So Parachutes Are Out
Published November 11, 2002
Okay, I'm back after moving all weekend. I have some adventures to relate, but first let's close out my rant about flying in small planes and crashing and whatnot.
First, this was rather clearly a rant: I am very frustrated with accidents and people dying. This includes cars, airliners, space shuttles, etc, but especially small airplanes. Just doing a very quick and simple Google search, I found dozens of politicians and entertainers killed in small planes over the last 90 years. Most of them had to do with flying under bad weather conditions and/or otherwise using poor judgment (like running out of gas - that's about as retarded as it gets).
This was my main point: use good judgment and common sense and don't travel under poor conditions. I am not afraid of flying (in the last two years we have flown to Australia, Guam, Hawaii twice, LA twice, etc), although I am leery of small planes - all you have to do is go up in one and you can feel how susceptible to the weather, winds, reality they are. Of course they are more vulnerable than large commercial jets, just as canoes are more susceptible to the weather, tides, currents, aquatic creatures than are aircraft carriers: duh.
All of my historical facts about crashes and the like were as accurate as my research allows, but I would have thought some of my ranting and raving was rather obviously not to be taken literally, with such terms as "air brakes" and hands reaching out of the sky as indications of my frame of mind.
However, my point about parachutes on commercial flights was perhaps not as obviously rhetorical as I should have made it. So, just to make sure that my intentions are clear and my facts separated from bluster, please consider this letter I received from concerned citizen Troy Loney, who is an expert on parachutes:
- "If you are fortunate enough to survive an explosion in your car, you survive. If you survive an explosion at 20,000 feet, you have terminal velocity to look forward to. If NASA or the airlines really cared about people as anything other than cargo and revenue, they would issue each passenger a parachute, at least to even the odds."
There are so many things wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin. I've been designing and testing parachute systems for a living for nearly thirty years; the payloads have ranged from tiny (flares) through medium-sized (people) to large (Shuttle — its landing brake parachute); half of this design work was for personnel systems, from skydiving equipment to pilot emergency rigs to specialized military gear, and it included ejection seat work. I've also made many thousands of jumps, a large fraction of them testing various items of parachute equipment, and participated in the training and supervision of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of skydiving students. I think I'm qualified to critique the concept.
Broadly, the problems with equipping commercial passengers with parachutes
fall into four areas: engineering issues, implementation issues, cost issues, and legal repercussions. They tend to be interrelated in complex ways, however, so I'll sort of wander my way through from more-or-less the user's point of view.
- So Parachutes Are Out
- Published: November 11, 2002
- Type:
- Section: Culture
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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Comments on this articleComments
Small planes like the Eclipse 500 would prove useful and economical for future parachute development.
http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_43b/leadnews/185910-1.html
Make a humongous parachute for the whole airplane. Problem solved!
By the way, isn't it a little silly to worry about busting an ankle when the alternative is impacting Mother Earth at terminal velocity?
"...while making the experience extremely annoying and uncomfortable..." Hahahaha...ha! Compared to what? I don't get to fly first class.
Though he was apparently annoyed that I posted his refutation of my "parachutes for everyone" idea, Mr. Loney did a pretty convinving job of refuting the practicality of giving all passengers a parachute.
I like the parachute for the plane idea, though.
If we could just equip planes with a big enough airbag, the plane could just bounce off the ground when it hits, like the Mars landers do. Yeah, that'll definitely work . . .
I forgot about that, Joe. Although I imagine the parachute needed for a 100 ton airliner would be about the size of Rhode Island.
Actually, Tom, I was kidding about the parachute. It was surprising to see this in action at the link provided by Joe. Troy Loney could probably tell us the size of a parachute needed for a 70-ton 757 airliner. I was remembering the 3-chute configuration used for the 5-ton Apollo sea touchdowns, which averaged a speed at impact of 28 feet/sec. One big problem with the parachute idea is that jet-propelled high altitude vehicles don't necessarily encounter problems that can be solved with a parachute descent. Obviously a chute attached to the two disintegrating Space Shuttles woudn't have made any difference.
The parachute for the whole plane concept is fascinating and I'm glad to see that it exists at least on a very small scale, but we need something even bigger, even farther out of the box to solve this problem.
And despite what knowledgable but cranky
Troy says, if they cared enough, they'd come up with something.
I got ya, Duane, I was just playing into the whole parachute idea as a joke.
And really, it wouldn't be possible on an airliner, which rarely have problems in flight that threaten the safety of the passengers. The most dangerous part of flying is taking off and landing, where a parachute or any kind of recovery system would do no good anyway. It's kind of scary when you think about it - when you board an airplane, you are entirely dependent on that plane making it in one piece to your destination. Unlike a car, if an accident occurs, you're more likely to die from it than survive, let alone walk away as you can from many car accidents. And it's still the safest mode of transportation out there . . .
Eric, do you really think airlines and aerospace manufacturers could come up with a 100 percent safe system if only they "cared enough?"
Wow.
There is no 100% - do I think they could do a better job with safety if it were the very highest priority? Of course, don't you? What's with this smug patronizing attitude today?
You can disagree, but it is unseemly to assume some kind of moral/intellectual superiority.
They HAVE come up with something; in fact they come up with something every day. All the somethings add up to air travel being the safest way to travel. I'm not sure what else they can do for you.
And I thought righties wanted business to consider MAKING MONEY the very highest priority.
Me? Smug? Me? Patronizing? Me?
Vive l'Air France!
To Troy: Despite the fact that you called it dry boilerplate, I was fascinated by the details provided in your email. Not poking fun. I really thought it was an interesting read for someone who knows basically nothing about parachutes and/or planes other than I get nervous on flights. Sorry you didn't want it to be posted, but I am glad I got a chance to read it.
As for the other statements, I am sure if financial feasibility weren't an issue we could definitely "build a better mousetrap" so to speak. Certainly it is for the dreamers at this point because statistically (as well as financially) it doesn't make sense, but I have to believe with the level of knowledge that is apparently out there in our science community, that the same civilization that produced the Segway could come up with a way to stop planes from crashing.
Now if we could find a way to fly a plane without using flammable fuel... now that would be impressive!
My God, surely at this point in history, after this site has been up for 16 months, you are not calling me a "rightie"?!? I am strongly for the War on Terror, that's about it from a "rightist" view. I have liberal views, libertarian views, mostly very centrist views. I am no more a "rightist" than Thomas Friedman or Christopher Hitchens for supporting the war.
I want inexpensive, safe travel. It will never be 100%, it can be much better. My original post, written over a year ago, primarily decried poor human judgment and refusal to take weather into account.
Consider yourself pigeonholed Eric. Now, please continue opposing abortion, lowering taxes for the rich, promoting war, listening to Rush Limbaugh, watching Fox News and hating Al Franken.
Thank you. You may go.
I SAID GO!
I'm so happy you've decided to participate in our game of ideological Red Rover!
Who's next?
Send CA right over! This reminds me of the companion "why don't they make the whole plane out of the stuff they make the black box out of?" inanity. The whole thing gvies me flashes of Charlotte "Mrs Garrett" Rae asking, "If they're dead, why are they grateful?" I need a drink.
I thought this was very interesting reading. I always thought it would go without saying that the best chance to survive is to stay on the plane. A Chinese jet once spiralled from 41,000 to 3,000 before the pilots got the engines to restart.
Eric, have the Smug Pricks released their Holiday 03 Tour Schedule yet?
Hmm, so I take it you think it unlikely that DB Cooper survived his jump? Am just an amateur interested in the case would like to get an expert opinion. Thanks.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/1771)
Eric, I knew your post was a rant. As you say, "duh"...
From your response (and considering your original post), I'm getting the message that you don't consider the facts to be of any significance in a rant. Nor, apparently, now: the graf I quoted did not in fact follow the discussion on "air brakes"; it was a standalone statement, _followed_ by the "air brakes" comment, which in context reads more like sarcasm directed at NASA/airlines-industry than anything else.
In my line of work, I get proposals like that contained in your rant several times a year; that's where the vast majority of my response came from -- the opposing rant I've composed over the years. The truly interesting ones usually involve bringing the whole airliner back, but I digress. The point to take home is that I've seen them far too often to be "highly offended" -- they're just as silly as they always have been, and I roll my eyes and fire off yet another dry response.
I guess if you can assume I'd miss the sarcastic nature of your rant, I can assume you'd miss the sarcastic nature of my response. But there's one big difference between the two...
I didn't malign a bunch of people who really don't deserve it -- the pilots, who lay their lives on the line much more often than you (who respond by complaining), and the people who support them, and the airline industry whose money is involved and on the line. It's the business of all these people to provide services for people who demand them, then feel free to bitch about the aspects that aren't under the control of the service providers.
That was what annoyed me, and provoked me to dig up the boilerplate and respond. It seems you're still in "bitch" mode, too... more's the pity. So I have just two questions left:
Why do you suppose I emailed you, instead of posting my response in the comments? And, did I authorize the posting of that private communication?
-- posted and emailed