Many Pipistrel Taurus have a BRS; mine does. You can see the
installation in a shot I took at the factory - unfortunately, I don't
have a better picture handy:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taurus...t=21& dir=asc

or http://yhoo.it/g6IUh3

The half cylinder in front is the rocket; the larger container behind
it is the chute; the tube leading down is the exhaust route for the
rocket. Its located behind the spars, just in front of the firewall
and does not attach to the spars. Obviously, this configuration is
not relevant to a discussion about retrofitting, and because the ship
has side-by-side seating, there's a lot more room to work with than a
typical ship would have. I can easily conceive of situations where I
might also want a personal parachute, but I think having another
option is good. To me, it only made sense to order it.

I believe that Pipistrel has the same option in its touring
motorgliders and I seem to recall hearing that they had been used on a
few occasions.

- Kevin


On Jan 24, 8:05*pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:29:10 -0800, Andy wrote:
On the surface, it seems to me that attaching the parachute bridle to
the wing main spar stubs is not the optimal way to do it. In general, I
think I'd rather attach the bridle to the aircraft structure at the
forward and aft lift pin fittings. My thinking is that the lift fitting
structure is closer to the pilot along the primary load path between
the wings and the fuselage.

Good point. The only pic I've seen of an installed BRS where I could see
what was going on was that HP installation I mentioned, so I just
extrapolated without really engaging my brain.

I think my ideal BRS would have the option to extract the pilot from the
fuselage as a 2 stage deployment. *Stage 1 the BRS is fired and slows
the descent rate of the glider. Pilot assesses altitude, stability,
injuries, wind, terrain etc and has the option to choose stage 2 which
separates the BRS parachute from the glider and extracts the pilot who
is wearing a parachute harness attached to the BRS chute risers.
Somewhere between stage 1 and stage 2 the pilot better release the seat
belt or it could get uncomfortable.

Better have a lifting panel too, or it would still be somewhat
uncomfortable, whether the seat harness was released or not.

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |