On 11 Feb 2004 08:50:00 -0800, (Jim Harper) wrote:

Mike Borgelt wrote in message . ..

some snippage
The whole ship chute concept is a bit of a worry. There you are in a
large heavy object with absolutely no control. With a personal chute
you do have steering on most rigs nowadays.

With a whole ship chute would it just ruin your day to have save and
then hit the high voltage lines, fall out of a tree, fall over a cliff
etc?
some MORE snippage

Mike Borgelt

Actually, Mike, on that we disagree.

Unless you are using a square canopy for your personal chute, you have
very little choice on where you are gonna land...and hitting the tree,
high voltage lines or over the cliff are gonna suck less if you have
some aluminum or fiberglass around you. Well, that was my decision for
sure.

Oh, and keep in mind that as I disagree with you, I do it with all due
deference to someone as distinguished in our sport as yourself (no
sarcasm, I meant that!)

Jim


I figure that the choice with a personal chute is small but with a
whole ship chute it is zero.

The guy who taught me to pack a chute gave me escape instructions from
the glider and then said "enjoy the ride" as you were likely to be
confused and shocked anyway. He wouldn't have been as his real job not
long before had been giving the Viet Cong a hard time as a member of
the Australian SAS.

The other problem with whole ship chutes is that there is no room for
them - the engine occupies that space!

I once saw a movie of the BRS drop test on a C150 simulating its
arrival under a deployed BRS chute. I doubt that the Cessna was
useable again even though it was a symmetrical level attitude when it
hit with no drift. I'd hate to hit at a similar descent rate in a
glider. In Oz we've had a few people do hard landings in the last
couple of years. Some are considered lucky to be walking but the
gliders are repairable. Air bags may be essential.

Are your gliding club members smart enough to avoid inadvertent
deployment of a ballistic chute in the hangar? At one club I used to
belong to the new ASW20B got wheeled up twice in a month or so - in
the hangar as people said "what does this lever do?". In the chute
case you would hope nobody else was standing behind the wing looking
into the cockpit.

About 12 years ago we did a precision altimeter project for an RAAF
test project. The chief aero engineer of the research and development
unit was building an ultralight of his own design. I asked if he was
fitting a BRS chute. He said he was designing the aircraft basically
to high enough standards that like a FAR 23 power plane it was
reliable enough in its structure and control systems that flying
without a chute was a good risk. His opinion was that the whole ship
chutes at the time couldn't meet their claimed descent rates with the
chute sizes used. His first job had been with a parachute manufacturer
so I had to take some notice of his opinion.

Mike Borgelt