A thought on BRS

Did you know that the F-104 Starfighter not only would not recover
from a spin, but would not recover from a stall either? A stall would
immediately lead to a departure from controlled flight, generally
unrecoverable.

About what you'd expect from a 20,000+ pound fuselage with a 7.5 foot
long wing stuck on each side.

Yet it had quite a career.

Especially in the German airforce. "What's the best way to see a German
F104?". "You buy a lawn chair and a hectare of land and wait."

Tony V.

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 10:59:39 -0400, Tony Verhulst
wrote:


Did you know that the F-104 Starfighter not only would not recover
from a spin, but would not recover from a stall either? A stall would
immediately lead to a departure from controlled flight, generally
unrecoverable.

About what you'd expect from a 20,000+ pound fuselage with a 7.5 foot
long wing stuck on each side.

Yet it had quite a career.

Especially in the German airforce. "What's the best way to see a German
F104?". "You buy a lawn chair and a hectare of land and wait."

...... from an album by Captain Lockheed and the Star Fighters (aka
Hawkwind) IIRC. Great cover art too.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

On 27 Apr 2004 06:02:52 -0700, (Michael) wrote:

....snippage...

Did you know that the F-104 Starfighter not only would not recover
from a spin, but would not recover from a stall either? A stall would
immediately lead to a departure from controlled flight, generally
unrecoverable. Yet it had quite a career.

I thought I'd read that it would recover, but needed around 15,000 ft
to do so and that there was a placard on the panel saying to punch out
if you spun it below 15,000.


--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
...
...But, looking at the report makes me wonder if the BRS is an
unmixed blessing: In both cases it sounds as if having the BRS could
have tempted pilots to fly in conditions when they maybe shouldn't
have. As I said above, its good that the BRS got them out of trouble,
I hope we don't see a rash of similar stories as low-timers do silly
things 'knowing' that the BRS can save their bacon.

Comments?

Well...Since you asked...

Why don't we strike a huge blow for safety by simply taking all of the
safety features off of our gliders, starting with parachutes? And especially
those transponders! they just encourage us to fly where we might encounter
other airplanes. And don't forget those GPS units, they just encourage us to go
where we might get lost. Oh yes! lets get rid of those safety harnesses, they
just encourage us to fly in turbulence. As a final safety measure, we should
all saw part way through our main spars to force us all to fly more smoothly.
With all of these "safety improvements", all designed to make more honest pilots
out of us and force all of us to fly safer, we can surely look forward to a
quantum improvement in next year's soaring safety statistics.

(with a grin)
Vaughn

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 01:29:15 GMT, "Vaughn"
wrote:


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
.. .
...But, looking at the report makes me wonder if the BRS is an
unmixed blessing: In both cases it sounds as if having the BRS could
have tempted pilots to fly in conditions when they maybe shouldn't
have. As I said above, its good that the BRS got them out of trouble,
I hope we don't see a rash of similar stories as low-timers do silly
things 'knowing' that the BRS can save their bacon.

Comments?

Well...Since you asked...

Why don't we strike a huge blow for safety by simply taking all of the
safety features off of our gliders, starting with parachutes? And especially
those transponders! they just encourage us to fly where we might encounter
other airplanes. And don't forget those GPS units, they just encourage us to go
where we might get lost. Oh yes! lets get rid of those safety harnesses, they
just encourage us to fly in turbulence. As a final safety measure, we should
all saw part way through our main spars to force us all to fly more smoothly.
With all of these "safety improvements", all designed to make more honest pilots
out of us and force all of us to fly safer, we can surely look forward to a
quantum improvement in next year's soaring safety statistics.

(with a grin)
Vaughn

Well put. Love it!

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

:-)

Nailhitter




Well...Since you asked...

Why don't we strike a huge blow for safety by simply taking all of the
safety features off of our gliders, starting with parachutes? And especially
those transponders! they just encourage us to fly where we might encounter
other airplanes. And don't forget those GPS units, they just encourage us to go
where we might get lost. Oh yes! lets get rid of those safety harnesses, they
just encourage us to fly in turbulence. As a final safety measure, we should
all saw part way through our main spars to force us all to fly more smoothly.
With all of these "safety improvements", all designed to make more honest pilots
out of us and force all of us to fly safer, we can surely look forward to a
quantum improvement in next year's soaring safety statistics.

(with a grin)
Vaughn

Vaughn wrote:

"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
...

...But, looking at the report makes me wonder if the BRS is an
unmixed blessing: In both cases it sounds as if having the BRS could
have tempted pilots to fly in conditions when they maybe shouldn't
have. As I said above, its good that the BRS got them out of trouble,
I hope we don't see a rash of similar stories as low-timers do silly
things 'knowing' that the BRS can save their bacon.

Comments?


Well...Since you asked...

Why don't we strike a huge blow for safety by simply taking all of the
safety features off of our gliders, starting with parachutes?

This might make me safer, as I would be less inclined to fly in
contests, especially large ones.

And especially
those transponders! they just encourage us to fly where we might encounter
other airplanes.

Without a transponder, I wouldn't fly in the Minden area. It does give
me a small improvement in safety where I normally fly, and more so in
the Southern California area. So, maybe the transponder, overall, has me
just as safe as I would be without one.

And don't forget those GPS units, they just encourage us to go
where we might get lost.

Before GPS, I used higher altitude margins, because I couldn't be sure
of where I was. I suspect I over-compensated, so I think most of the
time I did have higher margins. Once in a while, I probably misjudged
badly enough, my margins were lower than they are with a GPS. So,
perhaps a wash with respective to safety.

Oh yes! lets get rid of those safety harnesses, they
just encourage us to fly in turbulence.

We'd fly slower, but this probably wouldn't help, as our accidents are
rarely breakups in turbulence.

As a final safety measure, we should
all saw part way through our main spars to force us all to fly more smoothly.

Same as above: we'd just fly slower, so not likely to help.

Here's another one: make everyone fly without hull insurance. Pilots
would be more careful when they flew if they knew any damage came
entirely out of their wallet. The same for caring for the glider on the
ground: more gliders would be put away in the trailer instead of tied
out, and canopies would be protected better.

With all of these "safety improvements", all designed to make more honest pilots
out of us and force all of us to fly safer, we can surely look forward to a
quantum improvement in next year's soaring safety statistics.

I know Vaughn wrote this tongue-in-cheek, but it does illustrate the
compensation that happens whenever there is a change in equipment.
People are always making trade-offs between safety and functionality,
but I think they usually take a middle path: a bit more safety and a bit
more functionality. Problems arise if they think more safety has been
provided than is actually the case.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Pretty interesting that rescue-the-aircraft parachutes have been
considered basic-responsibility common sense in the ultralight
community, while the presumptively far more properly trained pilots of
presumptively far more airworthy certificated aircraft consider them
controversial and possibly dangerous.

To me, the objections to these systems keeps reminding me of the World
War I debate about allowing pilots to carry parachutes. They don't
always work, you will have people taking unnecessary risks because
they know they have them, people will bail out of damaged but landable
aircraft, and anyway real men don't need that sort of thing. Maybe
the powers that prohibited parachutes back then were onto something!

Mind you, I'll never forget the look on a hang glider pilot's face
when her sailplane-ride pilot explained that a) you have to bail out
of the aircraft to use the parachute and b) there are no parachutes
anyway!

Just to nitpick with John Cochrane, I don't know that Pelzman actually
proved that spikes in the dashboard lower the accident rate (this
would require doing the experiment, which I didn't think he had done),
although it seems likely they would! I think his point was that the
primary effect of safety equipment in cars is to increase speeds:
essentially, drivers limit their speed to keep their fatality risk to
an acceptable level, so increase the safety equipment and they can
increase their speed while keeping the same or lower fatality risk.
Their priorities are correct: limit risk first, THEN drive as fast as
possible. What is counter-intuitive is that with those priorities,
safety equipment will alter the speed, not the safety. Speed is not
the issue in aircraft, but there is indeed a similar question: when
the safety margins are improved, will light aircraft travelers consume
the benefit as higher safety margins or as increased utility of the
aircraft? Even if it's the latter, they still gain from having the
BRS on board, and all that remains is to determine whether it's worth
the cost.

At 13:12 27 April 2004, Michael wrote:
'Vaughn' wrote

Did you know that the F-104 Starfighter not only would
not recover
from a spin, but would not recover from a stall either?
A stall would
immediately lead to a departure from controlled flight,
generally
unrecoverable. Yet it had quite a career.

Michael

As does the Jaguar still and it suffers from the same
problem. The Tornado would be the same if not for SPILLS
(a system that will not allow the aircraft to stall/spin)
and I believe an F16 is not flyable if the computer
system fails, it is so unstable the only way of keeping
it flying is with the computer system. Unstable = very
manoeuverable. All the above are combat aircraft, different
concept entirely.

Speed limits, seat belts, ABS, airbags, crumple zones,
roll over bars, BRS, parachutes, and ejector seats
have nothing whatsoever to do with preventing accidents,
they are only there to mitigate the outcome. Every
accident has the potential to cause death or serious
injury, whether that occurs is really a matter of pure
blind chance. People are the cause of accidents and
the only way to prevent them is to edjucate so that
they do not happen. All the gadgets do is reduce the
chance of injury when we screw up.
Far too often the outcome of the accident is considered
the priority in any investigation instead of the cause.

At 14:12 27 April 2004, Tom Seim wrote:
I'm not saying this is a good tradeoff or a poor one,
but it's
disingenuous to pretend it's not there. It's equally
disingenuous to
pretend that we couldn't prevent 95% of highway fatalities
quite
easily. All it would take is a 35 mph speed limit
for divided
highways and a 17 mph speed limit for other roads
- and draconian
enforcement. It wouldn't prevent the accidents, but
it would
eliminate most of the fatalities. Of course we don't
do this because
we want to get where we are going quickly.

Michael

This has been the argument against raising the speed
limits on our
highways, ever since they were lowered by that benevolent
dictator
Jimmy Carter. The only problem, the argument is wrong!
We learned that
after raising the limits and watched the fatality rates
continue to
drop.

Common wisdom is, sometimes, uncommon nonsense.

I think the problem is tunnel vision safety analysis
by 'experts' that
vastly overrate their abilities. Part of the problem
with the speed
limits is that drivers weren't obeying the limits to
begin with.
Raising the limits merely reflected the reality of
the situation.
Draconian enforcement simply won't work, at least not
(fortunately) in
the U.S., because law enforcement works only by voluntary
compliance.
There simply are not enough cops and jails out there
to impose a law
that the vast majority of the population won't accept.
This clearly
happened with the poorly thought out national speed
limit. But there
still is a group that, even with all of the evidence
to the contrary,
thinks that it will work.

Instead, we should put the effort into things that
do work. The most
dramatic example of this is mandatory seat belt usage.
In Washington
state this became a primary law (you can be stopped
for it), which
resulted in compliance rates in the 85-90% range (instead
of 15-20%
before there was any law). No changes were required
to cars since the
belts were already there. Most people have accepted
the law, but there
is still a vociferous minority that reject it. Everybody
benefits,
besides being safer, with lower insurance rates.

Tom Seim