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NASA dropping a C172


coppercity

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On a more serious note...

 

Those "legacy" planes were often designed and built with minimal thought to occupant protection.

 

I think the Mooney stood out as providing a "cage" to protect the occupants.

 

And from the CT accidents I've seen, Flight Design seems to have done an admirable job of designing protection into the "egg" shape of the passenger compartment. I see far less of that in other Light Sport designs, including my Sky Arrow and from what I can tell, the RV12.

 

Kudos to Flight Design for a job well done.

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I've watched hundreds of these high speed videos when I designed fuel tanks.  I notice that the passenger's shoulder harness broke loose.  The slow motion video @ 3:50 shows this happening. Roof anchor appears to hold but belt looks like it snaps or unfastens?  Looks like they were comparing seat belts only (pilot) to seat + shoulder (passenger).  I've wondered how robust the roof attachments are for the shoulder belts.  Guess this is still unanswered for me due to this result.  Definitely need the BRS but as others, I'm wondering what the impact speed was here?  Could be a nose buster even with BRS if an immovable object is center punched @ impact.  Probably shoulder + air bag + BRS would be even better but this is a lot of weight added.

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I know the guy who owned this plane.  Apparently it had some problems that would have cost too much to fix so he sold the plane to NASA for the big drop.  As I understand it, it was a big deal planning for the drop.

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