The invention is concerned with an emergency system for safely landing disabled aircraft without serious damage to the aircraft or to the occupants thereof. The system preferably includes a parachute connected to the aircraft by a flexible cable and normally housed in a turret from which it may be quickly ejected and deployed in times of emergency to preliminarily reduce both the forward motion and the rate of descent of the aircraft. The system also includes an inflatable envelope or balloon which is flexibly connected to the aircraft and normally stored in a separate turret from which it can be ejected and quickly filled with air and/or a heated gaseous medium as derived from the exhaust of a jet engine or other appropriate source on the aircraft, following sufficient retardation of the rate of descent by the previously deployed parachute to avoid damage to the envelope or balloon. By suitably regulating the flow of the heated gaseous medium and the resulting mixture thereof with the air in the balloon, the rate of descent of the aircraft can be reduced to a safe landing speed which prevents or minimizes impact damage to the aircraft and to the occupants thereof upon impact with the ground under emergency conditions such as may be caused by power failure during flight.
An in-flight aircraft recovery system utilizing an inflatable wing of generally rectangular planform configuration stowed in a normally collapsed condition in a compartment located on the upper portion of the fuselage in the vicinity of the plane's center of gravity. Upon deployment, the compartment's cover is ejected and a first parawing type pilot chute lifts a container including the inflatable wing from the compartment and above the tail section of the aircraft. The first pilot chute is jettisoned along with the container after the suspension lines are fully extracted and a second pilot chute of a similar parawing configuration attached to the wing is deployed which positions the inflatable wing above the aircraft with the wing then being inflated by means of a turbine driven compressor mounted on the airfoil surface. The inflatable wing when inflated comprises a rectangular wing including control surfaces in the form of controlled flaps at the wing trailing edge. The wing is connected to the airplane by means of a plurality of suspension lines which are attached to respective rotatable reels. The reels are further controlled for providing selective unreeling and braking of the lines during wing deployment and for subsequently altering not only the angle of attack of the inflated wing, but also the flaps so that the inflated wing flys the aircraft to a predetermined destination either by means of remote pilot control or beacon ground control.
The invention is a compressed gas rocket apparatus for deployment of emergency parachutes, rescue lines and similar payloads. A pressurized vessel is equipped with a stopping or sealing mechanism which, when removed or punctured, causes the pressure vessel to be launched. A drag line connected to the vessel pulls the payload away from the launch point, in the direction of the pressure vessel travel.
