romille wrote:Full Metal Jackass wrote:
How long do you think it would need for a pilot to work out his engine has (suddenly) failed? Yet deployments have happened from 400 - 500 feet without injury. Yes, no-one expects to lose a wing. Onboard were a CPL student and Flight Examiner. Let's assume the one on the side who loses the wing, sees it go. What's his reaction going to be? I know that if I were passenger in my plane and the (low) wing on my side let go, I would not be turning to the pilot and saying:
'I say old chap, did you notice you've lost your right wing? Jolly bad show, what, what'? No, I'd be reaching for the handle first, talking later.
I'm quite intrigued here by the negativity shown towards BRS, that people are trying to demonstrate the limitations of the BRS rather than it's capabilities. Perhaps this accident has touched a nerve with a lot of pilots - after all, an engine failure is something you can train for, quite a number here have (unfortunately) had to face such an event and proven themselves to be up to the challenge by bringing their ailing machine back to earth without significant injury yet if you lose a wing, it's game over - at least, without BRS. Are these pilots trying to persuade themselves that BRS is unnecessary, that in an event which might have saved the occupants, it would not have been able to deploy in a timely manner? I'm truly curious......
Having watched the first video of the wing separation I estimate about 7 or 8 seconds from separation to the chute appearing. In that video the pilot would had the advantage of being straight and level at considerable speed, not so climbing out in an Arrow. It only takes 7.8 seconds for a 1 ton object to fall 1000 feet.
Sorry, there's no way I can put this but it appears we have plenty of flat earth believers haunting this thread, who believe that BRS is for wimps, who believe that if you lose a wing, you should accept your fate
Right, rant mode off.
1) That aircraft was pulling negative Gs. What is easier? Reaching for a handle whilst experiencing 1G, straight and level flight or whilst pulling (multiple) negative Gs?
2) The delay between loss of wing and activation of the chute was approx 2s - so enough time for the pilot to go 'what the f***' and reach for the chute. 3 - 4 seconds later the chute is fully deployed - to check this, watch the end and you'll see the video in real time. Use the pause button to see that at 0:57 seconds, the wing fails, at 0:59 seconds you see the rocket deploying, at 1:03 the chute is deployed.
Additionally, your assumption of the Arrow dropping straight to the ground and hitting it 7.8 seconds later does not take into account drag, projected area, lift generated by the (still flying) wing etc.
3) what is it with this fascination with 'the Arrow was climbing out'? Does that make a difference? No. The ATC recordings show the aircraft had been in the air for at least one, maybe 2 minutes and as such,
could have been significantly higher than 1000 feet. The only thing we know is that we
don't know how high the Arrow was. But had it been equipped with BRS
and been higher than, say, 600 feet, the chances are, both would have survived. As it was, it didn't have BRS therefore regardless of whether it was at 800 feet or 8000 feet altitude, the wing failure was always going to be a fatal outcome.
20.000v in his arms but the bulb inside his head still doesn't light up........