Is your aviation horizon is getting confused by quadcopters, electric aircraft, and airliners?
What’s going on, anyway? Airbus supporting a glider? BRS building emergency parachutes for an aircraft hoping to fly to 90,000 feet, on the edge of space? Boeing investing in a battery start-up?
What will flying become in the future? This is impossible to know but here’s something to think about: If “Beam-me-up, Scotty” technology ever arrives, airlines may disappear quickly. Sport aircraft, however, should survive because they are flown to experience joy aloft, not for transport. Meanwhile…
Battle of the Giants
Progress toward new aviation frontiers continues. Airbus has generated media attention for several out-of-the-box projects they are supporting. Pursuing new directions may lead to an electric propulsion airliner of the future. Only time knows how that may turn out, but meanwhile companies from our sector of aviation are making some inroads to these new developments.
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BRS Parachutes — Boris Popov
BRS Parachutes is the leading developer of emergency parachutes intended to save the entire airplane including all occupants. The company has saved more than 276 lives (the numbers seems always to increase so check their website for the latest count). At Sun ‘n Fun 2012, we spoke with company founder and early developer, Boris Popov, about the range of BRS products.
CT to Offer BRS Parachutes as Standard in U.S.
Flight Design of Germany — in cooperation with U.S importer Flight Design USA — just signed an agreement with emergency parachute maker, BRS, to provide the 1350 LSA ballistic system on all CT aircraft sold in the USA. The importer, a related business of Flightstar Sportplanes, has long been a supporter of such safety ‘chutes and will now offer the BRS system as standard equipment. The parachute company likens the move by Flight Design as similar to Cirrus Design, which produces the best selling SR-22 GA airplane…that also comes standard with an airframe parachute. Use of the systems has resulted in the saving of 181 lives to date, BRS says. Only one other LSA company currently encourages parachutes with each airplane sale: the StingSport available from SportairUSA. The Arkansas-based company is the U.S. dealer for Galaxy parachute systems.
BRS Logs Save Number 400 — Using Airframe Parachutes Definitely Saves Lives
“You just saved my life!” It’s not often anyone, even a medical doctor, hears those words. Back in the ’90s I was sometimes on the receiving end of a call when a pilot phoned BRS to report a “save,” a sparing of a life by the use of a parachute. It is a humbling experience to have someone exclaim that you (and your fellow workers) are the reason they are alive.
A few days ago, it happened again, for the 400th time. BRS Aerospace documented the 400th and 401st lives saved, a worthy milestone in aviation safety.
“This milestone and all of the lives saved are a testament to Boris Popov, who conceived the idea and whose vision for the company he founded overcame initial resistance to the very idea of aircraft parachutes from some naysayers,” said BRS President and Director, Enrique Dillon. “The concept’s legacy are the pilots and passengers who survived to continue to live fruitful lives and the thousands of families who have enjoyed added peace of mind when their loved ones fly.”
The system is designed to be a last resort for pilots and passengers when all other attempts to recover the airplane in case of emergency or pilot incapacitation have failed.
When Help Comes to the Rescue… FAST! Magnum Parachutes Could Save Your Life
Aviation preaches safety long and loud. This dedication within the aviation community has made flying safer than driving despite what landlubbers believe is a risky way to travel.
Aviators know better, of course. We work hard at making flying safe. It’s not lucky or some accident of choice. We are all proud of our skill at taking an airplane aloft and returning it safely to terra firma.
Except when we cannot…
Why Parachutes?
Any way you look at it, an airframe parachute adds cost, weight, and bulk.
These systems cost real money (thousands), add “non-functioning” weight (16 to 50 pounds depending on the airplane’s weight and speed), and fill up space you might use otherwise (a BRS system for the Cessna 172 uses a substantial share of the baggage space in that model). All these things — cost, weight, and bulk — are negatives, yet pilots buy these emergency systems regularly.
Awesome New Year Gift: Saved by the Parachute (Thanks, BRS!)
When I first saw this news story I thought it was one we reported earlier involving a similar aircraft and parachute. However, what grabbed my attention was the clarity of the still photo seen nearby.
It was, and it was not the earlier story. Let me explain…
The deployment event recently reported is not new even if that’s how the mainstream media portrayed it. Many months ago, a test flight got into an uncontrolled flight situation — a “normal” occurrence, that being what test flights are intended to discover. A successful parachute deployment followed. However, this provides an opportunity to learn more about airframe parachutes.
I know something of this because for 18 years, I worked closely with BRS Parachutes of South St. Paul, Minnesota. An airframe parachute system makes a compelling story that media reporters loved. At one time, BRS and its whole-airplane parachute systems were featured on seven (yes, 7!) different TV documentaries at about the same time.
Magnum Whole-Airplane Parachutes to the Rescue …Literally!
Let’s say you are flying on a wonderful cross country trip. You’ve been humming along enjoying a beautiful day. The plane is flying great and sightseeing is superb.
The ease of the trip in one of our modern flying machines with a big digital screen showing the way could lull you into crossing a large lake between you and your destination.
Midway across the lake, your engine unexpectedly sputters and stops. You calmly run through your checklist. Nothing appears amiss. You try restarting but the engine won’t cooperate. Anywhere you look it’s the same distance to land. You calculate you can’t glide far enough.
What do you do?
I hope you never face this scenario. You probably will not. Modern engines, airframes, and instrument panels make it most unlikely. Nonetheless, it happens.
Do you believe you could set down in the water in such a way that you can escape? Of course, you’ve never practiced a water ditching and that move by Captain Sully may not be your option.
BRS Moves Upward; Saves Those Moving Downward
For 18 years I worked with a great team at BRS Parachutes (as it was then called; they since renamed it to BRS Aerospace as they ventured into defense contracting). I left more than a decade ago and this website has since been my new home. I worked at BRS before parachutes were accepted and it was a great challenge and joy to help bring this life-saving product to market. The huge breakthrough that allowed BRS to gain the level of mainstream approval it enjoys today was one company: Cirrus Design. Co-founder Alan Klapmeier had lived through a mid-air collision and was determined his SR20 would have a whole-airframe parachute on it. While the ’20 and ’22 have much to speak for them, the models were distinguished in all of aviation by being “the parachute airplane.” Having a BRS system on board certainly helped and may have been one of the main reasons for the company’s success — with more than 4,000 aircraft sold in the last dozen or so years that are otherwise not aviation’s strongest period.
Aerial Rescue on Video; BRS Logs Another “Save”
Before I go forward with this story, let me tell you that for 18 years, I was a VP at BRS Parachutes.
I was the one who kept the early list of the company’s “saves,” that is, the sparing of a human life by the use of a whole-airframe parachute (usually rocket deployed). As the keeper of such a list, I always sought information on what happened and why, seeking ways to help BRS engineers further improve its products and to better prepare pilots for the use of such a system. Always, always… the most valuable thing was a video of the deployment event. Rarely did any such video surface.
But today, BRS sales rep Derek Keufler reported a deployment in Santa Fe, Argentina. He wrote, “We are still looking to obtain more information, but it appears that the pilot was doing aerobatics and his wing collapsed at 700 feet above ground level.”
Whatever they later find out, the video shows the situation quite clearly.
Weird? Or, Wonderful? More Companies Move Toward eVTOL …Will Sport Pilots?
What on Earth is going on in Airplane DesignerLand? Are we headed for a bifurcation, a parting of the ways among those engineering the next generation of aircraft? Perhaps. Will this affect you? How do you feel about non-fixed-wing aircraft?
I am searching for a term to generically describe these emerging flying machines; “drones” doesn’t quite do the job. More of these seemingly-weird-looking machines seem to pop up every day.
Prior experience suggests that most will never make it to market. Ones that do succeed in the eVTOL or electric-powered aircraft market may not even exist today. For that matter, it is far from certain that this will ever turn into a market, though given the huge amounts of money pouring into research projects, it seems nearly inevitable (to me) that some will survive and perhaps have a major impact on flying, both for transportation and for sport or recreation.
Along this vein, before and at Sun ‘n Fun 2018, I spoke to officials from BRS parachutes.
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