On Apr 5, 8:27*pm, Jim Logajan wrote:
Mike Bamberg wrote:
On Apr 5, 2:58*pm, Jim Logajan wrote:
Ian wrote:
I would be very interested, for professional reasons, to hear from
anyone who has used a ballistic recovery chute in a glider.

By "used" do you mean has one installed in their glider, or had to
deploy one due to an inflight emergency? I'm assuming the latter.

There has been at least one installed in an HP-16:

http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder/HP...S_in_HP-16.htm

BRS, the most well known U.S. vendor of such chutes, keeps a list of "lives
saved" he

http://brsparachutes.com/files/Docum...ives-Saved.pdf

I see some hang gliders listed where BRS chutes were deployed, but I didn't
see any conventional gliders listed (but I'm not that familiar with model
names, so may have overlooked them.) My own search of the U.S. NTSB
database yielded two accidents *where the aircraft had ballistic chutes
that proved of no value due to circumstances of the accidents - accident
IDs SEA04FA111 and DFW07LA006:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...30X01573&key=1

(The latter accident has already been mentioned.)

If one includes motorgliders, then all the Pipistrel and Lambada
motorgliders have ballistic chutes available either as standard equipment
or options, depending on the model:

http://www.mcp.com.au/pipistrel-usa/...banairusa.com/

I suspect there are several more. Examples include -

Failure to activate BRS in a spin...
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20020502X00613

BRS failure due to activation at excessive speed (likely loss of
control due to icing in IMC).
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20050222X00211
http://www.flyingmag.com/accidents/7...onditions.html
(This accident is pretty horrible and the whole issue of flight into
know icing, the capability of the TKS system in the Cirrus etc. got
widely discussed because of this. In hindsight the (lack of) icing
forecast provided to the pilot was just awful).

I think BRS systems are pretty impressive and the goal here should be
to understand the capabilities of a BRS system, and the need to be
willing to use it under appropriate situations. So please also focus
on the lives saved/success stories.

And I also hope people read the Windward Owl in-flight failure and
what that glider had been through in the test program as an
endorsement of the capability of that impressive Sparrowhawk glider on
which the Owl is based, when pushed well beyond its design limits.


Darryl