SonexBuilders.net

I have been flying hangliders and trikes for 20 yrs and am now in the market for a sonex. My question is does anyone or has anyone put recovery chutes on these.

No the only Sonex with a chute is the new sub Sonex jet. Something about the main structure attach points prevents the regular Sonex's from having one (decapitation). Nothing stopping you from wearing a Softie bail out chute though.

I am an advocate for a recovery parachute. As a former paratrooper I have no problem jumping out myself. However, if I bring my mom or a my nine year old son on board and there is an emergency requiring a bailout, I have zero faith that they would be able to safely get out of the plane and deploy their chute.

Someday I hope that someone comes out with a safe BRS type system for a Sonex. I will buy it.

There are MANY STRONG opinions on this. Here is an early thread with close to a hundred responses:

http://sonexbuilders.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1797&hilit=Brs

I look forward to a successful engineering of a BRS into a Sonex. I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. But if someone cracks that egg, I'm listening.

I did find out an interesting tidbit about BRS in ultralights. At Airventure, was looking at several new designs and most had BRS. Seemed these fly low and slow, don't do aerobatics, don't tend to fold up in flight. So why the BRS? You lose your engine, just land. Well, it seems that to qualify for 103, empty weight is key. But they give you a 50lbs allowance for safety equipment. Well, seems most BRS weigh around 20 lbs so that gives you 30 lbs extra to add to other stuff like engines and maintain 103 compliance.

fastj22 wrote:I look forward to a successful engineering of a BRS into a Sonex. I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. But if someone cracks that egg, I'm listening.

I did find out an interesting tidbit about BRS in ultralights. At Airventure, was looking at several new designs and most had BRS. Seemed these fly low and slow, don't do aerobatics, don't tend to fold up in flight. So why the BRS? You lose your engine, just land. Well, it seems that to qualify for 103, empty weight is key. But they give you a 50lbs allowance for safety equipment. Well, seems most BRS weigh around 20 lbs so that gives you 30 lbs extra to add to other stuff like engines and maintain 103 compliance.

Well, not exactly....

An ultralight is allowed to weigh 254 lbs empty. The additional allowance for certain emergency equipment (parachute) is 24 lbs. So you actually get about 4-5 lb "bonus" by having a chute. The 50 lb. allowance is for float equipped UL's...you get a 30 lb allowance for the main floats and 10 lbs each for tip floats.

The real reason for "why a BRS" is the same as for any plane. You only need a chute for a few reasons: medical incapacitation, structural/control failure, loss of control and weather.

Is there any reason a BRS can't be installed far off cg? I don't think it would be fun to drift back to earth nose down or tilted off center, but if you're incapacitated or structurally unsound it seems better than the alternative...

You'd probably suffer some aircraft damage but you'd get all the life saving benefits of a BRS system.

fejmather wrote:Is there any reason a BRS can't be installed far off cg? I don't think it would be fun to drift back to earth nose down or tilted off center, but if you're incapacitated or structurally unsound it seems better than the alternative...

You'd probably suffer some aircraft damage but you'd get all the life saving benefits of a BRS system.

the two issues I see is
1) putting a 30lb BRS in or aft of the baggage compartment would make it very difficult to keep the plane in CG or severely reduce your baggage load.
2) the attachment cables typically loop around the spar. The spar is under your legs. There would be very few deployment angles that wouldn't ruin your day when those cables tighten under the load of a falling aircraft.

One possible way would be to mount it on the belly with the cables around the spar and through the belly. In the event of deployment, it would fire down and the aircraft would come down inverted. Not optimal, but survivable with our high turtledeck.

Several Zenith 601s and 650s are fitted with BRS, the configuration of these planes is similar to a Sonex (low wing, bubble canopy) and a similar set of straps/mounts/fairings, and frangible panels could probably be made to work. Here's one example.http://www.zenith.aero/photo/brs-installed?context=album&albumId=2606393%3AAlbum%3A197346

It involves two attach points near the top of the firewall, and two behind the cockpit. The BRS can be mounted in front (behind the engine) or behind the cockpit. The side-opening Sonex canopy could be retained, but quick-removal hinge-pins would be needed to assure that the canopy could be opened with the suspension harness in place.

With these BRS, coming down on the landing gear is definitely preferable--and it's got nothing to do with damage to the aircraft (once you pull the handle, consider the plane to be a write-off. The BRS is to be used to save lives, not to reduce damage to the airframe). The landing gear provides a lot of very important energy absorption, which reduces the landing deceleration/ risk to occupants. Descent velocity for these systems is usually about 25 FPS, or about the same as a drop from 9 feet up. Now, imagine being suspended in your Sonex cockpit and dropped 9 feet onto the pavement--I'd much rather do that upright (and let the tires/gear absorb a lot of the energy over about 18" of travel/bending) than be inverted (with my noggin about an inch from the canopy). But either way, a lot of things will be bent and broken.

For the record, I would not want a BRS in a Sonex, even if an installation could be engineered, given the tradeoffs and the risk/benefit.

Hi Ogeeez,

I think I know of someone who was thinking adapting a recovery chute on his Sonex in France. Not sure if he has completed his project. I think the chute would be stored against the firewall.
Perhaps he's monitoring this forum as well.