An amusing anecdote about passengers wearing parachutes.... Back when I was in the Air Force, I was competing in the all AF bowling tournament... world wide event... went on for 5 weeks.... in which I was the All Air Force World Wide Singles Champion, thank you! My flight on an AF plane from KC to Panama City, FL was delayed an entire day by "equipment problems". The next day, we boarded the plane and were required to put on parachutes... I asked the crew, "did you get the problem fixed?" Crew member replied, "we think so". (THINK SO??) After being airborne for a few minutes, a crew member looked out of a window to see oil streaming from one of the engines. He looked to be in a panic and summoned another crew member from the cockpit to come see the streaming oil. I cinched up my chute!! The crew member from the cockpit said, "no worries"... and we completed the flight without incident... not that I hadn't already crapped my drawers, or anything.
LEAPup Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 6,202 Maybe I'm wrong on this one. Gotta love the Internet: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innova...day-180949373/ You nailed it. They had these way back in the day. Another idea was an ejection seat for one of the crew members but they couldn't decide which one would use it. lol. Which reminds me of a dumb blond who I dated a couple of times back in the 1950's. She said she wanted an injection seat on the airplane. hoodooman aeronautical engineer
How many mid-flight fires have there been? Other than the ValuJet crash in 1996, I don't recall reading about any. Usually, the fires are after crashes during takeoff or landings...
You may or may not freeze to death but you would definitely lose consciousness. Probably before you ever got off the plane. Probably the biggest issue with individual parachutes on an airline is the actual act egress. The planes are just not designed for it. Not to mention the passengers themselves would be a major impediment. It would only take one panicked person to freeze up at an exit to ruin it for everyone behind them.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/ I counted 42 incidents and accidents with the word "fire" mentioned during the cruise portion of flight.
There is a light aircraft parachute system in production. It is on the Cirrus aircraft. http://cirrusaircraft.com/caps/ Again, if there is an onboard fire you will just burn to death on the way down. Example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf8DYXUOai8
One of my employers owns an SR22. I uh "get" to fly it occasional. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/search/search.php?s=BRS+PARACHUTES&x=0&y=0 Many light and very light sport aircraft have recovery chutes. I'm not curently planning on adding one to my project though. Because of weight and cost.
After taking a break of nearly two years. I got busy again in earnest several months ago. I didn't like how the original wood/fiberglass fan or the horizontal stabilators turned out so I'm completely redoing both from scratch. The new fan is fabricated from 2024 aluminum. I've built up most of the 19 blades. Each one is made up of five pieces and 32 rivets. There are more than 1,000 holes that have to be drilled for the entire fan and roughly 700 rivets that have to be installed. I'm waiting for some steel stock to arrive that I'll be constructing the blade form from which I'll use to impart the proper blade twist. I had made a wooden form but I didn't make sufficient allowance for the metals spring back. I redesigned the stabs somewhat but haven't started them yet. I also redesigned the internal structure of the wings and am adding some additional ribs to the vertical stabilizer which I had already started.