Ballistic Recovery System

Hit the silk, and take your airplane with you.

It is night, the weather is deteriorating, you are over the Appalachian Mountains, there are no roads or airports that you can see, and the engine of your Cessna 152 decides to take this opportunity to quit. What do you do? The first answer, of course, would be not to get yourself in this kind of situation in the first place. But assuming you already had, the only other answer a flight instructor could give you would be to run through emergency procedures, keep the airplane flying and under control as you descend, and hope for a survivable landing or crash.

A St. Paul, Minnesota, company, however, has come up with a third option. Ballistic Recovery Systems, Incorporated (BRS), has designed a parachute system that will carry an entire airplane down to the ground safely.

The concept involves a small, solid-rocket-fuel motor that, when fired, pulls a pressure-packed parachute out of a container in the top of the fuselage and deploys it at enough of a distance to keep the parachute from getting tangled on the airplane as it opens. The parachute then supports the entire airplane and allows it to float down to a survivable landing.

Boris Popov, the founder of BRS, began working on ballistic recovery systems in 1977 after a hang glider he was flying behind a boat came apart in midair, causing him to fall 400 feet into the water. Fortunately, the only injury Popov suffered was a lost tooth filling, but the incident inspired him to begin researching potential safety systems for hang gliders and ultralights. By 1981, the company was marketing a couple of simple, drogue-gun-operated parachute systems for the fast- growing ultralight industry. BRS steadily improved the sophistication and capability of its parachute systems over the next decade, expanding its market from ultralights to hang gliders and several models of light kitplanes.

At the same time, however, the company was working on an even bigger goal: a ballistic recovery system for a Standard-category general aviation aircraft. BRS went public in 1986 to raise funds for the necessary research and then spent seven years and $1.5 million developing the system. Finally, in May 1993, BRS received Federal Aviation Administration approval for use of its General Aviation Recovery Device (GARD) -150 on Cessna 150 and 152 aircraft.

The GARD-150 system is much more sophisticated than the early parachute systems developed by BRS. It uses a solid rocket fuel motor, and because it is certified for use up to 120 knots with a 1-G load or 95 knots (indicated) with a 2-G load, it incorporates what skydivers call a "slider" mechanism for controlling how fast the parachute opens. The technical name for the device is a dynamic reefing system, but it is known as a "slider" because it is designed to slide up and down the lines of the parachute. Its purpose is to dampen the opening force of the canopy, which allows a ballistic parachute to be deployed at faster speeds without overstressing the components of the system.

The slider mechanism developed by BRS is essentially an annular ring parachute, which is effective only at higher speeds. If the chute is deployed while an aircraft is flying at cruise speed, for example, the annular parachute will be effective, so it will stay up at the top of the shroud lines and reef in the bottom of the main chute. As the aircraft begins to slow, the slider becomes less effective and moves down the lines toward the airplane, allowing the main parachute to inflate fully. BRS patented its dynamic reefing system in 1987, and it is a critical component of not only the GARD-150, but also all the recovery systems BRS makes for heavier, faster ultralights and kitplanes.

The parachute itself is a 40-foot-diameter, round canopy made of a rip-stop, low permeability nylon known in skydiving circles as F-111 cloth. The shroud lines connect to a Kevlar webbing harness that, in turn, is attached to the airplane with three stainless-steel straps bolted to the front and rear wing spar carrythrough structures. To reduce the amount of space the parachute takes up in the airplane, it is packed into a cloth bag under 40,000 pounds of pressure. It is then packaged with the rocket motor into a composite container mounted in the ceiling of the Cessna's cabin. The aluminum skin of the airplane above the container is then replaced with Ceconite fabric to allow the system to deploy easily.

The firing handle for the GARD-150 is installed on the cabin ceiling between the two seats. To deploy the ballistic chute, the pilot or passenger first shuts down the aircraft engine and then reaches up, removes the handle cover, and pulls the handle down a total of 6.5 inches. The first 6 inches of line takes up the slack in the system, and the last half-inch, which requires a downward force of 45 pounds to pull, actually fires the rocket motor.

When the system is deployed, the rocket motor burns for 1.7 seconds, pulling the chute out of the airplane. Full deployment of the parachute takes roughly six seconds from the time the handle is pulled and exerts a force of 2.5 to 3 Gs on the airplane's occupants.

While the chute is opening, the airplane also goes through several sharp oscillations. When the system is first deployed, it pulls the nose of the airplane up abruptly. As the aircraft slows and the chute opens fully, the airplane swings back underneath the parachute canopy into a sharp nose-down position and oscillates back and forth several times before stabilizing in a level attitude under the parachute.

Once the aircraft is stabilized under the chute, it descends at a snappy 21 to 25 feet per second, which equates to approximately 1,500 feet per minute. To put these numbers into perspective, a 22-fps descent rate is equivalent to about the hardest landing a Navy pilot would ever make on an aircraft carrier. So although the landing should be survivable, it will not be particularly pretty. The certification requirements for the GARD- 150 demand only that the landing impact be less than 15 Gs, with less than a 1,500-pound load on the occupants' spines. Although a human can survive that kind of impact, it will significantly damage the aircraft. "The system is not designed to save the airplane," says BRS Vice President Dan Johnson. "It's designed to save the people in the airplane."

Exactly how uncomfortable this kind of impact would be is still somewhat theoretical with the GARD-150. Only five people have flown in the company's test plane during a deployment, and in all of the test flights, the pilot cut away from the parachute several thousand feet above the ground and flew away. The production version of the system, however, will have no cut-away option. Once a pilot deploys the parachute, he is along for the ride.

The amount of altitude required for the system to be used successfully varies. The GARD-150 is certified for use down to 300 feet, but, as Johnson explains, "It's really more a function of time than altitude." If an airplane is flying straight and level at 300 feet, there would be enough time to fire the parachute and land safely. If the airplane were in a spin or dive at that altitude, however, there would be so little time left before it hit the ground that the recovery system probably would be of little use.

So in what situations does BRS see its ballistic recovery system as being the most useful? Possible scenarios include a midair collision, an engine failure over hostile terrain, structural failure of the airplane or one of its critical components, incapacitation of the pilot, or loss of control due to icing or some other cause.

Obviously, all of these are remote possibilities. In 1992, there were 13 general aviation mid-air collision accidents, of which only four involved a Cessna 150 or 152. There have only been 17 fatal Cessna 150/152 accidents since 1983 due to loss of control following continued VFR flight into instrument conditions, and Johnson says he does not think there has ever been an in-flight structural failure of a Cessna 150. However, he is quick to note that "all these situations are low probability, but high consequence, events." If you did find yourself in one of these situations, a ballistic recovery system could mean the difference between life and death.

BRS compares its recovery systems to insurance you buy but hope you never have to use. The question is how much that insurance is worth. The GARD-150 sells for $5,495, plus another $500 or so for installation. Given the fact that most Cessna 150s and 152s now sell for between $15,000 and $25,000, that means that a BRS parachute costs between one-quarter and one-third the price of the airplane. How many owners are going to be willing to invest that much for a unique kind of life insurance is still unclear. BRS, Incorporated, received final approval to sell the GARD-150 last September, and since that time, the company has sold seven of the systems.

Johnson acknowledges that the price is a significant obstacle, but he still sees a market for the device among flight schools and pilots who put a high value on safety. Yet even with approximately 18,000 active Cessna 150/152s on the FAA's register, BRS does not expect to make money on the GARD-150. Instead, the company sees the GARD-150 as an evolutionary product that will lead to other applications that in the long run will be profitable. BRS has already submitted a certification plan for a "GARD- Plus" system to the FAA, which would extend the certified applications of the GARD-150 product to include a number of older high-wing designs such as an Aeronca Champ, Piper Cubs and Super Cubs, the Piper Pacer and Tri- Pacer, and various Taylorcraft models.

If these applications were approved, it would certainly expand the number of potential customers for BRS. The cost of the device would still be a factor, however, as all of these airplanes are still fairly inexpensive to purchase. The weight the BRS system adds to an airplane could also become even more of an issue. The GARD-150 weighs 43 pounds, which takes a sizable piece out of the useful load of a Cessna 150 and would handicap the capacity of a Cub or Taylorcraft even further.

Perhaps because the company realizes some of the inherent limitations in installing the system for such small, inexpensive airplanes, BRS is also working on a bigger ballistic parachute system that could be applied to aircraft in the 2,400- to 3,000-pound gross weight category. Developing and certifying a new product takes additional funding, however, so although Johnson says the company is committed to the project, he is uncertain when it will be available.

Yet even in certifying the GARD-150 product, BRS, Incorporated, has unquestionably made a breakthrough in safety devices for general aviation aircraft. Although the ballistic parachute has not yet been used "in anger" on a Cessna, the 11,000 ballistic recovery systems BRS has sold to kitplane, ultralight, microlight, and hang-glider pilots to date have saved 74 lives, with only one injury.

Of course, the safety record and the structural integrity of ultralights and hang gliders is far less impressive than that of Cessna 150s, so the chance of needing a recovery system is much higher. The GARD- 150 system is also not a perfect guarantee. The aircraft will be significantly damaged and, depending on where the aircraft lands, the occupants could still sustain serious injury. Even if the landing impact does not injure anyone, the aircraft could still strike power lines, buildings, or be pulled off high terrain after touchdown.

There is also the danger of pilots taking more chances with an airplane because they think a ballistic parachute makes them invincible. A VFR pilot might be more tempted to continue flight into marginal IFR conditions in an airplane equipped with a GARD-150 parachute, for example. Johnson says he stresses to all potential customers that the system is designed purely as a last-ditch escape effort when the only alternative is a potentially fatal crash. "Anytime a pilot still has control of the airplane and possible landing spots, this system should not be used," Johnson says.

The GARD-150 is not a guaranteed safety net, and it is not without its disadvantages. It is expensive and heavy for a small airplane, and deploying the system is not without risk. Nonetheless, at least 74 ultralight, kitplane, and hang-glider pilots would agree that if a Cessna 150/152 pilot found himself in a situation where aircraft control, landing spots, and ideas were all disappearing quickly, the GARD-150 system might be the best friend he ever had.

Lane E. Wallace, AOPA 896621, is an aviation writer and private pilot who has been flying for more than seven years. She owns a 1946 Cessna 120 and is restoring a 1943 Stearman.