http://www.stk-charter.de/download/Accident_report.pdf local copy
Again, blood-chilling to read. Again, the ballistic got a couple of fools out of trouble that they ought never to have got into. They may thank their stars – and the very sturdy design of both the plane and the parachute.
Jesus Christ … i had not read this one!
Well, I am glad they survided, … but it’s hard to say that they “deserved” it.
The incident shows well under what incredible conditions a BRS system will still work … 245 kts? 4 seconds before impact? Without the chute tehy would have drilled a hole into the mountains probably deep enough to be used as a TUNNEL.
Jesus Christ is right – tore the wings off pulling 10G? Being Italian I hope they confessed their sins to Him afterwards!
The design department must be thinking they got this one pretty much right…
I wonder how over-engineered the BRS attachment point is as that is a serious load!
The figure that most stunned me was the 10G load. Isn’t that sufficient to make a human loose conscience?
Yes, at 10 g you lose it. I once flew a practice routine with Patty Wagstaff in a 2-seat Extra 300 and i told her to fly the way she usually does … but regretted that immediately. She flies +10/-10 … but at +8 I fell asleep ;-) We didn’t try more than -6 … and that time I already had an aerobatic rating.
So they were actually verry lucky that they managed to PULL the handle!
I should take a few seconds however, at +10G.
That is a much lighter aircraft than an SR22 and that makes the job a lot easier.
I’ve read a few reports of people who inadvertently took off with a cloudbase lower than they were expecting – sometimes it’s obvious when you’re about to climb into cloud, and sometimes it isn’t. If I found myself in inadvertent IMC in a valley like that, I’d probably elect to try and climb rather than descend, and as I don’t have a ballistic parachute, things might not turn out so well for me. I’m glad they made it.
For some reason I’m a little sceptical about a terminal velocity of 245 knots (over 280mph) in a pipistrelle fuselage which I would have thought is quite draggy. Even a free fall skydiver can stabilise at 120mph.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity
Seems reasonable to me. The fuselage doesn’t look draggy to me – the glide angle ordinarily is about 1/30. A skydiver falling horizontally will be at 120mph but at 200mph falling vertically. Empty weight of the whole caboodle is 280 kg, so if you take away a guesstimated 30kg for the wings:
250kg + 2 * 70kg = 390kg AUW (minus the wings). 245 knots is 126 metres a second. The gain in potential energy is 9.8*390*126 = 48 Kw = 645 horsepower plus whatever the engine is still putting out. If it’ll cruise at 122 knots on perhaps 80hp, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that it would go twice the speed with 8 times the power, particularly when you remove the drag of the wings.
That’s one tough little plane : note the empenage is still intact.
Typically, the H-stab separates right after the wings come off .
