danlj wrote:

Greg Cole fired off the ballistic parachute while it was attached to
the Sparrowhawk.
It was a ground test. He has it on video and it deployed perfectly
with no problems.
The cost is somewhere around $3000.00.

George Young, Sparrowhawk owner # 6

Raspet Labs was using a modified Lighthawk sailplane for testing last
fall, which crashed. http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=3621

The LightHawk is a very different glider than the SparrowHawk, much
larger and slower, with a lighter wingloading. As the other posters have
mentioned, it was a modified SparrowHawk, which Raspet Labs call the
OWL. I was at Windward Performance last week, where I learned they
delivered an OWL earlier this year, and are preparing another one.

It had a BRS chute which was triggered by the scissoring main spar
when the wings folded, and the pilot was ejected through the cockpit
by the deceleration, I think because the ring that causes slow chute
deployment did not function properly..

When I spoke with Greg Cole at the convention this year, he said the
problem was more excessive speed (50 knots above the 123 knot Vne) than
the parachute operation.


Point: the aircraft must be engineered to take the stresses of chute
deployment and the chute must deploy properly. (Nothing is 100% sure
and safe.)

Of course, but should the rescue system be expected to work properly at
speeds 40% beyond red line? In my glider, that would be 206 knots!

--
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