New System Seeks to Save Crashing Airplanes with Parachute

courtesy of planenews.com

Canadian rancher Albert Kolk's small plane banked uncontrollably in darkness over the Monashee mountains, then began spiraling toward earth. "Seat belts!" he barked to his teenage grandson and two young friends. Then he reached for a red lever in the cockpit.

Suddenly, an orange-and-white parachute as big as a house opened above the plane and gently landed his stricken aircraft in a rocky clearing.

If the maker of the parachute that saved Kolk's life this past spring succeeds, one day commercial aircraft like regional commuter jets may have similar safety systems. First, though, there's the challenge of creating a parachute robust enough to rescue bigger, faster planes.

"Weight and speed are always the challenge," acknowledged Robert Nelson, chairman of Ballistic Recovery System Inc., which sold about 500 of its $16,000 parachute systems this year for use by small private planes and pilots like Kolk.

The company's most advanced parachute right now can accommodate nearly 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms). While small planes can weigh up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) and cruise about 175 miles per hour, ( 380 kilometers) regional jets weigh 80,000 pounds (128,000 kilograms) and fly at more than 600 miles per hour (960 kilometers).

That's why Ballistic Recovery System is working with NASA -- which gave it $670,000 for research -- to design a new generation of emergency parachutes that would work on small jets and could be steered by pilots as they drift to the ground.

Kolk, who was piloting his private plane April 8 from Seattle to his ranch in British Columbia, remembered reaching for the parachute handle as his plane slipped into a dangerous flat spin over the mountains in British Columbia, "like how a dog chases its tail."

A seasoned pilot, Kolk said he had never experienced such a disaster in over a decade of private flying.

"I knew I was in trouble. I couldn't straighten out," Kolk said. "When that chute opened, it was a peaceful, wonderful feeling."

Kolk's experience is one of four cases where parachute-equipped planes landed safely beneath a canopy since U.S. regulators approved the system six years ago. Ballistic Recovery System says eight lives were saved in those four incidents, plus dozens of other people in accidents involving smaller parachute-equipped ultralight planes that resemble motorized gliders.

for the full story visit: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/ap_122304.asp

:o That's the plan that I thought of!
Ah well it's good news someone's trying to implement it, but they prolly copied it off the post on this website. :D

Read this thread.
http://www.electronicaviation.com/viewthread.php?tid=81

LOL. I think they came up with the idea before you could think. :P But seriously, that would work. But the parachute's going to have to be enormous for an airliner.

Unless it's an helium balloon!