release of the percussion mechanism.

 

The length of stroke and the force to be applied are nothing like the gesture of squeezing a brake lever or pulling the engine choke. The action to expect is more akin to the effort required to start a small chainsaw engine with a cord. Moreover, the user manuals for the most widely distributed parachutes mention, depending on the model, a pull force which will gradually increase until reaching 6 to 9 kilos at the end of its run of approximately 40 centimeters. 

 

These parameters suggest that handles may not always be well placed to allow them to be pulled from the pilot’s seat with the necessary force over the entire length of the cable stroke. If the chosen location does not provide sufficient clearance to allow an easy pull, in an emergency situation, the occupants, possibly facing stress and unusual attitudes, may not manage to complete the pull.

 

We must, then, consider what it would be like, faced with the need to pull the handle, in a given aircraft.  In some cases, it may be wise to think about a change of location. For example, a handle arranged facing the pilots at the level of the instrument panel must be able to be pulled back without them needing to undo their harnesses in order to pull through without hitting obstacles such as a handle or lever, and/or without prematurely having their elbows blocked by the rear bulkhead. In any case, pulling the handle horizontally with the arm stretched to bring it back to towards the torso, may not be the most ergonomic option when it comes to exerting a continuous and progressively powerful pull.

 

The most suitable locations could be:

 

• The handle placed high, oriented forward and downward, behind the head,

roughly above one shoulder, at ear level or on the ceiling. We reach up with the hand and push forward. This is the configuration used on certified aircraft which are equipped as standard.

• The handle facing forward and upwards, placed in the low position on one side at

the hip, which you grab with the hand on the other side while crossing your arm in front of you, to pull it

here also forward, but upwards.

• The handle located on the floor between the legs behind the stick, if there is one, turned

slightly towards the rear, which can be pulled upwards. This type of assembly is known to favor

speed of implementation, provided that the gesture is possible given the set up of the

seat harness. But it assumes the installation of one handle per seat if we want both occupants have access to it.

 

Be careful though, these are just suggestions, listing a few set-ups that have proven themselves. The most appropriate arrangement will clearly depend on the particular configuration.

[danny_galaga]

That's really interesting garfly. I had actually imagined that the force needed was a deliberate safety feature, instead it turns out it's mostly because you are tensioning the firing pin mechanism. In the video he says that Cirrus now train owners on using it, which is good. I imagine they also get to pull on mock up one so they know what sort of strength is required.

 

Edited April 6 by danny_galaga

[Freizeitpilot]

But wait, there’s more !

Here is an article from a manufacturer that describes circumstances on when their system should be deployed, and also circumstances when it wasn’t deployed but should have been.

how-to-use-grs-parachute(2).pdf

[Garfly]

5 hours ago, turboplanner said:

Whoever came up with that hasn't studied accident and crash technology.

As I mentioned in my post above, Cirrus builds in collapsible items; it's those that are designed to be destroyed; if you look at the many photos they show the airframe mostly intact, not totally destroyed.

 

Early crash studies quickly showed that the instant stop which slammed the person's brain into the skull was the big killer.

In the car industry Toyota Land Cruisers with heavy bull bars were a good example of unnecessary deaths. Today's Land Cruisers with collapsible components including bull bars along with the same system in trucks saves a lot of lives.

In cars, the collapsibility of the items ahead of the windscreen and deflection of the engine downwards also save a lot of lives.

Airbags which are actually blown up by explosives deflate as the person's torso is thrown forward, all for the slower deceleration.

 

 

Well, whoever resorts to this kind of research in this context hasn't studied airframe parachute 'landings'.

Of course, just a small amount of collision force dissipation over time (crush) makes for much higher human survivability. No one doubts it.

But we're talking here of 'arrival' speeds of between 10 and 20 knots.

And whereas that could do damage statistics show that only a few airframe arrivals under canopy have led to occupant injury.

Cirrus apart, not many ultralight BRS equipped craft would have crash-crush protection, however, the landing gear (for feet first only) seems to do the same shock absorbing job as it does for your everyday drop-it-on heavy landing.  Only more so  ;- )

[danny_galaga]

From my August 1983 National Geographic, the issue that fired my imagination about ultralights when I was a teenager 

[spacesailor]

As an aside!.

The SES & Fieries have asked for , information plus training to deal with those,

Ballistic Emergency Parachutes .

I never heard anything being done .

spacesailor

 

[kgwilson]

Chutes to bring aircraft and pilot down have been around for a long time. I wore a chute for 20 years when I was Hang Gliding. It was never used in anger but it was used to test if it worked given I was the one who repacked it every 6 months. It was manually deployed but there were ballistic options around since the 80s. Most Hang Glider pilots have them. The chute is part of the harness and a pull handle on your chest. Pull the handle and throw in to clear air. The bridle cord is attached to the CofG (heartbolt) & you come down about the same speed as a normal round chute. Only used if the glider has a structural failure.

[danny_galaga]

1 hour ago, kgwilson said:

Chutes to bring aircraft and pilot down have been around for a long time. I wore a chute for 20 years when I was Hang Gliding. It was never used in anger but it was used to test if it worked given I was the one who repacked it every 6 months. It was manually deployed but there were ballistic options around since the 80s. Most Hang Glider pilots have them. The chute is part of the harness and a pull handle on your chest. Pull the handle and throw in to clear air. The bridle cord is attached to the CofG (heartbolt) & you come down about the same speed as a normal round chute. Only used if the glider has a structural failure.

See my magazine photo above. Ballistic in 1983. That guy has big balls cutting the rigging to prove his chutes work 😲. He's standing, err hanging by his product 😄

[facthunter]

I've seen a few with the emergency tangled with the Main. Fortunately not fatal in each case but could have been..  Nev

[facthunter]

In those days there were no Phone camera's . THESE I personally  witnessed. today we are bombarded with STUFF all the time Usually pushing one point of view. That's not illegal but it would have more validity with  all the pertinent facts known, to be available. Nev.

[facthunter]

 The individual can have a choice but I'd be disappointed to see these things MADE compulsory as some consequence of this Particular aeroplanes chosen way of addressing SPINNING. It was a way around meeting a normal requirement which is now being marketed as  a way of flying. in a pretty expensive Plane. Well over one $million US.  Nev

[danny_galaga]

I agree with a lot of what you say there. To the question " are planes with parachutes really safer?" One would have to say yes, at least in the case of Cirrus. 

 

Will I fit a chute to my plane? No.

[jackc]

In the event of an onboard fire, I would want a wearable chute.  Bur a BRS has its good points, just don’t ask RAA to approve a MARAP to retrofit one 🤢