• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Study Proves Parachutes Don't Save People Who Fall Out Of Airplanes

I was once 'reliably informed' by an amateur historian / professional aviator that the USSR experimented with paratroops minus the 'chutes in WWII - as everyone knows, they are dead hard and that, so it sort of rings true.

Supposedly the method used was to jump from extremely low and slow aircraft into very deep snow and 'only' resulted in about 30% of the troops being killed or badly injured. Packing them in wooden crates filled with straw failed to improve on these statistics.

The reasons for this alleged experiment seem unclear (shortage of equipment? suicidal insanity?) and I've long since given up on trying to establish if there is any truth to the rumours.

These lucky Russkies in 1938 at least had parachutes - looks perfectly safe to me.

 
Last edited:
Mention of the earnest discussion of the apparent increased risk to soldiers when wearing helmets reminds me of a stories I heard first-hand from a worker at what was then known as British Aerospace in Lancashire.

He was designing computer software for military aircraft. The pilots used to test their aim, target lock-on systems and so on by buzzing fishing boats in the Irish Sea. The fishermen probably noticed but were used to it and nobody complained. They wouldn't know they were being used as target practice!

Another tale was about the statistical likelihood of saving an aircraft that developed problems in the air if there was no ejector seat.
If the pilot could eject, the thinking went, they might ditch before they'd tried everything, losing an expensive jet.

This was apparently what the computers had come up with; make the pilots stay with the plane at all costs!
 
escargot said:
This was apparently what the computers had come up with; make the pilots stay with the plane at all costs!
Click to expand...
Sounds like AI self interest to me. During WW2 with pilots getting shot down a lot, the focus was quite different. Planes were cheap and pilots were hard to replace due to training times, and the loss of experience in the air if they died.
 
escargot said:
Mention of the earnest discussion of the apparent increased risk to soldiers when wearing helmets reminds me of a stories I heard first-hand from a worker at what was then known as British Aerospace in Lancashire.

He was designing computer software for military aircraft. The pilots used to test their aim, target lock-on systems and so on by buzzing fishing boats in the Irish Sea. The fishermen probably noticed but were used to it and nobody complained. They wouldn't know they were being used as target practice!

Another tale was about the statistical likelihood of saving an aircraft that developed problems in the air if there was no ejector seat.
If the pilot could eject, the thinking went, they might ditch before they'd tried everything, losing an expensive jet.

This was apparently what the computers had come up with; make the pilots stay with the plane at all costs!
Click to expand...

The fishing boat story is true. I met a test pilot for BA in the 90's and he told me the same (I live close by BA). Funnily enough he had a badly broken arm at the time and asked him if a test had gone wrong. His wife sighed and quickly told me he had broken it jumping over the garden gate. Funny what you remember.
 
The experiment does clearly state that the subjects were jumping from a stationery platform.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top