A small plane was captured on video recently coming down under the canopy of a whole-airplane recovery parachute system. The pilot hustled out of the plane and took a bit of a tumble in the process, but seemed both a little shaken and stirred. Better than the alternative.
While the Cirrus SR20 and SR22 (and now the SF50 Vision Jet) are well known for their use of the BRS-manufactured chute, ballistic chutes predate Cirrus by around a couple of decades. And over the last 10 years or so, many dozens of light-sport aircraft here and in Europe have been outfitted with them. While Cirrus Aircraft keeps extensive records of the numbers and kinds of chute deployments in its fleet, the data for other sport aircraft is scattered and not, to our knowledge, compiled anywhere.
The plane in the video is a French microlight, roughly equivalent to our Light Sport Aircraft models. The plane, a Dyn-Aero, is a well-regarded model. The video has gotten more than a thousand comments as of last viewing.
These can be broken down into several categories:
- Why didn’t he just land somewhere? (Answer: Unknown, and he walked away!)
- Did the chute get tangled on the tail? (Answer: No. Some planes are designed to come down nose first. The pilot’s apparently being unhurt is testimony to the wisdom of the design.)
- What was that thing that seemed to come off of the plane shortly after the video starts? (Answer: We don’t know for sure, but it could be part of the structure of the plane that gets shed when the chute is deployed and the straps rip themselves from their composite covering.)
There are, as always, endless and tedious discussions of the Cirrus and its no-spin required certification status. Recovery in a Cirrus that is spinning is by the operating handbook supposed to be by chute.
We don’t know many of the details behind this, including where it takes place (Belgium, perhaps); when it happened (recently, we think) or if the plane is repairable (seems like it, right?).
But one thing we do know is the pilot is alive and seemingly well, and that fact seems to outweigh all other quibbles and qualms, at least in our book.
The history of parachuting is older and more spectacular than you imagined. Read about it here!
