parachute on airplanes

RV6 rough specs:
Empty weight: 965 lb (437 kg)
Loaded weight: 1,600 lb (724 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 1,600lb (724kg)

MD-80 rough specs:
Empty weight 77,900 lb (35,300 kg)
Maximum take-off weight (MTOW) 140,000 lb (63,500 kg)

Airbus A380 rough specs:
Typical Operating empty weight 276,800 kg (610,000 lb)
Maximum take-off weight 569,000 kg (1,250,000 lb)

 

Those would be some big parachutes.

And they'd need to be built pretty strong if they were to be deployed at cruise speed.

 

Just to toss some numbers around... The Apollo command module weighed roughly 13,000 lbs and required two 80' parachutes (there were three, one was backup) to splashdown at a safe speed. I don't know a whole lot about parachutes but I'm guessing that a rig to safely lower a 100,000+ lb airliner would be close to impossible to make practical and the weight/volume of such a system would be very impractical to engineer into a plane.

 

Exactly. The force exerted on a parachute by something that heavy moving that fast makes it pretty hard. I would also imagine that, with the amount of redundancy built into modern aircraft and the relatively low accident rate (especially at altitude), developing such an apparatus is most likely considered an unnecessary expense.

 

doesn't sound practical ... given the speed & weight of the monsters that fly these days ...

 

Also, don't most accidents happen on take-off and landing, when there's not nearly enough altitude for 'chutes to be of any use?

 

I think he meant more for Airbus since they break apart at 30k ft.

Either way, no, a parachute system would not work on a commercial airplane. You'd be better off putting in some mechanism with thrust to re-level the plane and slow it down as much as it can...that would still be pretty difficult to do.

 

Deploying the parachute at the speeds jet aircraft typically operate would be problematic-- and yet, if you have enough control to slow the aircraft down and stabilize the attitude, why not land?

 

We had parachutes on board of the Fokker 60, most of the time 45 of them.....

But unfortunately, all of them jumped out after a while......

It will never work for an airliner.......ass said by Tillman, way too heavy! KLM Embraer 190, 45.600 kg MTOW....
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Well, there was another Cirrus last week that pulled the chute;

http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2010/08/cirrus-sr22-n513cm-ohio-attorney-talks.html

If the Cirrus's only safety device was the parachute, then I'd agree it's just a sales tool, however the Cirrus aircraft are loaded with safety features.

You have the amazing wings, with the “discontinuous leading edge”, new Cirrus have the TKS anti-ice, never mind the 5 point harness - but they have airbags inside the seatbelts!!, the seats are good for 25G's, and the passenger compartment has a built in roll cage.

The side stick is out of the way, you have composite construction - not one loss of an airframe due to structural failure. If you have the money you can get the synthetic vision and the ultimate 'Cirrus Perspective' avionics package - with the LVL button - that would have saved the life of John Kennedy Jr., had it been available and he used it!!!

 

Isn't it true that one of the prototype Cirrus lost an engine during testing and that the test pilot opted for a dead stick landing instead of chute because he did not trust the chute system?

 

Probably false sense of security and how attractive the features are to newer pilots. But you're right, another thread.

 

At this point I don't think there is any question that the CAPS system has been a huge succes. To date there have been 23 cases where the chute has been deployed and only a few have resulted in fatalties. The one in Indy was a result of a heart attack, where the passenger activated the chute and the pilot died from complications from his heart attack. The only other fatalities have been as a result of very low altitude activations. Here is a synopsis of the deployments... http://www.cirruspilots.org/Content/CAPSHistory.aspx

While all real pilots believe that they have the skills and wouldn't get into a situation where they would pull the rip chord, the fact of the matter is that the system works, and to my mind works very very well. Most of the deployments have resulted in relatively minor injuries, and in many cases the consequences of no-deployment would not have been pretty at all. Say what you want, but if I were in IFR conditions, with a known low ceiling below me, I'd pull the chute long before I'd ever attempt to let down and find a good place to land.

The Cirrus doesn't have a strong safety record, but you have to look at it from a couple of angles. First there are a heck of a lot of these airplanes out there, so simply by the numbers there are going to be more accidents for the type. Look at production quantities for Cirrus and you will see that they really have been pumping these puppies out. Second, these airplanes are sold to well heeled people who often aren't competent pilots. Twins used to be labled as "doctor killers" because a lot of doctors would buy them because they were faster and "safer" than a single. Lots of these people of means didn't have the time to maintain a skill level that was required so that they didn't kill themselves. I think with the Cirrus we have a similar result, poor piloting skills will kill you quickly in any airplane, it doesn't have to be a twin, and it can be the safest airplane in the world to start with, if you try to screw around with him, "mean ol mister gravity" will ruin your day, or your life for that matter.

 

BRS chutes have been pulled with 240 persons to date, surviving the impact.

http://www.brsparachutes.com/lives_saved.aspx

 

This Cirrus went down yesterday after clipping a tree on departure, and nosed in. No question the composite design, airbags, and 5-point harness helped!!

http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2010/08/cirus-aircraft-crashes-near-williams.html

 

I can think of plenty of other times when I'd use it. I would think of it as just another option, and probably only as a last resort. With the damage that it does to the airframe, I don't think may folks would pull the handle lightly and go for a ride.

But if I had the option with no decent place to put down I think it is a far better than landing into trees or in really bad terrain.

One thing that we all know is that light aircraft aren't made to crash. If you hit anything solid or come down in trees or even in water, there is a real likelihood that you will get badly hurt if not killed. While in a lot of the country there are a lot of corn and bean fields or prairie to land in, if you are over a forest or mountains, you are very unlikely to survive a forced landing. In any of those cases a landing via the CAPS system is probably a really good way out of a potentially bad situation.

Also if you look at the instances where it has been used, in some cases the pilot waited till the last few seconds to pull the chute and had a low altitude deployment. That tells me that he tried all he could to avoid using it, but when faced with the grim reality he grabbed the handle to save his tail.

 

I disagree with this. If you make an off airport landing in a controlled fashion (i.e. straight and level, reasonably slow), your odds of surviving in a light aircraft are very high-- I would argue as high as if you used the chute. Even in bad terrain.

So that leaves two other scenarios-- CFIT, where the chute is useless since if you knew the terrain was there, you'd avoid it in the first place, and uncontrolled flight-- either a spin, or structural failure, or something else.

The VFR into IMC thing is a red herring, in my opinion. Rather than being a safety aid, the chute encourages VFR pilots to fly into questionable weather because "I can always pull the chute" (and friends who are in the Cirrus community have told me they've heard this frequently). However, once you pull the chute in that situation, you are committing to a "crash" as well as an admission of error. Human nature being what it is, most people will try to salvage the situation to the bitter end, rather than admitting defeat (and the inevitable humiliation which will follow).

So, IMO the only places the chute is useful is either structural failure, or unrecoverable spin. Does the Cirrus have poor spin characteristics? The typical stall/spin accident happens so close to the ground that recovery is impossible, with or without a chute.

I've never flown an aircraft with a parachute recovery system-- are there speed limitations on it, or attitude limitations?