Recovery parachutes again!

This from the Aero-News Propwash email letter:

************
The whole-airplane
parachute company, Ballistic Recovery Systems, Inc., has now saved
179 pilot and passenger lives. The latest dramatic save happened
when New Yorker Ilan Reich deployed the BRS System last Thursday,
June 30th, while he was flying his Cirrus SR22 at 3,000 feet near
Haverstraw, NY.

"The system worked as advertised and I'm alive today because it
did," said Reich.
************

Wouldn't it be fairer to say that BRS has led to the loss of a hundred
or so aircraft? Surely many or most of those aircraft could have been
flown to a safe landing.

In this case, the pilot evidently had a mild heart attack, diabetic
stroke, or some such medical emergency, or what he decided was an
emergency. (He was treated and released, so it couldn't have been much
if anything.) If he has a problem, he shouldn't be flying--or driving,
for that matter. I assume he has no BRS system on his automobile.

It seems to me that the BRS system is analagous to the carrying of
cell phones by wilderness trekkers. A few genuine emergencies may be
averted, but a much larger number of unnecessary and very expensive
searches (or parachute deployments) have been built into the system. A
few years ago, three women climbed to the top of the Tripyramids in
New Hampshire, a trio of 4,000=foot peaks not far from a ski area.
They felt tired, so they called 911. Eventually a helicopter was
deployed from Concord 50 miles away. When it landed, the women balled
out the pilot for taking so long.

I can't wait till someone sues BRS when its parachute lets him down
too far from civilization.



-- all the best, Dan Ford

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