Sat, Aug 02, 2014
BRS Parachutes: Defining Aviation Safety
It's a simple idea, really. A parachute which will, when deployed, turn what could be a very bad situation into one in which not only the occupants, but in many cases the airplane, survive. That's the concept behind the full-airframe parachutes for the general aviation market manufactured by BRS Aviation.
Prior to 1975, few had attempted to implement the idea to design a parachute for an aircraft, even though it had been talked about for nearly a century. In that year, Boris Popov of Saint Paul, Minnesota, survived a 400-foot fall in a collapsed hang glider. The event led Popov to invent the whole-aircraft parachute system and to found Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS) in 1980.
The systems are available as standard equipment on Cirrus and Flight Design aircraft, and the company has received and STC to retrofit Cessna 172 and 182 airplanes with the system. All week long BRS will have a Red Bird full motion flight simulator will an integrated handle. This handle will feature a true pull force function, while the simulator will provide the experience of a parachute deployment.
BRS will also have a more simple BRS-172 mock up with handle pull force mock up for those not interested in waiting for the full simulator experience.
BRS parachutes have saved 276 lives since they first came on the market in 1982. At Oshkosh, two survivors will discuss their experiences using the BRS parachute system in a talk entitled "Why I Deployed my BRS Cirrus Parachute" ... held at the Forum Pavilion on Friday, June 27th between 11:30am-12:45pm.
Did You Know? Great Facts About BRS Parachutes
- The First documented save by a BRS parachute was Jay Tipton of Colorado in 1983.
- BRS began offering parachute systems for Cessna 150 airplanes in 1993.
- BRS employs 75 people with annual sales of approximately $9.2 million.
- BRS offers more than 300 parachute designs for ultralight aircraft, along with LSA and experimental packages.
- The BRS MAVEREC parachute systems can be fitted to a wide range of basic military trainers up to a 7,500 pound maximum gross weight.
- The company established a network of certified re-pack centers in 2010.
- The pilot involved in first recorded save for a BRS parachute in a Cessna 182 deployed his parachute just 400 feet above the ground.
- Flight Design plans to offer a BRS parachute as standard equipment on its new C4 airplane, as does Kestrel Aircraft.
- BRS is a member of the Aviation Green Alliance.
- And finally... if you look WAY down the BIG list of saves... number 56, to be precise, you might recognize ANN CEO Jim Campbell's name... yup, he's a survivor.
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