The Parachute Odessey! updated may 1, 2004
| This all began with a ruling by our local glider club that "No one will be allowed to fly in a two place glider wearing a parachute unless they personally own that parachute.": which is now changed to :
"No-0ne can use a parachute in a COSA glidier unless they own that parachute" June 28th, 2001 I had to bail out in the summer of 2000 and it suddenly occured to me...... why do I buy a parachute and not wear it?.... so I decided I would always wear a parachute while flying. This of course was to affect my instructing... so I decided to lend a parachute to my students.... but the board ruled otherwise so I cannot wear a parachute while instructing unless the student owns his own parachute. April 25, 2004 The rule now seems to be "that no one can teach wearing a parachute" after a discussion I had with Jim Berhrends our president. It was discovered that in order to fly the fall contest pilots had to borrow parachutes so I presume that the rule has been changed to accommdate this. |
This document is a work in progress and all ideas and suggestions are appreciated.
email Mat with your suggestions
Diary: Introduction: Instruction: Aircraft safety: Insurance: Members safety: Cost:
Personal difficulties with the present parachute ruling: Possible solutions:
The decision making process: Conclusions: Facts and references
April 25, 200. I had been teaching very little, mostly without a parachute but one day I did wear a chute and take a commercial ride with a person.... I elected to use the parachte instead of a cushion and this prompted more action by the board of directors to remind me of the rule of no parachutes. I realize that I had violated the rule and am now properly reprimanded. I still feel very strongly about wearing a parachute and especially using it in instruction. As it is now, there is no instruction or even mention of a parachute in ground school. Our planes are getting quite old and we operate from an airport where the possibility of a mid air is possible. When I think that any failure in the linkage to the elevator can cause a catastrophic accident with a nose down descent. I urge people to consider learning about and using a parachute. Since I also build the Marske Planform wings I am aware that if the linkage becomes detached. the wing will continue to flying a normal flight position becuase of the positive pitching moment. A real plus for the Marske flying wings.
Since there is no rule reagrding parachutes in the US, I must conform to the ruling of the board of directors and will no longer teach here in Marion.
July 4, 2001. I wrote Jerry Eichenerger and Leroy Johnston, legal councils for COSA, to have him explain the logic of the boards decision Their answers are below: This is very dissapointing, for the board to make a decision that could cost someone their life because of litigation and there is no published reason yet that one can scrutinize to try understand the logic. There where many members unable to attend the meeting and I feel that such an important decision needs scrutiny. It seems to me that this is more to do with litigation and FAA rules than safety.
June 28, 2001 I did not attend the COSA board meeting tonight since I have decided to proceed on my own in creating a two -place instructional glider that has a BRS, good visibility, 550 lbs, rugged construction and a L/D of about 42. The results of the meeting where pretty much decided on before the meeting. Litigation and lawyers win again! The rule is now more severe:
"No one can wear a borrowed chute while flying any COSA owned glider." At this there is no mention of the aspects of safety involved but instead I believe a concentration on the fear of litigation and image. It will be sad indeed that a pilot should die that could have had a chance at being saved if he worn a chute!
I will continue my research and publish my findings to the web despite the boards ruling..
May 24, 2001. It is now my understanding from the last board meeting that this has now been relaxed so that if a pilot has their own guest you may lend them a parachute but nothing has been received in writing.However I will stick to my prinicple that I will not teach or fly without wearing a parachute especially in a Schweizer 2-33..
More important for me is that this whole question has made some very interesting studies for me and some even more interesting conclusions. The Board members at COSA will never understand my position but this has set for me a whole new direction in my building and flying.
My main contention was with the boards ruling since, I believe that the pilot in command should decide if parachutes are to be used, and he is also responsible for the decision as to what chutes to use ( size, date or repack etc. ). No-one but the pilot in command should make those decisions. The club however should only advise in the use of parachutes and give guidelines.
April 20, 2004
I have again been reminded by our president of the club, Jim Behrends of the parachute rule newly reached by the board of directors, which now seems to be changed slightly to. "No One is allowed to teach with a parachute."
I would appreciate any input from anyone.
Introduction:
The parachute worn by a person can save their life and it does offer an alternative to certain death but there are also other considerations to take into account such as cost and practicality.
Most pilots consider the usfulness of a parachute very low considering the hearsay statistics. My point is that I would at least like to have an alternative should I be one of that small percentage of pilots that could make use of a parachute in a mid air or structural failure. Bill Singleton ,chairman of the Soaring safety Foundation, in a recent article, July 2001, states that "for the period 1996-2000, the NTSB accident reports seven mid air collisions conducting glider operations, including gliders and tow craft."
The size of the parachute dictates your decent rate. Therefore if you are a large size of over 200 lbs you would not wear the same chute as someone weighing 150 lbs. A "national 360" has a recommended pilot weight of 177 lbs. A "national 490" has a recommended pilot weight of pilots to 254 lbs..The size of the canopy will determine the decent rate which vary from 24ft to 28 ft in diameter.
For the parachute to be effective you must be able to get out of the aircraft and have the chute deployed above 300 ft. A more safe altitude is considered at 500 ft. My jump occurred about 2000 ft agl and I had lots of time to play loop the loop with the airplane before contacting the ground. Personal Parachutes cost about $1200 give or take a little.
The FAA rule states that a repack for the personal chute must be done every 120 days although there is talk about changing this to 180 days. This needs further research. National Chute says that under the circumstances that I fly a once a season repack is all that is needed. Talking with the rigger he says that he would repack his emergency chute once a season and that others went far longer and that they worked just fine. However the law states otherwise.
A ballistic parachute is deployable at any altitude and is attached to the aircraft. This style of chute has a repack every 6 years and the rocket lasts for 12 years and costs vary from $1500 to $3000.
I personally feel that a ballistic parachute makes a lot more sense in gliders but whether any certified aircraft can have one is another matter that needs investigation.
I feel we should have some discussion of parachutes in our instruction and make students and guests aware of the parachute and offer education in the use and care of parachutes. At this time in Cosa there is little or no opportunity to get instruction on the use of a parachute and although I have offered to to research and publish a manual for the use of COSA there is no interest.
I suggest that spin training at a minimum be done with a parachute as an excellent introduction to the parachute, although at the moment it is not required by law. The Schwiezer 2-33 aircraft are quite spin resistant and Paul Wolfe is about the only person I know capable of doing a decent spin . I would suggest also doing spins in the Grob103 for better spin recognition and recovery techniques.
I also feel that an instructor should be given the opportunity at his discretion to wear a parachute during instruction, and if he chooses to exercise this option, then he is required to provide a chute and requisite parachute training to the student.
A number of members suggested that wearing a parachute gave a bad image to the club. But nearly everyone wears a safety belt now in a car (even a airbag is now standard equipment) and is expected to have a life preserver in a boat. On my very first glider rider I was handed a parachute, given some instruction and I felt my pilot in command had given me an assurance that if all should fail I at least had an alternative and this was comforting just as with the other sports that use life preservers, crash helmets and air bags .
Think of the image of a new student or passenger coming to the airfield and seeing the senior members of the club putting on their parachutes to fly single place ships but they are not offered this alternative? Why?
Fear is a real part of out sport and should not be hidden. I feel that some of our members may be leaving the sport simply because they have some fear of an accident. Having a parachute may help those realize they do have another option besides staying in a disabled craft and certain death.
Important in our decision to fly is to always have an alternative if something goes wrong: what is your alternative when you have a midair or structural failure?
Aircraft safety:
The aircraft we fly are considered safe by statistical standards and in our club are probably some of the best maintained I have ever seen under the careful guidance of Paul Wolf.
But all metal fatigues and rusts. There is always the possibility of some part of the connection to the elevator that could fail especially as the aircraft ages. "AN" bolts that connect the elevator control system are not perfect and human error can happen. Rust can also build up on the inside of the control rods and tubes of the elevator spawning premature failure.
Jim Marske who I believe is the most qualified aeronautical expert around, questions the safety of the old Schwiezer 2-33's. Two of his reasons are that the Schweizers are built for a low positive 4.67 G loading and negative 2.56 G loading. Jim designs his gliders to a JAR 22, minimum of 8 g's and quite often are much higher, such as the Genesis which under a destructive test broke the holding fixture at about 18 G's.
In the older days aircraft where all built with negative pitching moment airfoils. This means that if there is any malfunction of the elevator then you are headed straight into the ground. With more modern craft the positive pitching airfoils are gaining popularity and this means that with any malfunction of the elevator you have some reasonable expectation of being able to land the aircraft. Jim Marske builds positive pitching airfoils on his gliders. The Genesis which he also worked on, was outside his design control and had a negative pitching airfoil. There was a person killed in the Genesis through loss of elevator control which would not have taken place if Jim had been allowed to have a positive pitching airfoil.This fatal accident also could possibly have had a different outcome with a BRS chute installation.
Robert Mudd also notes that the 2-33 would not pass FAA certification standards in place today.
Insurance
I wonder what the response would be from the liability standpoint if I as instructor began teaching again without my parachute because of the present club ruling. If then a student and myself lost our lives in a crash that we could have survived had we worn parachutes, does the club now accept some liability responsibility for our deaths since I and the student would have had a great chance of survival if I had worn my parachutes?
The world of litigation and Insurance is a complex one an sometimes has little to do with reality.
Members safety
Statistically there seems to be little justification to wear a parachute when compared to say the sport of fishing but if you happen to be that few percent that did not live because of a situation where you may have lived if you wore a parachute then one can be concerned. I am one of those who lived because I wore a parachute and while the statistic of my death would not concern the soaring world it did make a big difference to me.
Last year as I was reminded by Mike Couts, Leroy noted in a recent article that the most dangerous place for gliding actually occurred in the vicinity of our airport. This is the place that mid-airs happen and the onlyrecovery I know of is by parachute!
We are not without our near misses. On June 24, our club president Jim Beyrends in a tow plane on downwind narrowly missed a mid air with a 2-33 who was on base at about 600 ft. If there had been an accident there was a good possibility that a BRS would have saved them.
Cost.
The actual cost of a parachute for one person is rather high when you consider the repack every 120 days at $35 per repack. There is an alternative with the ballistic parachute. It needs a repack every 6 years and there is only a need for one per aircraft. Cost to fit one aircraft with a 1500 lb gross weight is about $16,000. The factor that most influences the cost is the gross weight and the airspeed. However for lighter gross weight aircraft, the cost of the ballistic is much lower at anywhere from $1600 to $3000.
The intial Cost of a ballistic chute over 6 years is roughly $3000 ( the rocket needs replaced every 12 years, chute is repacked every 6 years)
Cost of two personal parachutes with repacks over 6 years is: 2 ($1100 + 630.)= $3460
Lets say a ballistic chute has a life of 12 years. Amortizing $3800 ( including one repack)over twelve years comes to $316 per year or a cost of $2.10 per member per year per schwiezer 2-33. If it saves one life ( probably two) it would be well worth this. I think most of us spend much more than this at Perkins after flying in a given week.
Comparing the cost of separate parachutes compared to a ballistic it is easy to see that over the long run the ballistic proves more cost effective and a better consideration in the long run. There is no need to get out of the plane and the fuselage offers protection.
The ballistic parachute remains with the aircraft and is considered an asset to be figured into the price of the craft if offered for sale. So it is not an expense but an asset and still is an asset after a number of years.
In other words you can have the money sitting in the bank or as an asset installed on an airplane as a ballistic parachute.
After having my own life saved by a parachute there is no amount of money that would have been considered too costly to replace my life or any one else's life.
Personal difficulties with the present parachute ruling:
If I just accept the boards ruling I have no other alternative club to join; I will then have effectively dropped out of instructing and commercial flying if I chose to exercise the option of always wearing a parachute. The choice for me then is to choose between instructing without a chute or not instructing. I am then forced by the club to not wear my parachute if I instruct.
I fail to see the difference in not allowing me to lend Mike a parachute in a dual flight yet I can lend him a chute for his solo flights. ( or can I?) I fail also to see the added safety factor of not flying with a chute or was this decision based more on the fear of litigation. Some reasons for this ruling would be very helpful.
This rule forces me and other pilots to fly without a chute if I am to fly in a two place glider where one of the persons does not own a parachute. I feel that this is a mistake and it should be the choice of the pilot in command as to whether he and his passsenger/student chooses to wear parachutes.
Possible solutions:
Those wishing to fly with parachutes should be able to provide parachutes to the passengers/ students at the "pilot in in command's" discretion. Persons wishing not to fly with a parachute can chose another instructor.If one borrows a chute it needs only to have a recent repack to be legal. Ruling that you cannot borrow a chute only questions the validity of the repack.
I wonder how many students would choose to fly with a parachute if this was an option?
If indeed the club sees fit to considering some parachutes then we can should consider the possibility of ballistic parachutes. I would volunteer to look into this and publish my results for all to see. But to date there is no interest.
Since I have been saved by a parachute I suggest that my duties as an instructor be put to use help teaching cross country techniques where one would should normally come into contact with parachutes. As a beginning concession, to the present ruling, the board could make it the option of the instructor/ student to use parachutes during cross country teaching.( no replies on this so I will put my efforts elsewhere)
One of the areas that we should all be concerned with is the future of instruction. What will superceded the 2-33? I believe that the 2-33 is a very heavy, inefficient, poorly performing sailplane and replacements should be considered. Those replacements should have a ballistic Chute installed be capable of at least a 35:1 glider ratio, have good handling, be stall and spin proof.
This is one of those very difficult issues to make decisions on knowing that it may affect someone's life in the future. Of those members of the board who will make that decision for you has ever been saved by a parachute? Who has studied the question carefully? Whatever the answers I think that the general membership should be able to see in writing the differing sides of the parachute question and be able to have some input.
The COSA board has little concern about parachutes or instruction in parachutes and is easily scared off when the question of litigation arises. The lack of safety of the wearing a borrowed parachute mystifies me. The Eurpeans seem to cope with this just fine.
I am not recommending parachutes for everyone but from my limited investigation into the parachute question I have made the decision to wear a parachute whenever possible. I am personally equiping all of my gliders with ballistic parachutes and I shall continue to lend my parachute to those who request it. The liability of lending my chute is very secondary to possibility saving a life.
My new direction is to build a viable training aircraft that has a ballistic chute, has a l/d of 39:1, weighs under 550 lbs, has side by side seating, excellent visibility ... and most of all..... its going to be classed in the new sport catagory.
The problems with the 2-33 are that the pilots sit in tandem, this arrangement has the instructor in a very cramped place in the rear... and if he weighs over 175 lbs and about 6 ft he has a very difficult time getting in and out of the craft. The visibility is very limited and the performance very poor.
Jim Marske says he has a two place trainer on the drawing board with side by side seating, an l/d of 39 , excellent visibility for both pilots, a BRS as standard equipment and less than 550 lbs in weight...... well now I have a challenge! anyone else interested!
Letter from the FAA:
Mat:
There are no FAR's covering this subject. This is a personal preference
issue instituted by the flying club.
Letter from Ray Ochitwa, Vancouver Soaring Associatio, Oct 23, 2001
Letter addressing the parachute ruling that I received from the RAS on the internet:
Web page devoted to regulation with discussion of the parachute.