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Originally Posted by ohioboxster
Wow, its amazing what the human body can take. The plane last night is a 1977, the cockpit held up so well.
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Hi,
It's really not
that surprising. The FAA has much more stringent reliability requirements in it's certification process than any Auto Manufacturer would ever have to endure. Add to this the strict regular maintenance, repair, and inspection regimens (why I sold off my J3 - too expensive to keep) and you end up with pretty solid aircraft.
In terms of Life Safety, the coming thing is Ballistic Recovery Systems (commonly BRS). This is a Parachute which will deploy and allow the aircraft to decend slowly enough and land softly enough to pretty much insure safety for the occupants. It is currently available, certified by the FAA, for the Cessna 152, Cessna 172, Cessna 182, the Symphony SA-160, and the Cirrus line of light aircraft (where the system is actually integrated into the design of the airframe), the SRV, SR20, and SR22. A retrofit kit is available for a host of other aircraft (under 1600 lbs. GW) and Lightweights.
The goal of this system is the survival of the crew and passengers and not necessarily the prevention of damage to the airframe. Since it's invention in 1982, over 180 deployments have been successfully made without a single loss of life. The aircraft will usually sustain significant landing gear and/or airframe damage, but who cares? Any crash you can walk away from...
Happy Motoring!... Jim'99