Re: airplane safety

From: Dave Typinski (nospam_at_nospam.net)
Date: 08/26/04 

Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 22:18:48 -0400

John T Lowry wrote:

>
>"johng" <johngrahamiv@netscape.net> wrote in message
>news:7ad646c2.0408241609.15c18f5f@posting.google.com...
>> here's a couple ideas i would like feedback on. one, a parachute
>> large enough to bring down a plane safely if the pilot could manuever
>> the plane to almost a complete stop. two is a passenger module which
>> can be completely ejected from the rest of the plane, and parachuted.
>
>So-called "ballistic" parachutes are being used, and have saved lives,
>on many models of light aircraft. There's no need (and no way!) to
>"maneuver the plane to almost a complete stop." The space shuttle uses
>an ejectable passenger module.

It does? I thought the crew is supposedly going to bail out of the
crew entry hatch during a dire emergency. Don't the shuttles have
some kind of telescoping arm that directs the bailoutee away from the
vehicle to avoid having the poor sap splatter on the empennage? Seems
time consuming, though. Then again, maybe it's just for the
psychological benefit. When told that there'd be no room in a Mercury
capsule for him to put on a parachute in an emergency, Gus Grissom
responed, "well, it'll give me something to do until I hit!"

I know the B-1A and the FB-111 had the crew escape modules; not sure
about the XB-70. The B-1B, on the other hand, uses ACES II ejection
seats.

>As did, in a sense, the Apollo program rockets.

I read a factiod once claiming that the escape tower rocket on the
Saturn V had more thrust than the Redstone that put Shepard and
Grissom into space... then again, that's not that much: a single GE-90
turbofan can produce more thrust than did a Redstone! 

--
Dave Typinski
http://home.alltel.net/trapezium

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