SteveM8597 wrote in message
...
A non flying software engineer friend of mine insistes it is poossible
to put
devices on a plane to make it safer by impacting the ground at a low
velocity
after loss of control or catastrophic failure, or to be able to
manuever to
miss an obstacle when impact is imminent. These devices would include
retrorockets, large recovery chutes, airbrake type control surfaces,
warpable
wings, and software on airplanes. Ballistic recovery systems have had
successes on light planes and ultralights Otherwise, I have told him
that the
above have been proven to be impractical and even dangerous. He
insists that
technology is there that would allow either an out of control or
powerless
heavy to eiher recover or hit the ground softly enough that it would
be
survivable. I've got 34 years in the business and a degree in aero
engineering
but he seems to think I am just being negative.

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

Steve

Didn't he see the movie "Air Force One"? We just need ejection pods,
and lots of them.

I'd suggest something from the sci-fi types: take 3 times more energy
than is in the universe, confine it to an area 1/3 the size of a
singularity, and then accelerate that to 8 times the speed of light and
all problems are solved.

--


Scott
--------
"I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through
the world only at the directive of the United Nations," and that he
wants "to almost eliminate CIA activity."
John F. Kerry, 1970 Harvard Crimson