If you read the passenger's report of a glider incident at the following
URL

http://sites.google.com/site/thebig4...theskiesagain/

you will see from the photographs that the damage in the area behind the
cockpit, where a BRS system would probably have been installed, was so
badly damaged that its unlikely that it would have worked. The pilot and
passenger both wore parachutes and survived.

Yes I know there are other accidents where the opposite argument can be
made - but I'm not aware of any statistics that come down firmly on one
approach versus the other in the gliding world where (in the UK at least)
parachutes are worn for a very high proportion of flights. In the power
world, where parachutes are worn infrequently, the value of BRS is likely
to be less ambiguous.

At 04:35 20 January 2011, Sparkorama wrote:

I'm just getting back into the sport after a long hiatus. I've seen
that
a lot of glider pilots fly with parachutes (ones they wear) and I have
seen Ballistic Recovery System parachutes in planes as well. From my
layman's view, it appears that getting out of a plane using a
traditional chute after a mid-air collision seems exceedingly difficult
and time-consuming. On the other hand, BRS chutes seem to deploy very
fast and can be deployed very close to the ground. They can lower the
entire plane safely to the ground in almost any terrain, and a few
bruises to your bird or your body seems a lot better than certain death
if you can't get out of a plane after a mid-air. So if this is true,
and
I am happy to say I am no expert, then why isn't everyone using these
things? I think they should be mandatory in every new glider built.
Thoughts?
Spark




--
Sparkorama