On 9 Feb 2004 16:45:49 -0800, (Rich Stowell)
wrote:

Martin Gregorie wrote in message . ..


A question for the PPLs amongst us: just how high would you need to be
to start egress from a full 4-place GA plane for everybody to exit
with room for the chute to open?


Modern emergency parachutes are designed to be fast opening.

Yes, but that isn't what I was asking. Given that a 4-seat GA aircraft
has at most two doors, that the pilot leaves last and that normal
seating is installed:

- how long would it take three adults to leave by one door, followed
by the pilot out his side?

- how much height would be lost during that time? gliding? spinning?

- given typical GA cruising heights, which often seem to be around
3000 ft in the UK, how high would the plane be when the last occupant
left?

In other words, given typical operating conditions and loads for a
typical GA aircraft is there any point in all occupants wearing
chutes? That's even ignoring the volume and weight of the chutes.

Remember that this isn't either a blame or a GA-bashing exercise, but
merely an attempt to discover if a chute is more use to a glider pilot
than it is to the occupant of a typical GA aircraft. I suspect that
its more use to a glider pilot because of the egress problem and that
is why we use 'em and GA pilots don't but it would be nice to have
some factual confirmation or otherwise of this.

That issue aside, I did some research that wound up as an article in
Sport Aerobatics magazine awhile back on the subject of emergency bail
outs. In one case, one pilot successfully bailed out at about 300 feet
AGL. See http://www.richstowell.com/bailout.htm for the full article.

Good article. Thanks for the link.


--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :