On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 20:31:50 -0500, Tony V
wrote:


- NO BRS has ever been tested in an extreme situation (one wing or
tailplane gon, violent spin, high positive or negative g-loads).


Huh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrVxp_gyTcI


Hey Tony,

we are talking about gliders, not ultralights!

There have been quite a few successful BRS recoveries indeed - but an
ultralight is a lot slower than any glider (BRS systems are usually
restricted to 150 kts which a tail- or wingless glider will quickly
exceed), smaller, and lighter, and unfortunately at least in Germany
there have been lots of attempted BRS activations in ultralight
aircraft (two seats, maximum takeoff weight about 900 lbs, cruise
speed between 100 and 140 kts) where the BRS didn't work - because it
hadn't been tested in that part of the flight envelope.

Sorry, but in aviation I don't trust such complex systems if they
haven't been thoroughly tested.

If you take a closer look the BRS in this case didn't work correctly
either - the lines got tangled in the tail, therefore the aircraft
impacted vertically. Fortunately the parachute of the BRS was
oversized, it opened and the structure was rigid enough to prevent the
engine to be crushed into the leg area of the cockpit - but it was a
close case.


Statistics clearly show that the problem is to leave the aircraft (be
it a glider or an F-16).

Why try to save the whole aircraft with a huge and complex parachute
(whose size causes a pretty narrow escape envelope) with the need to
handle impact forces and masses behind the pilot (which try to crush
him on impact) if the only problem is to get him out of the cockpit?

Get the pilot out of the cockpit somehow and let him use his proven
parachute that has proven lots of times to work reliably in the speed
range of a (broken) glider.
Soteira.


Cheers
Andreas