Re: minimum weight
But delaying the parachute opening allows the seat to slow down a little??? What laws of physics are in operation here?
The seat has a two-stage parachute system: as the seat leaves the airframe, a rocket is fired from the top which putts a drogue chute out.The main chute is delayed by a fixed time delay and an air pressure switch (the barostat), preventing the chute from deploying if the seat is too high or travelling too fast.
Prior to the main chute being deployed, the drogue slows the descent of the seat. Once the barostat has fired, it then pulls the main chute out.
Also, bodies of different masses fall with the same acceleration. Some old Italian dude is credited with that one. So what difference does the pilot's weight make?
By the time the main chute deploys, the seat frame has been thrown away, and only the pilot's weight remains in the harness. The force exerted by the parachute is going to be pretty much constant for a given descent speed, and the resulting acceleration is given by Newton's second law. The heavier the pilot, the lower the deceleration.
Vic.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
