Aircrew emergency escape parachute during ATPL, why NOT

[flying free.LEVC]

Hi guys, I know this is a bit of a tabu, a sensitive topic for GA pilots but maybe we should start leaving our ego on the ground and start wearing one.

Glider and aerobatic pilots use one, they say it´s due to the higher risk of collision (gliders) or structural failure (aerobatics) and honestly, I´ve been flying in the UK near busy GA airports and the risk of mid-air collision is THERE.

Most instructors will say that it´s extremely rare to need one, but I would rather have my back covered than limiting my chances in a catastrophic (but unlikely) situation.

There are plenty of recent examples (some of them on youtube) where pilot lives have been saved, or could have been saved with a parachute, mid air collision with another plane where you are likely to lose half wing or the empenage, engine fire, engine failure during night flying...I can think of a few situations where jumping off would be safer than staying inside the old piper or cessna 152 with no options left.

I know they are expensive (asking price of 1600 pounds), but gliders do, aerobatics do...even new planes are being built with one incorporated¡

[Piltdown Man]

There is already a thread on this subject here (http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/591950-aeros-without.html). It covers the subject well. But I'll answer - Firstly, I honestly don't think you'll get out of a bug smasher, even with thousands of feet beneath you when the problem starts. Secondly - you won't fit. Thirdly, too many will give up, try and bail out and die instead of switching to the other tank. Lastly, I not so sure bailing out have ever been a recommendation from accident investigators.

[flying free.LEVC]

Thanks for your answer Piltdown man, we don´t receive any training on parachutes nor when to use it, but maybe it would be sensible as a last resort:

Imagine these 3 "unlikely" situations:

A: Engine fire at cruising altitude, night flying , unable to manoeuvre the aircraft or find a field, wait to burn off and die.
B: First solo student hits your tail at 2700 feet, unable to manoeuvre the aircraft, wait to hit the ground and die.
C: Extinguish your options inside, plane is gonna hit the ground with or without you,, jump off and hope for the best.

[flying free.LEVC]

Would you take one with you on each flight if they were readily available at your local flying club?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY

[B2N2]

Thirdly, too many will give up, try and bail out and die

That's got to be a frontrunner for the dumbest argument. :ugh:
Excatly the reason why WW1 English pilots weren't issued parachutes at it would lead to unsportsmanlike behaviour.

Anyway....why no 'chutes while trotting around in your bugsmasher?

Seat are not built for it (unless its an aero airplane)
No jettisonable doors or canopy (unless its an aero airplane)


Try getting out of a Pa28 (:yuk:) on the ground and stopped in a hurry.
Especially with a pax on the side with the only door..it's not happening.
Realistically you have to stop somewhere with your what-if scenario as truthfully you wouldn't even fly in a 4 engined jet with triple redundancy if you play the what-if game long enough.

I personally know people (me included) that will not fly a SE piston aircraft at night.
Reason being I don't have to anymore, but I have 400+ hrs SE piston night.
Neither will I fly a SE piston over water out of glide range.
Reason being, I don't have to anymore, but I have on 100+ occassions in the past.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do but you don't fly a SE piston GA tourer in a Nomex fire retardent suit with a helmet and a parachute.
Why not?
Because the risk analysis doesn' t warrant it.

To each his own but if you are this concerned you need to consider another hobby as you may be overdoing it.
Or only fly a Cirrus or anything else with a ballistic parachute recovery system.
If I had any say in our esteemed Regulating body I would make BRS mandatory in non turbine powered small aircraft.
But even those can't fix stupid.

* As an afterthough as we just had a fatal mid-air here in Florida, the chances of living through the initial impact are slim. Even a collision between two (very) slow aircraft like C150's will give you an impact at 90+mph which in something that flimsy will be instantly fatal.

[hobbit1983]

OP,

Do you own shares in a parachute manufacturer?

[B2N2]

What's the cause of 99% or accidents in light GA?
You can't fix pilot error with a parachute.

[9 lives]

I've been flying steadily for more than 40 years. I have never wished I had a parachute. I don't know any pilot who has ever commented to me that they liked the idea of wearing a parachute. And, as B2N2 correctly says, how do you plan to get out in flight?

[fujii]

Parachutes seem like like a good idea. Cherokee with with four seats equals four parachutes. Leave out equivalent weight in fuel to meet MTOW. Fuel exhaustion so use parachutes.

[megan]

It's wonderful how we all perceive risk. As an ex skydiver I've come to the belief that the most dangerous part of the sport these days is the aeroplane ride. Accidents seem frequent.

A brain surgeon here in Australia commented that he wished car occupants were required to wear helmets, for that was where most of his business originated. Could you see that idea being accepted?

[B2N2]

The majority of civil GA aircraft are not suitable by design ( or lack thereof ) for a parachute egress.
Former military trainers are.
I wore parachutes during glider competitions because there is inherently more risk then during a local flight.

[9 lives]

I know this is a bit of a tabu, a sensitive topic for GA pilots but maybe we should start leaving our ego on the ground and start wearing one.

It's probably perceived as a taboo, as this is a pilot's forum, and the pilot's role is to fly the 'plane - 'till it's safely stopped on the ground again. I commit to fly the plane, until flying it is no longer required, I won't give up when things get tough.

My commitment to flying the plane will include not doing dumb things in the plane which create an unsafe situation. So, I won't need to get out. I was required by policy to wear a parachute while flying jumpers, not because of the risk I could not fly the 'plane, but rather the risk that a jumper would hit the 'plane, and render it unflyable. I think it has happened, though often at an altitude from which a successful parachute descent was improbable anyway.

In the case of the risk of mid air collision, if the collision has been so severe to create an opening in the aircraft through which you might exit, you died, forget it.

If you would like to be a well accepted participant in GA toward ATPL flying, always fly alert for traffic, don't bung up an aircraft during aerobatics, and generally commit to being a pilot with everything you have. If you change to a piloting role, where the aircraft is normally equipped with a parachute, and egress means, then you're in that world, and you should fly that way.

If I saw a pilot walking toward one of my 'planes carrying a parachute, they suddenly would not be going flying in my plane. They are not demonstrating confidence in the safety of GA flying, so I'm not confident in them....

[Cows getting bigger]

I think there's far more mileage in the BRS argument. For many of the reasons given above, the majority of light GA aircraft aren't designed to have crew parachutes as part of the 'system'.

[Skylark58]

B: First solo student hits your tail at 2700 feet, unable to manoeuvre the aircraft, wait to hit the ground and die.


Given that first solo flights involve just one circuit that would seem an unlikely event

[9 lives]

However there have been many cases of when people have bailed out, due to control issues and other factors. For example a JS1 when the rudder pedals moved away from the shorter pilot, became unreachable and unable to be adjusted, forcing the glider to lose control. Pilot bailed out and survived. Likewise there are examples of a mis-rigged glider going up a winch launch without an elevator connected, and by sheer luck reaching the top. The pilot(s) have then bailed out from at least 1000ft QFE and survived.

I've only flown gliders twice, and really enjoyed it (they're less common in Canada). From the passage above, I could get the impression that there is less vigilance about assuring the aircraft is flight ready before beginning.

I have had several aircraft which were very difficult to fly due to control failure and misrigging following errant maintenance, which as the maintenance check pilot, I was first to find. These hidden defects were very difficult to detect in a pre flight inspection (though I'm learning to be more invasive in my walkarounds!). But I still would rather have fought the aircraft back to the ground, than consider getting out of it!

But, I do see the difference in being towed up hundreds of feet, to then find a problem you can't handle. I accept that gliding may be more risky.

In the genre of flying I do, I have never heard of an after the event discussion which went like "wow, if that pilot had a parachute, and got out, he'd be alive today!". I suppose there have been some, but I've never heard one. To a larger extent, fatal accidents are either CFIT, or otherwise so low that exit would not allow successful parachute deployment, or loss of control at altitude so severe that exit would not have worked (spiral dive).

In the military, parachuting, experimental flight test, aerobatics, and 'sounds like gliding, things are different, and parachutes may be appropriate. In my opinion, not GA, when flown with the intended diligence.

[PDR1]

Hi guys, I know this is a bit of a tabu, a sensitive topic for GA pilots but maybe we should start leaving our ego on the ground

Like that's ever going to happen...

:E

My thoughts - full ejection from a military aeroplane within the ejection envelope is (IIRC) rated as a 95% probability of survival, mostly with injuries. Outside the ejection envelope I believe that drops to under 25%.

I can't find any readily available data, but I'm fairly sure I read somewhere that "taking to the silk" in the 1940s was regarded as a 50-50 chance at best, and most of these aircraft had either open cockpits or direct exit from the seat through a (usually jettesoned) canopy space.

The closer analogy for GA pilots would be the crew of bombers who had to go to an emergency exit to get out. I understand that the probability of surviving by parachhuting from a crippled RAF bomber was thought to be under 10%, because if the aeroplane is gyrating or burning it may be a real struggle just getting to the hatch. I understand the typical Luftwaffe bombers were even worse in this regard.

Now look at a typical GA aeroplane - non-jettesonable doors which are small, and awkward to get through even on the ground. Imagine trying to open them against the airflow in a gyrating aeroplane with an engine fire. Then imagine trying to set yourself up to jump clear in a specific direction so that your skull doesn't get escalloped by the tailplane.

My personal view is that the probability of me ever being in a position where leaving the aeroplane in flight might be necessary for survival is very, very small. Actually having a parachute with me increases the survival probability
by a miniscule amount. Therefore the reduced risk is disproportionate to the cost and operational constraints of having the thing with me*.

It's the same reason for my view of the Lottery. The probability of me winning is absolutely tiny, and it's not really made significantly bigger by actually buying a ticket...

PDR

* That's actually the technical definition of ALARP - spooky, huh!

[Ebbie 2003]

In the event of a mid-air or some other catastrophic event at my usual 2,000 to 4,000ft altitude I do not think I could assess the situation fast enough to get out of my PA28 and leave sufficient altitude to have a parachute open.

In particular I do not think I would be able to get the door open due to the relative wind.

Twenty years ago I used to fly a Robin Aiglon with my brother, it had tabs to pull to eject the canopy - if I were flying that airplane I would have no worries about getting out.

On my inter island flights I typically fly at 7,000 to 9,000ft - it would have to be a lost wing to make me want to get out without my raft and other survival gear - again the problem of getting the door open.

So no parachute for me.

[Maoraigh1]

If going for an ATPL, NOT wearing a parachute will get you accustomed​ to the airline environment, where flight crew carrying parachutes through security may attract even more suspicion than those carrying litre bottles of water.

[Tarq57]

When I was a kid I thought that parachutes were probably standard equipment on a light aircraft. They'd be stowed under the seats (I thought), and in the event the aircraft came apart or exploded, you'd simply grab one, strap it on, and leap to safety.

That seems to me to be about the level the OP is coming from.
The idea of jumping out of the average GA aircraft following a middair or fire would be desirable -given the obvious alternative - but tantamount to impossible, unless you were in a type with a canopy or doors that can be jettisoned. Even then, I reckon it would be a difficult operation. And if you were below about 100 seconds plummet altitude, forget it.

[Biggles78]

After obtaining my CPL I got a gig flying skydivers. It was regulation that we had to wear a parachute and the club had a very nice comfortable slim pack with a tiny 22' round canopy (I was told broken legs if I had to use it). I did a lot of thinking about an emergency and figured that in the Cherokee 6, with the door behind me on the left, in ideal circumstances, that it would need to be at 5,500' to enable a successful exit. An airfield I flew at had a Cessna 206, door behind and to the right of the pilot, had it's tailplane ripped off. It was level at 4,500', 80kts and it was estimated that the pilot got out at about 400' and was under canopy for 3 to 4 seconds. (The skydive club presented him with his First Jump certificate and then grounded him for opening low. := True! )


flying free.LEVC, skydive aircraft have an open door during drops so as Ebbie 2003 states, "I do not think I would be able to get the door open due to the relative wind." the skydive pilot doesn't have that problem. In the 206 instance, the pilot only had to release his harness and climb his way to the open door. This still took FOUR THOUSAND FEET of altitude. Now imagine trying to open the door against an ever increasing pressure against the door. In this case the ASI was recovered with the needle jammed at 220kts. Try pushing against that! Then you have any aerodynamic forces acting upon you. The pilot in the 206 described what it was like fighting his way out as the aircraft and if he had been just ONE second slower, he would not have made it.


I just hope he applied for his Caterpillar Club membership. He did the hard work and really, really deserved it. Jeez, just realised that was 30 years ago in January. :ooh: Apart from dropping jumpers, I have never found a situation where I would have needed to use a parachute.

[B2N2]

By far the most riveting argument yet Biggles.

[megan]

Another of Biggles events.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/24546/aair200101903_001.pdf

7p6hqMnsLFY

2oJngucEac4

[Capn Bug Smasher]

I've often thought about the merits of a parachute for GA types but unless you're deliberately putting the aircraft at risk of coming apart through aeros, sky diving, gaggling in a thermal etc. I really don't think there's a point. As others have said in your typical GA spam can how on earth would you get out? Wouldn't fancy it in a PA-28.

On the other hand I do think there is an argument for flying helmets but that is an unpopular opinion on an entirely different subject that has already been quite brutally worked to death by the esteemed company of PPRuNe :E

[BlackadderIA]

Surely bailing out of say a C152/172 would be pretty simple? My boss used to regularly pop the doors in the cruise as an amusing alternative to the rudder and they're much easier to open against the airflow than you'd think. PA28 would be a bit "tricky" but if we all started wearing 'chutes then an after-market door jettison is hardly rocket science.

It's private flying though, the risk is entirely yours to take. There's surely a good bit of 'herd mentality' involved in the decision you make though? How would you react if someone walked out to a C172 at your club wearing full nomex, gloves, helmet and carrying a parachute? Praise them for being so safety conscious?

Survival equipment is for the very, very (very) rare occasions you suddenly find you need it. You may be totally comfortable flying in your normal clothes sans 'chute and it's your risk to own - but if you had an inflight fire or miraculously survived a mid air (and people do, it's just mainly glider pilots you hear from afterwards for some reason 🤔) only to find yourself with half a wing then I suspect your opinion on the issue would change fairly rapidly, albeit briefly...

[9 lives]

A recurring theme has been an aircraft which took off flyable, becomes not flyable during the flight. 'Remarks about bungled aerobatics. This is not hitting the ground, hitting another object in the sky, or being shot up by the enemy, this is just airplane jams or breaks. How often has that happened, while an aircraft was being flown within it's approved maneuvering limits? For the few cases I can think of, by the time the pilot realized that they had completely bungled things, they were much too low to get out anyway.

I was required to wear a parachute while flying jumpers, I presume because of the risks of a jumper colliding with the tail, or, as explained to me, the risk of the aircraft tumbling, and my being thrown out (that did happen in Ontario decades back, I have no idea how). But, those are SOP type operations, where a risk is being managed. In GA, that risk is very very much less than the already low risk in jumper or such operations.

A very important part of being a good pilot is understanding risk. Be able to appreciate the balance of what could happen, vs severity, vs what is required to mitigate. The first and best way is to consider what everyone else doing it does, and do that! It must be working, they're still flying!

I have seen and do; wear fire resistant clothing all the time (natural fibers), wear hearing protection, wear my seat belt, wear a life jacket for over water flights, and carry an emergency kit appropriate to the route to be flown. My peers do these wise things. My peers don't wear a parachute for GA flying.

When I had to fly a Tiger Moth, it seems it was designed for the pilots to wear parachutes, there were deep depressions in the seat bottoms. 'No parachutes around. Three telephone books in the seat hole, and I was good to go.

[Piltdown Man]

Maybe B2N2 would like to tell us all about the Cirrus parachute deployments. Over the years there have been quite a few. Engine failures, fuel exhaustion etc. each of which would normally have been handled by gliding to earth. But the "chute of invincibility" was deployed rather than dealing with the problem like pilots would have to do in other types.

Returning to the OP's question and later comments, the problem with your average spam can is that it is difficult to get out of. Given an engine failure, for whatever reason, one would assume that you are the right way up and under control. Now how do you get out? How do you passengers get out? At what height do you start to egress? I'll suggest that you have to be free from your plane with your release handle in your hand by 4-500'. And as some have mentioned, that might be difficult even if you start at 5,000'. It doesn't take much imagination to think how long it might take your granny to get out. And that is when you are under control. Now imagine if you are not. You will almost certainly be rotating about two axes simultaneously. Even gliders are difficult to get out of when this happens because as soon as you release your harness to bail out you will be thrown about in an unexpected fashion.

In a military or pseudo-military aircraft you might have a chance, in anything else virtually no chance at all. Unless of course you start very early... Which is where I think I came in.

PM

[megan]

When I had to fly a Tiger Moth, it seems it was designed for the pilots to wear parachutesIndeed it was. For the RAF contract the top wing root was moved forward so the front seater could scramble out to jump, and is why the top wing has sweep back.

[treadigraph]

If you haven't seen Rob Davies' escape from a P-51 at Duxford after having the elevator cables severed by an errant Skyraider... I think the collision was about 900', over the side at 500' and the parachute is fully developed at about 250'.

I believe that he regularly rehearsed his bale out procedure and I have also heard that he also briefed other pilots at displays. You can see the canopy jettisoned almost immediately after the collision, he then tries to fly the aircraft before deciding to abandon.

https://youtu.be/xctYWSuwoYA (https://youtu.be/xctYWSuwoYA)

xctYWSuwoYA

[old,not bold]

Going back a bit in the thread...

I do not think I could assess the situation fast enough to get out of my PA28 I was at a gliding site some years ago when an elderly chap in a single-seater released at the top of the winch launch and promptly entered a spin. He assessed that recovery before the impact would not be possible, released the canopy, exited the spinning aircraft, pulled the D-ring, and landed safely. I understand that he then walked to his car, got in, drove off and never returned, but that's another story. The point of this tale is that self-preservation is a powerful accelerator of thought and action when needed.

As an afterthought, When my Prentice engine quit in cloud (a feature of the aircraft I was unaware of until that moment, the mags didn't like the damp) over the Italian mountains I would have used a parachute if I had one. But I didn't, so I just turned 180 degrees, ie away from the rising ground, and then flew it at 60Kts in a straight line, awaiting developments. It was sheer good luck that I came out of the cloud at about 1,000 ft AGL, with a long military runway immediately beneath me that was not on the 1:500,000 map I had. God favours the pure in spirit, of course. So I'm an advocate of personal or aircraft parachutes such as the Cirrus CAPS for the benefit of the impure among you.

That raises another question. The Cirrus POH makes CAPS operation mandatory if the aircraft enters a spin. Recovery attempts are forbidden. I don't get that; surely the aircraft must have demonstrated spin recovery to be certificated? And if so, any competent pilot could recover from above, say, 1,500 ft?

2nd afterthought; I'm very glad I did not have to use the exit procedure for the rear seat passenger in a Sea Fury, on my one glorious ride in one. It started with 19 turns of a handle to wind the canopy back, as I recall, and then getting your feet on the seat, grabbing a bar above your head, heaving up on that while pushing with the feet, and eventually falling out.

[Fly-by-Wife]

certified powered aircraft nearly never have a door through which in flight exit is intended by design, let alone possible
There's the Robin DR series, of which I have flown the 400 frequently, that have a forward-sliding canopy that could possibly be opened in flight - but how easy it would be to exit the aircraft in extremis I don't know (and don't want to).

I do know that it would be very difficult to wear a 'chute and fit well enough in the seat to actually fly the aeroplane!

FBW

[3wheels]

"Aircrew emergency escape parachute during ATPL, why NOT"
Whats has it got to do with obtaining and ATPL?

[Bull at a Gate]

When I watched some gliding recently I noticed that all the single seater glider pilots wore parachutes, but none of the dual seat glider pilots did? What is the reason for that?

[mary meagher]

[QUOTE=Bull at a Gate;9798865]When I watched some gliding recently I noticed that all the single seater glider pilots wore parachutes, but none of the dual seat glider pilots did? What is the reason for that?[/QUOTE

Lazy habits, typical of Australians! In gliders, one or two seats, in the UK, nearly always parachutes are worn. If you are flying in a glider in competition you will be very happy to wear a parachute, as thermals get rather crowded. The rules as far as I remember require parachutes in competition or in cloud, but not otherwise...but the gliders are designed for the chutes to be worn.

Part of introducing beginners to gliding should be how to wear and deploy a parachute. It does concentrate the mind of the beginner!

There was a guy at a gliding club in the UK who was TOO HEAVY to safely wear a chute in a single seat glider, so he left it at the launchpoint. The NEXT PILOT was TOO LAZY to go and get it, so he flew the glider without the parachute. Unfortunately (as it was an airfield where parachuting was part of the scene) he was at about 5,000 feet, when a free-fall parachutist impacted his wing. The parachutist was instantly killed, but the glider pilot had 5,000 feet of his downward spiral to regret not bothering to get the chute.

[Chuck Glider]

...How do you passengers get out?...It doesn't take much imagination to think how long it might take your granny to get out...
Probably nothing less than a month! Under such circumstances I very much doubt you could persuade your passenger, granny or otherwise, to make a move to get out.
I very much doubt you could persuade your passenger, granny or otherwise, to strap the parachute on in the first place.

[Romeo Tango]

IMHO opinion it's all about subjective hassle/benefit:

Wearable parachute: useful so rarely that it's not worth the bother in normal spamcan ops.

BRS: Same weight in fuel MUCH more useful.

[Vilters]

Drive in a car that goes 100mph as a passenger.
As a pasenger => you are NOT in an urgent nervous emergency and in a very stable 1G relaxed condition.

Just "try". => Just try to open the door.

Imagine opening a General Aircraft door in an uncontrolled attitude, in panic and probably under an unknown amount of positive or negative "G".

If the aircraft is not build for "escaping", you are probably not gonna get out.

[cats_five]

When I watched some gliding recently I noticed that all the single seater glider pilots wore parachutes, but none of the dual seat glider pilots did? What is the reason for that?

The only people at BGA clubs who don't wear parachutes are those that are too heavy or too long to wear one. Quite a few people (including me) are too short to fit without a parachute.