for someone who has folowed this for over 8 years it is funny to watch the progression of thought change and how most have to be dragged kicking and screaming…
stay tuned.
Airliner too big for chute to be practical
Alan Levin
10/14/2002
USA Today
FINAL
A.03
(Copyright 2002)
If a parachute can save a small plane, why can’t it save a large jet?
“The question came up a lot,” says John Purvis, the former chief accident investigator at Boeing. “After every accident, we’d get hundreds and hundreds of letters from people with ideas. There were the giant parachutes, airbags under the fuselage, all those types of ideas.”
But Purvis and other aviation experts say a parachute is highly impractical, if not impossible, on a large Boeing or Airbus jet.
Commercial jets fly hundreds of miles an hour faster than small planes and weigh far more. It took years for engineers at Cirrus Design and the parachute manufacturer, Ballistic Recovery Systems, to perfect a chute for Cirrus’ planes. It would be much more complex to design a parachute for a large jet.
Although there is a lot of room for improvement in general aviation safety, large jets are so safe and reliable already, it probably isn’t worth the investment. Besides, Purvis says, “for a million pound airplane, it would be one hell of a big parachute.”