Aircraft Deceleration Devices

Any comments or knowledge of potential technolgy I can feed his pipe dreasm
with?

Indeed! You can buy a parachute for a lightplane. They have saved more
than one plane/pilot, one as recently as 2003.

(Of course there's always the question in such cases as to whether,
without the parachute, the pilot would have been able to make an
emergency landing. In this case the plane didn't lose a wing or its
tail feathers, as I recall.)

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org

Cub Driver wrote:

Any comments or knowledge of potential technolgy I can feed his pipe dreasm
with?

Indeed! You can buy a parachute for a lightplane. They have saved more
than one plane/pilot, one as recently as 2003.

(Of course there's always the question in such cases as to whether,
without the parachute, the pilot would have been able to make an
emergency landing. In this case the plane didn't lose a wing or its
tail feathers, as I recall.)

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org


There was one on Thursday night over the Monashee mountains in British
Columbia. The parachute appears to have resulted in a survivable impact
and all four on board survived basically uninjured.

Dave

Cub Driver wrote in message . ..
Any comments or knowledge of potential technolgy I can feed his pipe dreasm
with?

First look off the top of my head - jettison the wings and tail,
getting rid of the weight of the engines and the gear. A drogue chute
can stabilize the fuselage until time for main chute(s) deployment.
Pop the chute(s) by radio altimeter and when close to the ground
deploy giant air bags to cushion impact. You figure out how to
stabilize the fuselage after impact and keep it afloat if it lands on
water. Also figure out how to prevent premature/accidental activation.
Tell him sure it can be done - he can write a program to determine the
economical cost of the kluge, and what the result in airline ticket
prices will be. Don't forget the inspection costs of all the new
stuff. I have no idea how much it costs to repack one of the BRS
chutes or even what the inspection requirements are. Costs will
probably parallel writing totally bug-free Windows.
Walt BJ