

Ballistic Recovery Systems - verandaguy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems

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Serow225
I worked for a while in the Flight Test department at Cirrus Aircraft, the
manufacturer who is probably best known for these systems (all planes they
manufacture come with them). The picture on the right side of the Wikipedia
page is of one of their first tests of the system. The test pilot who did that
exact pictured test told me that it was a pretty exciting experience; they had
done all the calculations and static load tests possible, but they couldn't be
sure exactly what would happen until the 'pulled the handle' for the first
time. The parachute straps could have pulled out of their mounting points, the
parachute could have failed to fully inflate or gotten tangled on the
empennage, etc. The test pilot had to wear his own parachute in case things
went badly and he had to bail out of the plane (the test plane had a special
system to blow the doors off to facility emergency egress). Happily it worked
well, although the deployment is a little bumpy :) The chute system has a
mechanically-activated rocket that busts out a panel over the chute tube which
is intentionally weakly mounted, and then proceeds to pull the uninflated
chute fully out through the open hole about 100 feet, and then there's a
special 'slow-inflation' ring on the chute rigging to slow down the inflation
of the chute so that it doesn't put excessive force on the chute mounting
and/or hurt the passengers. To prevent serious injury to the passengers when
the plane hits the ground (it's still moving at a good clip), the seatbelts
have airbags and the base of the seat is a few inches of aluminum honeycomb to
absorb energy. The landing gear and wings are also designed to fracture/crush
in a way that reduces the amount of force transmitted to the passengers.
Although it's not uncommon to walk away with broken limbs or some sort of back
pain, it's better than the alternative :) Cirrus is currently working on a
Very Light Jet, the 5-person + 2kid Vision SF50
([http://cirrusaircraft.com/vision/](http://cirrusaircraft.com/vision/)) which
also has a parachute - but it's a lot bigger than the ones on their existing
4-person SR-20/22 prop planes! I can try to answer any questions as best as I
can remember...

~~~
michael_miller
I have a somewhat off topic question about airplane companies' attitude
towards engines. As a private pilot who flies Cirruses, it's always baffled me
that a FADEC is not standard equipment. For non-pilots, starting a plane
requires priming the engine by injecting fuel into the lines, and fiddling
with the fuel/air mixture until the engine fires. Totally different from a
modern car where a computer electronically controls the injection to get the
engine started almost immediately. Is the attitude in the industry still that
FADECs are dangerous because of bugs/malfunctions? Or is it more of a
certification issue?

~~~
Involute
Fellow Cirrus owner here. My assumption has always been the deterrents are
cost (both development and production; many fewer engines to amortize over)
and reliability (if you lose all electrical power in a FADEC system, the
engine dies; not so with magnetos).

~~~
Serow225
For FADECs on single engine piston planes, in addition to being powered by
either alternator automatically, there's usually a dedicated FADEC emergency
battery good enough for 1+ hours of engine runtime.

~~~
Involute
Of course. I stand by my original statement, however.

~~~
Serow225
Understood :) As a fun note, i just remembered that the emergency FADEC power
on the turbine engines is provided by a tiny hydro generator powered by the
fuel flow itself, so it can run in case of total electrical failure. The
throttle position sensors are energized by the same emergency circuit so they
continue to work too :)

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th0ma5
I'm taking flying lessons, and the Flight Design CTLS I'm in has one of these
systems. I believe you can use it up to like 80 knots or more. I have to
remember to take the pin out at the end of the run up, and back in when
shutting down.

When they first came out, there was some reports that they they caused just as
much loss of life as they prevented, but I think the stats are now in favor of
them. They're not really meant to protect the plane but the pilot and
passengers.

As far as a rule of thumb I think my instructor said that once something goes
wrong in flight, it's the insurance company's plane, so just try like hell to
survive and forget about aircraft damage. There have also been many incidents
where the chute was used, and the plane eventually flew again.

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falcolas
As I was told when taking flight lessons and being introduced to this system,
it's a device of absolute last resort, since you lose all control of the
aircraft once you pop that chute. There's a lot of emergencies you can handle
without having to pop the chute in an aircraft. Sadly, there are also a lot of
emergencies where a chute would do you no good (such as stalling on approach
or take off, the two phases of flight where most (56%) of crashes occur).

Fascinating tool though, and if I purchased a plane, I wouldn't mind having
one for those "just in case" times. Of course, aircraft with this installed
are generally over $200,000 new, so it's not on my radar anytime soon.

~~~
maximilianburke
I think where BRS shines is that it helps flight in situations where the risks
were otherwise too great. Flying day VFR over prairie is pretty survivable if
you have an engine out, but the chances of getting through a situation like
that while flying at night, in IFR, over mountains, VFR OTT, through known
icing, etc., is much lower.

Light multi-engine aircraft were born for those situations but, ironically,
they're not much better than single engine aircraft for survivability. There's
a saying that a twin just gets you to the scene of the accident faster.

So, yeah, it's not a panacea, but improving the odds of living through the
other 44% of flight accidents is still a good thing.

~~~
justin66
> Flying day VFR over prairie is pretty survivable if you have an engine out,
> but the chances of getting through a situation like that while flying at
> night, in IFR, over mountains, VFR OTT, through known icing, etc., is much
> lower.

Not trying to put words in your mouth but interestingly, this comment
highlights one of the hazards of this system. It can give people the
confidence to do things they should absolutely avoid doing and KNOW they
should avoid doing. Things like a new and more effective wing deicer sometimes
have a similar effect.

~~~
maximilianburke
Yeah, pilots should know what they're getting into and be aware if it exceeds
their experience. I didn't mean it to be an endorsement of unsafe behavior.

If the capabilities of the airframe and the pilots skill are sufficient for
the conditions, like if your plane is certified for flight into known icing
conditions and you have experience doing so, then it's not a huge risk to fly
into these situations.

But if your plane has pneumatic deicing boots that require engine power and
your engine quits, you may be in over your head in a hurry if ice starts
building up while you're trying to perform an emergency landing.

In that situation it would be nice to be able to just pop the chute.

~~~
justin66
> like if your plane is certified for flight into known icing conditions and
> you have experience doing so, then it's not a huge risk to fly into these
> situations.

But it's not a binary condition such that you can make a really clear
distinction like that, right? That seems like the big risk to me. If it were
as easy as "those are icing conditions but we have to equipment to deal with
icing conditions," okay, no problem.

I expect the risk assessment process involves more variables and is more along
the lines of: "sure, that weather system is more dangerous than we'd
ordinarily fly into but we've got a better deicer this time, we're in a hurry,
we're experienced pilots so... let's do it." (admittedly, I have no idea how
specifically a weather system's risk and a deicer's performance can be
quantified beforehand... maybe it's a piece of cake)

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Patrick_Devine
If I ever buy a light GA plane, I'd love to have something like this for
additional safety. Unfortunately in GA, there are a lot of safety innovations
which never get implemented, due to strict regulations and cost. Things like
un-stallable/un-spinable airplanes (like the Ercoupe or the Long-EZ), could
potentially make the dreaded spin on the base to final leg non-existent, but
they aren't mainstream because they're too expensive to bring to market.

It's kind of a catch-22; people are afraid of flying because of safety issues,
but you need scale to spread the costs of making planes safer.

*edit: corrected typo

~~~
mikeash
Seems to me that the main things keeping people away from GA flying are cost,
accessibility, impracticality, and lack of interest.

Which is to say: GA is painfully expensive (how many people are going to start
a hobby that costs $150/hour?) hard to find (how far away is your nearest
local airport that offers basic flight training?) useless (how many people are
going to get to the point where they can travel for business or vacation using
their own airplane?) and not something people care about too much anyway
(flying is seen as boring).

I'm not aware of many people who want to get into GA but don't because they're
scared of it. I have seen a _lot_ of people leave or simply never pursue it
because of the rest, though.

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steven777400
There are some videos of these in use; they are very effective when used
within the chute's operational parameters: when the airplane is at altitude
and moving at an appropriate (not too fast) speed, particularly over harsh
terrain.

However, like all emergency devices, they are not a panacea. They don't
protect against one of the most common fatal GA accident scenarios: loss of
control at low altitude (base/final turn when landing). In that case, there is
not enough time for the parachute to inflate before the airplane hits the
ground.

I'm all in favor of BRS being available as options and after-market STCs on
all small airplanes, but we also need to make sure emergency training isn't
reduced to just "pull the chute", since there's a lot that can still go wrong
outside of the chute's operational parameters.

~~~
TrevorJ
Agreed - the 'chute seems like a fringe case for sure.

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ohazi
This particular standard feature has been a huge selling point for Cirrus,
makers of a very nice, very expensive, high performance aircraft that has been
heavily marketed toward wealthy, low time pilots that in many instances have
no business being at the controls of such a challenging airplane. There is an
argument to be made that this feature has created overconfident pilots that
use the chute as an excuse for making otherwise poor or dangerous go/no-go
decisions in the face of weather, terrain, etc. Cirrus' accident rate has been
higher than the average for comparable aircraft, and it probably doesn't help
that they used the chute as an excuse to skip proper spin testing of the
aircraft.

~~~
Involute
> marketed toward wealthy ... pilots

Should they be targeting the poor ones with their "very expensive" aircraft?

> low time pilots

Can you provide ANY evidence that Cirrus targets "low time pilots?" Of course,
the customer's insurance company has some say in this, too.

> There is an argument to be made that this feature has created overconfident
> pilots ...

Sure, but, again, where's your evidence?

> it probably doesn't help that they used the chute as an excuse to skip
> proper spin testing of the aircraft.

??? The SR20 was spun _60_ times, with 60 recoveries, as part of European
certification:
[https://www.cirruspilots.org/copa/safety_programs/m/copa_saf...](https://www.cirruspilots.org/copa/safety_programs/m/copa_safety/file/default.aspx#)!

~~~
cpncrunch
The issue is that Cirrus is marketed as a personal transportation vehicle to
people who aren't already pilots.

If you look at the accidents, there are quite a few head-scratchers (pilot
gets lost and deploys BRS, or pilot gets disoriented in IMC and deploys BRS).
It's not just one or two, but quite a lot like this. The Cirrus seems to be
the new doctor killer.

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jpeg_hero
I've always been shocked about the danger of general aviation. I always see
needless deaths, and it makes me nervous. I would love to pursue this as a
hobby, but stories like this:

[http://www.wbir.com/story/news/2014/02/03/fire-chief-no-
surv...](http://www.wbir.com/story/news/2014/02/03/fire-chief-no-survivors-in-
middle-tenn-plane-crash/5193777/)

make me think we need a ballistic recovery system.

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networkguy
I'm surprised nobody has linked a very famous deployment of a ballistic
parachute:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQKaxp6Rlk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQKaxp6Rlk)

In the above video, a pilots propeller hits another aircraft's glider towline
which then wraps itself around the prop and engine disabling it.

I'm not a pilot, but this probably would have been fatal if it wasnt for the
BRS.

~~~
mikeash
I don't see why that would have been fatal without a BRS. Shut the engine down
(if it's still doing anything after that much abuse) and glide to a landing
somewhere.

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neil_s
From a physics point of view, how would this scale up to commercial jets?
Presumably you would need multiple parachutes to distribute the load, but
still, how large would they have to be to support that weight?

~~~
woebtz
How about Star Wars-style escape pods or parachutes for each passenger row?

