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Science Technology

Huge Parachute Saves Crashing Planes 280

Posted by timothy from the ejection-seats-are-cooler-though dept.
theodp writes "When his small plane banked uncontrollably and began spiraling toward earth, Canadian rancher Albert Kolk and his three passengers were saved by a single parachute. Big-as-a-house parachutes made by Ballistic Recovery Systems are stored behind the rear seats in small planes and fired with a rocket through the rear windshield; they're attached with high-strength lines to the plane's wings, nose and tail. Deployment videos here."
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Huge Parachute Saves Crashing Planes More

Huge Parachute Saves Crashing Planes

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  • Loony Tunes? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 25, 2004 @02:44PM (#11181653)
    Hopefully no one packs a pack of pots and pans, or even worse, an anvil!
    • But thats the fun of shopping the ACME catalog. Sure you might die, but at least can get a good laugh out of your death.

      Besides, you will just create a hole in the earth in the shape of the plane and you can climb back out. (while the parachute system ends up deploying after the crash, as happened in the article).

  • I think that server needs one (Score:4, Funny)

    by GlassUser ( 190787 ) <slashdot AT glassuser DOT net> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @02:47PM (#11181665) Homepage Journal
    The crash video one. Well, it had. I think it already crashed and burned.

  • Awesome (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jeppe Salvesen ( 101622 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @02:48PM (#11181675)
    If I had an aeroplane, I would certainly get one. Seems pretty cheap considering that this will save your life in the event of engine loss (and various other conditions as well).

    Prices [brsparachutes.com] are not absolutely horrifying either (starts at 2000 USD, which has the ability to save 225 pounds of stuff and human).

    • Not So Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kitten Killer ( 766858 )
      Keep in mind these BRS are not designed for use when the engine fails. When the engine fails, you land the airplane as a glider. It'll be a heavy, short winged, inefficent glider, but it'll still fly. As a pilot, I spent hours and hours training to do this sort of thing.

      The purpose of BRS are when there is a structural failure or when the airplane has become uncontrolled, such as getting into a spin from which the pilot cannot recover. It's really a last ditch attempt when there is no other way of staying
      • You can't glide forever.

        • Re:Not So Awesome (Score:5, Informative)

          by wjsteele ( 255130 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @07:55PM (#11182736)
          Obviosly, you're not a pilot. With your engine out, you glide to the ground in a controlled decent... not an uncontrolled decent as with the BRS.

          If you loose your engine in a boat, does it sink??? No. If you loose your engine in a plane, it still flys.

          Case in point, I had a "catastrophic" engine failure in my Cessna 172 a while back. Engine gone... pieces left the aircraft. I landed on a road and turned into some guys driveway. He was pissed because I was blocking his drive. Never asked me how I was or what happened. When he started yelling, I pulled him over to my plane... pointed at the big hole in my cowling and all the oil running down the side of my plane. He suddenly got quiet.

          I had full control of the plane the entire time... there was a sudden Roll when the engine seized, but I could fly it no problem. Went through the standard saftey checklist... shut down fuel, electrics, picked my spot... got to best glide, tuned radio to 121.5. Delcared emergency... switched the box to 7700 and flew it down. It took me about 10 minutes to get down... I even circled my landing site and then dumped 40 degrees of flaps to get it down.

          Now, I see planes like the SR22 with these BRSs installed and hear stories about guys who hit turbulance and pull the cord. That's a costly mistake if there ever was one. I'm not going to pull a handle that turns my $250,000 plane into a pile of junk unless it's already junk.

          Lesson here... fly the plane if it can fly. A plane is nothing but a glider with an engine... if you loose the engine... it still flys just fine.

          Bill

          Bill

          • Re:Not So Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)

            by lachlan76 ( 770870 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @08:09PM (#11182797)
            Ok, I'm not a pilot, but wouldn't not all terrain be suitable for landing on? What happens if your engine fails over a few miles of that?

            Of course, the obvious solution would be to go around it before the engine fails. But I guess it depends where you live.
      • I think the point is that when you spend upwards of $15k for an airplane, and extra $4k for insurance is not too high a demand.

        Most of these systems are installed on homebuilts and ultralights. While there is a system in place to inspect homebuilts at every step, I wonder how many of thoes are 'buddy-buddy wink nudge' inspections. Do you trust your welds with your life? Are you *absolutely* sure that the epoxy on the main spar was mixed at exactly the right proportions in exactly the right temprature an

      • Re:Not So Awesome (Score:5, Informative)

        by the pickle ( 261584 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @12:32AM (#11183595) Homepage
        Personally, I don't see much of a point of these systems. The likelihood of a structural failure or a complete loss of control is very rare. Anything else, a properly trained pilot can fly him/herself out of.

        In the best case, sure.

        In reality, not true.

        Have a gander at the December 2004 Flying magazine (at least, I think that was the one) -- they had a really good article about BRS chute deployments and their contributions to safety, or lack thereof. The general conclusion was that they reduce the fatality rate by about 50% in loss-of-control accidents.

        (Commercial pilot/CFII/MEI/AGI/IGI)

        p

  • Chutes are "the law" (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 25, 2004 @02:56PM (#11181700)
    Here in Europe, in my case Germany, a rescue parachute is mandatory by law for ALL ultralight aircrafts. That are single and 2 seaters with max 472kg weight. (Similar to microlights in the US ?)

    All planes have that rescue system. A small rocket which pulls the parachute out in about a second.

    There are not many cases when you need it, but it saves your life if you make a fatal mistake.

    Most cases are pilot errors, ie. flying in a cloud without instruments.

    Wings dont break off and planes do not fall to the ground when the engine stalls.

    I rather do a safe glide landing than pull the cute, EXCEPT I am over a forest or rocky terrain (which can also be put under pilot errors)

    Such a backup is a good thing to have. Larger aircrafts can benefit from it too.
    • Most cases are pilot errors, ie. flying in a cloud without instruments.

      Parachutes are hailed as the save-all for pilots. Except:

      • Nobody has addressed issues where the pilot thinks nothing is wrong until he/she crashes. A fair number of cases are related to VFR pilots flying in IFR conditions- the Kennedy plane crash a few years ago into LI Sound is a perfect example. Often in such cases the pilot has not realized anything is wrong because he is disoriented. Same with inexperienced IFR pilots who do

  • Real info from a pilot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by noahbagels ( 177540 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @03:09PM (#11181747)
    Hi fellow /. readers,
    I've been an FAA certified private pilot for a couple of years and read many of the monthly general-aviation magazines/websites/etc...

    Just to give some real info about parachutes and small planes.
    Myth # 1: Engine Failure ==> Crash.
    This is very un-true. Reading usenet forums (rec.aviation.piloting/owning/student) there are a great deal of forced-landings involving full or partial engine failure. From the very beginning of flight training, you are tought to always have a place you can glide safely to. In reality, this is difficult - particularly on takeoff climbing out, but for most of the 'time' portion of any flight it is very doable.
    Myth # 2: Personal Parachutes are easy - c'mon, we see them in movies all the time. Fact: it is *not* easy to jump out of a moving plane. I took about 5 hours of aerobatic lessons, and let me tell you - it's tough enough getting into small planes, but try it with a 15lb full-chair-back size parachute stuck to you. It was actually difficult getting in and out on the ground, stopped. Add to that, most airplanes have doors that open like car doors - opening to the back. Any idea what the aerodynamic forces are at, say 100 mph? The aerobatic plane I flew had an emergency full-door release that pulled out the door-hinge pins at the front.

    Now, back to the BRS parachutes. These are being put mostly on Cirrus Designs aircraft - very sweet, beautiful planes IMHO. These aircraft are *very* capable, fast, and a bit tougher to fly than your average Cessna 182 (from the reports I've read). Most times an aircraft gets in trouble, it's due to the pilot making a bad decision, not due to engine failure. Bad decisions like: flying into bad weather (IMC), scud running below low overcast, etc... These are the places where BRS was intended to be used:
    1. Inadvertant Spins - the Cirrus is highly spin resistant, but it is possible & people have died in Cirrus following a spin.
    2. Full instrument failure in IMC (clouds,fog,etc). This could leave the pilot with few ways to save the lives of the people inside.

    A last fact: from what I've read, the BRS does not in-fact save insurance companies money. It nearly totals the plane. Think about a house-sized parachute attached to your average family sedan, deployed by rockets at 120mph. The planes are mostly totalled, but the avionics & engine (most expensive parts after the airframe) are likely salvagable.
    • I'd imagine that the insurance companies save money on the lives that aren't lost. Dead people potentially make for a lot of liabilities if they have relatives...

    • Product Liabilty distortion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jamiefaye ( 44093 ) <jamie@ f e n t o n i a . c om> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @03:52PM (#11181870) Homepage
      The problem with marketing systems like this is that if you save someone's life, you get a thank-you note, and if you don't succeed, you get sued for 20 million dollars.

      My father-in-law invented and marketed a device that automatically deployed a parachute if a skydiver did not pull the rip-cord and the alitude is less than N feet above MSL. He got out of the business in a hurry after he was sued because the device did not work when the parachute partially deployed - which slowed the descent enough not to fire the safety mechanism, but still fast enough to kill on impact.

      So while an insurance company might save money, the manufacturer has a strong disincentive to deploy imperfect mechanisms for saving lives.
      • Sounds like another point for the need for tort reform.

        All devices fail, including safety ones. You just have to build them as best as you can.

        Maybe a system where the manufacturer is only liable for "known conditions". IE they're only liable if they fail to correct the product when a defect becomes known. If the vulnerability is unfixable(IE we use seatbelts, even though they're not 100% effective), as long as you're safer with the product than without it, it's considered good.

        The person who comes up

        • Sounds like another point for the need for tort reform.

          Sounds to me like its a need for someone to actually fight a lawsuit in court. Better yet, if you have money, carry an umbrella policy!

          Not only can you get $1,000,000 worth of insurance for relatively very little cost, when you get sued, its the insurance company's money on the line, and they'll fight the case for you. Even, God forbid, if it is your fault, a $1,000,000 tends to cover almost any civil settlement. If you are really paranoid, y

      • This really pisses me off. An aviation parachute is an optional safety device. I have a great idea, if you think the parachute is your problem, why not exercise your option and insist that your plane come with NO parachute? Because that would make you a dumbass.

        It's not the parachute that caused the plane crash. Rather, the parachute failed to prevent the plane from crashing. Learn the damn difference. Nine times out of ten, the actual cause of the crash is pilot error, like grandparent post already expla

    • Overall, good post and I understand your points.

      However, I don't think the real question is whether a plane is BRS equipped. From a physics standpoint, a BRS equipped plane isn't any different from any other plane with a little extra cargo.

      This isn't like an airbags or no airbags argument- the driver of a car has no control over the airbag deployment once they are enabled. This is a pilot decision argument. Will a pilot use this facility prematurely or when it isn't actually necessary, just because it

    • Re:Real info from a pilot (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @04:11PM (#11181937)
      An SR22 is much easier to fly than a C182.

      I have given over 330 hours of SR22 instruction and have over 200 hours in cessna 182s. I know what I'm talking about. The SR22 is aerodynamically very clean and engine management is trivial. Landing speeds are similar. The only tricky bit is that the SR22 is faster in cruise and climb. I've transitioned 60 hour private pilot wonders from piper warriors to SR22s "takeoffs and landings" in a flight or two. Getting a feel for the avionics takes longer.

  • I'm not convinced (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ann Elk ( 668880 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @03:13PM (#11181756)

    As a pilot (ASEL, IA) and owner (Cessna 182), I'm not convinced I could ever "pull the lever" on this thing. Once this device is deployed, you are no longer the pilot -- you are just a passenger with no control over where or how the plane will land.

    Flying a small plane is not risk-free, and it never will be.

    • Re:I'm not convinced (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gregmac ( 629064 )
      I'm not a pilot, but one thing I didn't like in this article was the talk of "relying" on one. It seems to me, the parachute would be the absolute LAST option - if there's no way you can land the plane on your own, then you pull the lever and hope the parachute saves you.

      The article talks about the families suing the company because the parachutes didn't work. It's not like the parachutes killed them .. if there was no parachute, then the plane would still crash.
    • and on their discussion list was a report of another chute pull. If I remember right, on the first flight after the annual the pilot discovered that the left aileron hadn't been properly reattached and had pulled free and was dangling from one hinge. The pilot was able to get fairly low and slow over a golf course and pull the chute.

      Given the choice between landing at DFW with no roll control or popping the chute... well the chute sounds pretty damn attractive to me.
    • I'm a pilot too, ASEL. Ever been upside down in a spin? OK, how about one that you didn't plan? My first spin scared the mortal shit out of me, even if it was under control. Had I been alone in there, I would have reached for a parachute without a second thought.

      If you wanna risk your life, that's your call. Just promise me that your next of kin won't sue if something unfortunate ever happens, because for my sake, I want a parachute on my plane. If I can't get the thing under control before I get close to

  • Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The AtomicPunk ( 450829 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @03:22PM (#11181776)
    I think it's great that our brave lawyers can see through the fact that this system has saved 8 lives, and instead focus on getting $67M out of the company for a failure, thus hopefully putting the company out of business and saving no further lives, but ensuring the brave lawyers never need work again. :)

    • Re:Lawyers (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Deadstick ( 535032 )
      Well, y'know, there wouldn't be a lot of sleazy lawyers if there weren't sleazy clients to pay their bills.

      rj
    • Just establish your buisness in a 3-rd world country and continue to do buisness in the US. Maybe have dealers come to the UK to pick up the merchendice for that year. Then the dealers carry it to the US and re-sell it.

      Well, it works for DeBerrs...

      Last I heard, there executives are forbiden from entering the USA because their buisness is in violation of a Federal Court order.

  • I wonder (Score:5, Funny)

    by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @03:24PM (#11181784) Journal
    if a similar idea could be used to save a sinking boat. Instead of a parchute obviosly, you could use huge balloons. It could at least slow down the sinking to give time to get into a life boat or raft.

    • Re:I wonder (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mgdm ( 586001 )
      That's common on search & rescue helicopters that spend a lot of time over water. Things like Sikorsky S-61s and Sea Kings have them so that the helicopter can land on the water if it's really necessary. They're fitted to the outriggers that hold the wheels on the ones I've flown in.
    • I say, combine the two.

      Instead of a parachute, release a hot-air balloon, heated by the engine. If the plane's going down, bam! Out comes the balloon and you genetly float off, continuing to your destination.

      Sure, you may arrive a few hours/days late, but that's better than not arriving at all. ;-)

  • ... unless I had a chance at getting a tie [martin-baker.com]. =)
  • I guess it must be on Christmas - these have been out for YEARS

  • power of marketing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is nothing new about either the BRS product or its use on the Cirrus airplane. This is a news item only because BRS/Cirrus employes some of the top promotional folks in the general aviation industry.

    The fact is that the insurance industry considers the parachute-equipped Cirrus to be a very risky airplane as evidenced by very high insurance rates and restrictive coverage.

    The occasions in which deployment of a parachute would be a good solution to a problem in flight are very rare. Having the perce
    • The fact is that the insurance industry considers the parachute-equipped Cirrus to be a very risky airplane as evidenced by very high insurance rates and restrictive coverage.

      Sigh. SR22 has expensive insurance. SR22 has BRS. Therefore, BRS = expensive insurance.

      = BULLSHIT.

      The Sr22 insurance is expensive beacause it's a fast new airplane with a big engine being bought by low time pilots. The BRS has nothing to do with it.

      / I know what I am talking about.

  • Slashdot behind the times, naah :-) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @03:58PM (#11181895) Journal
    Well, Cirrus have had these full airframe parachutes for at least 4 years, and Slashdot is only just picking up on the story!

    The problem with the parachutes is like going from a twin engine plane from a single - they aren't a panacea.

    At first glance, the uninitiated may think that the parachutes solve everything. But it's easy for the parachute to actually make things worse, not better. Why:

    1. You are no longer pilot in command once you deploy it. You go where the wind blows you. That might be an open field, but it also might be a school yard at playtime, a busy motorway/freeway (depending on what country you're in), the top of a tall building, the top of a tree, in power lines, the edge of a cliff etc. These are things a pilot can avoid if they are still flying the plane, even in a state of distress.
    2. The landing isn't exactly smooth. It is designed to let you walk away afterwards (even if you do have a bad back from the impact). Specificially, the aircraft's structure is used to absorb the impact.

    I'm a private pilot (single/multi engine, IFR - or in US FAA speak, ASMEL/IA) and if I were wealthy enough to own a Cirrus, the only time I'd use the chute is if the aicraft had suffered structural failure and was now uncontrollable. If it's still controllable, I'm still flying it.
  • One thing that I didn't see mentioned in the article is that, when they use the chute, the plane doesn't come wafting gently down. On the contrary, it comes down so hard that it causes significant damage to the aircraft; demolishing the landing gear and, sometimes, resulting in scrapping of the entire aircraft.

    Granted, this is better than dying in a crash, but some pilots think that you can just pull the chute any time you get in a little trouble... which can cause a lot of unnecessary scrapped aircraft.

  • Seat belts! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @04:16PM (#11181950) Homepage
    Canadian rancher Albert Kolk's small plane banked uncontrollably in darkness over the Monashee mountains, then began spiraling toward earth. "Seat belts!" he barked to his teenage grandson and two young friends. Then he reached for a red lever in the cockpit.
    Sorry Albert, but you really should tell your teenage grandson to keep his seatbelt on, all the time. You never know what's going to happen ...

    Case in point: Flying with my dad in his Super Cub. We're flying along, then suddenly the plane lurches down 50-100 feet in a second or so. A second later, the plane lurches back up 50-100 feet or so.

    Had I not been wearing my seat belt, I'd probably have been hurt, possibly severely -- there's support braces right above my head, and I would have hit them *hard*.

    (It's not certain what happened, but presumably it was a vortex created by a jet airliner, possibly above us in the clouds. We never saw the plane that created it, however. It also did no damage to the plane (dad had it checked out after landing), but it certainly sent everything not strapped down flying.)

    • When did "Seatbelts!" mean take them off?
    • Sounds almost like a checklist. Sure, you and your passengers supposed to be wearing your seatbelt, but lets assume you have passengers and an emergency occurs.
      Are you going to assume your passangers still have their belts on, are you going to spend time visually checking to see that their belts are one, or are you going to yell "seatbelts" just to remind them to make sure?
  • Can someone get this for the entire airline industry, please?

  • Sikorsky! (Score:4, Funny)

    by HaloZero ( 610207 ) <[protodeka] [at] [gmail.com]> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @04:43PM (#11182019) Homepage
    from the ejection-seats-are-cooler-though dept.

    Only in helicopters!

  • Parachute = safer? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GarrettZilla ( 103173 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @04:45PM (#11182031)
    Background: I'm a private pilot who owns a 1946 Luscombe, a plane not considered to be a terribly "safe" airplane by many. But as with any machine, treat it with the respect it deserves and it will reward you. I prefer to program in assembly and C, as well.

    I'm not convinced that a "safer" airplane actually makes one safer. Twin engine airplanes have worse statistics for post-engine-failure accidents; the Ercoupe (a stall/spin-proof airplane which was about the only non-tailwheel plane of its time), was designed for a high level of safety but didn't have that great a record (and by the end of its life, had had all the safety features removed save the nosewheel); and the parachute-equipped Cirrus had a horrendous safety record early on.

    See, for example,
    http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/2004/sp0402.ht ml [aopa.org]

    I think that reliance on safety features may tend to lead one into more unsafe behavior than one would otherwise engage in. I can say from personal observation at the AirVenture fly-in (http://www.airventure.org/ [airventure.org]) this summer that Cirrus corporate demo pilots pushed the safety envelope to the point of being grounded this past year.

    It's an old truism that the superior pilot relies on superior judgement to prevent the need of his superior skills. With very, very few exceptions, wings don't fall off airplanes until some time after the pilot makes a bad decision.

  • rhetorical question... (Score:3, Funny)

    by BobWeiner ( 83404 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @04:56PM (#11182068) Homepage Journal
    ...remember the indestructible black box they have in the cockpit? Why can't they make the whole plane outta that?
  • Hand glider pilots have been using these for years.

    RESERVE PARACHUTES [flyhigh.com]
  • The major developer of this technology, Cirrus, has been doing so for at least a year (unsure of dates), and there have been many successful deployments which have saved airframes and, possibly, lives. This isn't newsworthy at this point, although it might be interesting to those who haven't heard about it.
  • definitely worth th $16K--esp. with the higher risk for smaller planes. Of course, I'd want my mondo expensive-ass plane to survive, too. So this is much better solution than a ditch or crash landing.

    They might re-think the design of larger planes to just have escape modules--kinda like the way they redesigned the Shuttle.

    I'd also want hell if I were in ice water--or maybe the other way around, too.

  • Plane parachutes have been around for awhile; there's an example in the movie "The Gods Must be Crazy II". For most small planes, unless the wings fall off, you would probably try to land normally because once you pop the chute, you are at the mercy of high-tension lines, windmills, etc. A Cesna 152 lands at around 55 MPH, so it's not too hard to walk away if you ditch it in a field.

  • Just a few pennies worth of opinion (Score:3, Informative)

    by Thumper_SVX ( 239525 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @12:29PM (#11185457) Homepage
    Well, I know from reading the feedback that a lot of this has already been said, but some of this does deserve some reiteration... for which I will relay my opinions on the Cirrus/BRS systems.

    When I first heard about the BRS in Cirrus planes I was quite excited. This sounded like a brilliant idea and from all my reading seemed to work great. Of course, at this time I was not even a student pilot and the only Cirrus was the SR-20 (the SR-22 followed on a few months after I first started reading). I'd had an interest in flight for some time, that much is true... but I hadn't yet had the financial stability to take the plunge so to speak.

    So, leap forward to the present. I'm a PP-ASEL (in FAA speak... Private Pilot, Airplane Single Engine Land), and planning on doing my Instrument and Multi in the new year... finances allowing. So how has my opinion changed in that time? Well, quite a bit actually.

    1. The only time an airframe parachute makes sense is in the event of a structural failure of the aircraft. I can only see two times when this would come about; pilot error (doing aerobatics in an aircraft not built for it) or SEVERE turbulence... enough to snap the wings in a negative-G state (VERY hard to break the wings in a positive-G state on most GA aircraft). Either of these are PILOT ERROR INDUCED under most circumstances. At the first hint of severe turbulence, standard practice should be to slow the hell down and get to or preferably below maneuvring speed... at that speed the airfoil will stall before the aircraft will be severely damaged. Also ,if you're dumb enough to be doing barrel rolls in a plane not designed for it then you probably deserve to become an expensive lawn dart.

    2. A BRS "save" in a Cirrus occurred some time ago when a maintenance error led to the departure of the aileron from the airframe during flight. This was probably a valid use of the parachute in this case since it was a situation that would be less than perfect. HOWEVER... it IS possible to control a plane without ailerons. I've done it... in fact my instructor was VERY adamant that I should be able to fly the plane with only rudder, throttle and trim if it came down to it. I probably have several hours of time (under the IFR hood and visual) where I was flying "hands off the yoke" for some time. Nerve-racking... but doable. Even if I then lost the rudder I have at least once flown with elevator trim, throttle and the doors of the plane (sounds funny, but it works!) If you suffer this kind of multiple failure simultaneously then you probably should have landed after the first failure!

    3. An engine failure does not a parachute situation make. In fact I would avoid this where possible. Engines fail... fact of life in aviation. A plane with no engine WILL glide VERY well. During my training again I had a joke early on that by the time I reached my first cross country solo I had had more "engine failures" (simulated) than I had landings. This wasn't far from the truth. Through sheer repetition my instructor ingrained it in me to the point where it's almost a reaction now... loss of engine power equals ABCD... "Airspeed" (best glide, 65 knots in a 172), "Best Field" (locate my location to land), "Checklist" (check my fuel, mixture, carb heat, primer, fuel selector valve) and "Declare" (tune 121.5, declare an emergency, give location, dial 7700 on the transponder).

    I also have an advantage with the engine failures though... I live in St. Louis, MO where there's nearly always an airfield or a suitable corn field close by... but I'm ALWAYS conscious while flying of where my "best bets" are.

    4. An airframe parachute will only really help about 15% of annual accidents. This might be a low estimate, but most of my reading tells me that the most common accidents are things like controlled flight into terrain, VFR into IMC, and often bad pre-flight. One example of the latter was a recent accident here in STL where a Cessna 182 (or 210... not sure) went down after a go-around at a l

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