4 ms·
When can we have ejector seats for commercial airplane cabins. Or.. "ejector cabins"?
by ugh123 2y ago
When can we have ejector seats for commercial airplane cabins. Or.. "ejector cabins"?
- iancmceachern 2y agoWe have "ballistic recovery systems" that are basically giant parachutes for entire (small) aircraft
- ugh123 2y agoI've seen those for very small one-man drones. Are you talking about Cessna-size?
- iancmceachern 2y agoYes, they even come standard on some planes, like on all Cirrus SR planes.
- tialaramex 2y agoCAPS: Cirrus Airframe Parachute System. Realistically it's not practical to retro-fit this technology, so you would almost invariably buy a plane with it. Cirrus also solves the other problem that's of growing importance in the US with increasingly elderly private pilots - what if your plane is fine but the pilot is incapacitated (e.g. stroke)? Emergency autoland means the plane itself is capable of determining a suitable landing site, navigating there, broadcasting its intentions to other aircraft and landing, then switching itself off, meaning the passengers (and possibly the pilot depending on what exactly was wrong) survive the incident.
- iancmceachern 2y agoIt is realistic to retrofit, and it's done regularly: https://www.aviationconsumer.com/safety/brs-parachute-retrofits-a-cost-benefit-analysis/ https://www.aviationconsumer.com/safety/brs-parachute-retrof...
- tialaramex 2y agoI don't know about "regularly" when they're citing one person who did most of these retrofits - that sounds like it's not happening very often at all, my uncle used to do GA maintenance in (the state of) Georgia, and never saw this as a Cessna mod. But I'll concede that article makes it clear this is a real thing non-crazy people do which I was not aware of.
- foldr 2y agoMy guess is that more lives would be lost from accidental or inappropriate activation than would be saved (even if you ignore all the reasons why it would be impractical anyway).