We have read our way though all the ballistic chute discussion and to date there is no mention of Murphy. So I will put in my 2 cents worth.
Some thoughts on chutes and how those "to have or not to have" decisions can be impacted by Mr. Murphy and his law. Murphy's Law states "If anything can go wrong, it will". Put the subject into Google and enjoy reading the details. In my career in the aviation industry for both McDonnell and the US Navy/Marine Corp, I was heavily involved in keeping aircraft flying,maintained, crash repaired, improved and worst of all, evaluating crashed aircraft. The evaluation of the crashed aircraft remains involved identifying, for the accident board, any system failures,structural failures, positions of flight controls, panel indicator lights, and any other contributing factors resulting from the aircraft flight or impact. Why do I bring Murphy into this?. Because I got to see for myself and read about Murphy in action. Murphy is not the actual piloting of the aircraft. Murphy is all the things involved with flight and the act of making decisions while flying. The wrong fuel, improper maintenance, making a calculated decision to fly on battery power because the generator is not working, the nickel coin that jams the elevator flight control bellcrank, or the weather that is ok now so if I hurry I can make it to my home base before it gets worse. (This had its own name, Hurry Up Itis, and is a very deadly disease.) Murphy has been known to test the really good pilots by making a series of negative events occur in a specific situation to test the pilots ability to adapt to a steadily deteriorating situation. Most pilots fail this test and the cost is usually very steep. Some examples of Murphy in action. I remember an H-53 helo that was practicing descending race track patterns over the coast of Virginia. Along comes a fish spotter, with 3000 plus hours, looking for schools of fish and contacting the fishing boats so they can intercept the migrating fish. You guessed it, the H-53 settled right on top of the fish spotter and took off part of his left wing while his prop ate up the lower right aft fuselage of the helo. The fish spotter died on impact with the water and the helo made it back to base. The FAA complained that the fish spotter had his seat belt on " too loose" If you are in your F-14 and are performing a tight left turn, with high angle of attack, at low speed, with high power on both engines and the left engine has a major failure you will go into a flat spin so rapidly that if you do not punch out immediately you will ride it to the ground. The spin is sooo fast that the centrifugal force will prevent you or your back seater from reaching the upper or lower ejection seat handles. At a recent USMC Cherry Point airshow there was a demonstration flight by two Globe Swifts. The routine was going great and was very professional looking. All of a sudden one of the acft pulled up and away and made an immediate landing, followed my his partner making a conventional landing. ( nothing like 8000 foot runways). I was fortunate to see the aircraft that had departed the routine being towed to a hanger. It did not look too airworthy with half the prop missing and the engine and part of the cowling hanging straight down at greater than a 45 degree angle. God was his copilot that day. Remember, Murphy rules! All we can hope to do is, design him out, maintain him away, and build in redundancy/ back up/fail safe systems to protect our butt. Bob Morrissey
