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Old 18th Mar 2010, 08:08
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Dan Winterland
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Fragrant Harbour
Posts: 4,787
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The Lear 25 has a brake chute. the Concorde had them fitted for testing and the Tu144 used them routinely

They were fitted to some early bigger jets - most military. The B47 (which also deployed the extracter drogue airborne for speed control), the B52, the Victor and Vulcan to name a few. They were fitted because the brake and reverser technology of the day was not very advanced.

But they are not very practical for everyday use in commercial operations. They are heavy, prone to occaisional failure and need recovering if dropped on the runway. Also they are complex and expensive to re-pack.

I Used to fly the Victor which used them on about 95% of all landings. The Vulcan hardly used them as it landed slower and could use aerodynamic braking. The SOP was to drop the chute on the runway. At our home base, a landrover with a specially adapted trailer followed us on the landing roll to collect it. Obviously, it had to be collected before the runway could be used and it could delay operations despite the chute recovery crews being pretty slick.

If we had to tow it off at an airfield with no chute recovery, we would keep the inboard engines at 75% which would 'fly'the chute. But if the crosswind was above 25 knots, this was usually impossible and we would have to drop it. I did this at Rome Ciampino once and ATC send a young girl out in her Fiat Panda to collect it. She found that the 48' diameter 165 lb chute was more than she could cope with and the runway was closed for about ten minutes!



''Flying'' the chute.

And packing it was a real headache. It was very heavy and usually just slightly too big to go in the hopper.
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