"Bart D. Hull" wrote:
Why pull the parachute?

Just speculating, but when he ran into the tow rope it definitely shook
the plane bad enough that it moved the camera around in its mount (or may
be that the pilot knocked the camera when he cutoff the engine).

It appears the prop cleared the tow rope and he didn't lose any
control surfaces, in fact it looked like he was gliding in control for
awhile before he pulled the 'chute. He even sounded like he shut down
the engine, that the engine didn't quit and it didn't sound too rough
like it was misbalanced.

First, the pilot (and reporter) said in the CNN report that the prop
struck the tow rope.

Secondly, consider the following:

In the "original" cockpit video (link quoted below), it sounds like the
BRS rocket is fired at about 11 seconds into the video and the plane hits
the ground at about 51 seconds into the video. Assuming nothing was cut
from the video, it took about 39 seconds to descend under the chute. The
BRS web site says descent rates are typically between 15 fps and 28 fps
at 5000 ft density altitude. That puts the altitude possibly somewhere in
the range of 600 to 1100 feet agl. The Rans web site lists the glide
ratio of the Rans S-6 at about 9:1. So the pilot would have had between 1
and 2 miles of best-glide distance to find a good landing spot. I don't
know what the best glide speed of the Rans S-6 is; I'll guesstimate 60
mph. That gives the pilot between 1 and 2 minutes of air time - absolute
max. Decision height for the BRS is around 300 feet.

Given the altitude, unknown condition of plane and insufficient time to
determine the extent of the damage, the decision to deploy the chute was,
in my very humble opinion, the correct one. It is just the sort of
situation that I believe ballistic chutes were originally designed for.

I always wondered if the availability of such a device made for more
accidents or less. It sure sounded like a rather solid landing!

He did walk away though.

I most definitely disagree - the parachute no more caused this accident
than the pilot's seatbelt did.

Solid landing perhaps, but as the CNN story mentioned, not only did the
pilot walk away, he was able to rebuild his plane - with of course a new
chute.

The end result appears no different than a typical successful emergency
landing where some damage occurs.


Bart D. Hull

Tempe, Arizona

Check http://www.inficad.com/~bdhull/engine.html
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Jim Logajan wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
wrote:
Amazing video...
I just noticed that the pilot appears to have been following another
aircraft (white winged). At least that is the way it looks because
the white area moves relative to the ground at times.

Further followup with a bite more info:

Here's what appears to be the full cockpit video from collision to
touchdown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_JAg1ZedGo

According to the comments, he was flying a Rans S6. Also, the CNN
video was also posted to YouTube, and based on the dates of those
postings this appears to have been reported back in December (around
Christmas) of last year.