Emergency Exit

I had the opportunity to fly with a Ventus 2BXR (R for Recovery) at Saint-Auban (France). With that experience, I'd say a BRS in a glider is not a very practical solution as far as I'm concerned.

Due to the ballistic extractor being placed under the fuselage skin between the wings, it could shoot out exactly where your head would be when pushing the glider. Therefore, there are multiple safety systems to verify, a separate electrical circuit, a safety pin to extract just before taking off, and to put back in place after landing before exiting the glider. Sure as hell, you are bound to forget something if you do not strictly follow a written checklist every time.

At Saint-Auban, I had to sign a specific document stating my knowledge of the system before being allowed to fly the glider. The CNVV ended up selling the glider because these limitations made it financially uninteresting.

I once forgot to take the safety pin out (you still can do it in flight, fortunately), once to put it back (really a bad idea, but I'm not used to a check-list before exiting a glider)...

Stephane


Le samedi 30 juin 2018 21:04:53 UTC+2, Mike Schumann a écritÂ*:
On Saturday, June 30, 2018 at 1:45:05 PM UTC-5, Dave Walsh wrote:
At 14:33 30 June 2018, Dan Marotta wrote:
To me the major advantages of a BRS over a personal
parachute are the
speed and certainty of deployment.Â* Of course either
system may fail or
malfunction, but with the BRS, you lose the difficulty of
getting out
into space and deploying at in unfavorable position. Simply
pull the
handle and enjoy the ride.

But, upon landing in a windy situation, you run the very
real risk of
being killed in a tumbling, disintegrating wreck being
dragged along the
ground.Â* Is there a jettison capability that could be armed
by the
sudden deceleration of landing?Â* Perhaps an automatic
jettison?Â* Might
that malfunction at 500' and give you a last thrilling ride?

On 6/29/2018 10:49 PM, Charlie Quebec wrote:
Beacause floating around out of control under a
parachute is safer?
BRS sounds good, but in practice I would prefer a
personal chute every
time.

--
Dan, 5J

Of course you could be struck by lightening as you descend
under your BRS canopy but has anyone ever died being
"dragged along the ground" after a successful BRS escape?
Plenty have died following a conventional parachute mal-
function.
The bottom line is that BRS will work at a lower height but is
hardly available in any common sailplane on sale today.
Retro fitting a BRS to an EASA sailplane would be a
expensive, possibly impossible, task. With ultra-light
sailplanes it's different.
The other major problem, as clearly explained on DG's
website, is that "safety does not sell sailplanes". The
majority of DG sailplanes sold were NOT equipped with the
NOAH system: the new buyers simply did not order the
NOAH system. Even if BRS was available today how many
buyers would buy it?
Dave W

If a BRS system were available factory installed at a reasonable price, I suspect that a very large percentage of buyers would sign up. It's a huge selling point if you are trying to get the OK from your spouse to upgrade to a new glider.

Offering a BRS system standard on all of their airplanes is probably the #1 reason that Cirrus is now the largest piston engine aircraft manufacturer in the world.