Jim Harper wrote:

Dave Houlton wrote in message ...


Are there any gliders out there today with whole-ship BRS-type chutes?

Dave


Hi, Dave.

The short answer to your question is, yep!
http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder/HP...S_in_HP-16.htm

You can do a google search and find a long discussion regarding this
(initiated by me, that time...not the first discussion on this) from
around last Christmas (02).

Short form: I made the decision to put a BRS 1050 in my HP-16 because:

1. I am a big guy. Whilst I did fit in the glider with a parachute,
the ergonomics were challenging. Without a parachute, I am in
sumptious luxury.

2. I could. The glider is experimental, and changes are trivial. A
certificated glider would be much more difficult to do this in,
requiring a 337 which may or may not be possible (I'd bet on not).

3. While the cost was higher than a regular parachute (around $2500,
if memory serves, now around $2900) the weight penalty was not
significantly higher at 24 pounds for the 1050 softpack model I
bought. Repacks are sort of a push, given that they are quite
expensive, but only need done every 6 years.

I reached the decision after doing a moderately exhaustive search on
parachute saves in gliders. Basically, it looked to me like most
fatalities would not have been prevented by the usual open the canopy
and bail out...given the relative low altitude of most. Read the
thread for more on that, please. At any rate, I feel I can get a
canopy over me at anything above around 250 feet, perhaps lower, so I
have a better margin of safety than if I needed to open the canopy and
bail out...I think most believe that you need to start that at around
1500-2000 feet above ground.

I believe that my parachute will lower me relatively nose-down, and as
such, my legs will protect me to some extent on landing. I feel safer
surrounded by the aluminum and plexiglass than if I were on my own
under canopy, given that I'll likley not be descending into a prepared
drop zone, more likely trees or worse...and I have around 500 sport
parachute and military jumps, so I speak from knowledge there.

No, thank God, I have not had the opportunity to use it, and hope that
I never find out if it'll work...but it comforts me to know it's
there.

I hope that helps.

Jim

It does help - thanks, Jim! I'm flying club gliders now, but I expect
I'll eventually be an owner - and based on this discussion I'll quite
likely opt for an experimental. It just makes sense to me that if
you're trying to leave yourself an out for when things go Really Bad,
you want that out to be usable in as many phases of flight as possible -
including low on tow or in the pattern. BRS seems like the only game in
town in those situations.

I never put on a chute at all during training (including full-turn
spins, of course), but I started thinking more about it this fall when I
took my 8-yr-old son for his first glider ride. Along the lines of "I
should grab us some parachutes. But I'm not confident he'd be able to
get out and deploy, and I'm obviously not leaving without him...
Anyway, this is just a pattern tow and a sled ride - we'll never be high
enough to use them anyway." Perfectly reasoned but not very reassuring.

Dave Houlton