Airframe Parachutes and Other Safety Controversy

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Airframe Parachutes and Other Safety Controversy

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

Kaal posted:

Yeah it doesn't really make any sense, and it comes entirely from the "all pilots are Chuck Yeager/my trigger is my safety" perspective. A hard, fast crash landing is definitely going to be more threatening to public safety than a parachute. Basically the only hypothetical problem that has been proposed is that the parachute might be so quiet that it wouldn't be noticed - as if it is easier to react to a plane tearing in at you at 100 mph. And if that really was such an issue, which seems unlikely, then it'd be easy to just install a siren.

A pilot maintaining aircraft control is not going to put the aircraft down on an occupied surface. A pilot under canopy is no longer in control of the aircraft.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 20:11

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:52

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

I just like how everyone who actually possesses an aeronautical rating is on one side, but the pro-parachute side continues to believe that Google makes them utterly qualified experts on aircraft safety.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 05:24

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

Anosmoman posted:

That's quite a bold statement to make about a fairly large group of people. The pilot that did an emergency landing on that beach did do exactly that though and he killed two people there. He didn't ditch in the ocean or take his chances in a less suitable place. He chose a beach with children on it.

However, looking around it doesn't seem like light aircraft are frequently killing random bystanders. The victims are by and large the pilots themselves which I don't really care about. You guys are adults and have been adequately informed of the dangers of what you are doing. Allowing informed people to do dangerous things is after all pretty common - cave diving, free diving, free climbing, base jumping, MMA etc.

Given that you've only been able to provide one example after actively searching, I'd say it's pretty safe to apply my statement as a universal. "People on the ground killed by controlled landing of an aircraft on an unprepared surface" is such an unbelievably rare event that it is simply not worth discussing or worrying about.

Kaal posted:

If all pilots were anti-parachute then the BRS company would have been bankrupted years ago rather than being a nearly 30 year-old company with $10 million annual revenues. Try again Chuck.

And yet, the system has utterly failed to see widespread adoption, and people with aviation experience not trying to sell the system are nearly unanimous in opposing making it mandatory. Why do you think this is?

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 15:34

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

Sylink posted:

Hypothetically, would some kind of auto-pilot system that would take over in an emergency and auto-land be safer than a parachute and lighter?�

I can imagine a scenario where a computer can do the aerodynamic calculations to land in a situation where human error makes this impossible.

An aircraft making an emergency landing is by definition operating outside the parameters it is designed for. Barring CFIT and other gross pilot errors, properly working airplanes don't crash. It is impossible to design a computer that takes in to account every possible variable in an emergency: judging situations like this is the reason pilots undergo extensive training. Just as an example, if an aircraft is no longer able to maintain altitude due to severe icing, the pitot-static system may be iced over as well, causing unreliable instrument readings. Since the computer has no way of knowing this, it will crash the aircraft as surely as a spatially disoriented pilot would.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 16:13

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