bumper wrote:
This bag would probably be made of coated nylon and be inflated with an
easily refillable compressed air bottle. Inflation would be via a
quarter-turn manual valve with no safety devices except perhaps a manual
interlock pin (if a solenoid valve were used, a canopy-open interlock could
be incorporated). The intent would be to design the "air-lift under cushion"
for ground use only, to assist the pilot in exiting the ship. If this system
were marketed, restricting it to ground use would hopefully help eliminate
the liability concerns of a system intended to assist a bail out.

A friend of mine (Bob Moore) had an "elderly pilot's assist" (not that
I'm suggesting bumper is elderly, since I'm a bit older myself!)
installed in his PIK 20 E. He used it to enter and exit the glider on
the ground. It was a cloth bag with (I think) two aircraft tire tubes,
one on top of the other, inside the bag. A small 12 VDC pump run from
the glider battery inflated the tubes to raise the pilot; a valve
released the air to lower the pilot. It allowed him another couple years
of flying.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org