Author: Chen Dengxin, editor: Lang Ying.
On the evening of New Year’s Eve on January 24, 2020, Kobe sent Chinese New Year’s greetings to Chinese netizens via Weibo. Three days later, global fans were saddened.
In the early morning of January 27, Beijing time, domestic and foreign media reported that a helicopter crash occurred in Calabasas, Los Angeles County, California. The accident killed 9 people. NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his second daughter, Ji Gigi was killed.
“I was sitting at the dining table when I heard the sound of the propeller. It was foggy and the visibility was less than 20 meters. I heard a loud noise when looking out the window nearest me, a few seconds After the silence, a fireball erupted from the hillside, “said a 62-year-old eyewitness, Jerry.” I rushed to the street and the visibility was very low. I only saw through the telescope that the helicopter had been shredded into many pieces and was on fire. . “
According to the latest foreign media reports, Kobe ’s helicopter encountered heavy fog while passing over the Los Angeles Zoo. The helicopter circled at least six times at a low altitude. After that, the fog increased, forcing the helicopter to fly south and approach the mountainous area. Can’t escape to hit the mountain.
Aiming at this tragedy, Kobe fans in the tiger flapping community started an extensive discussion about why helicopters cannot parachute. However, skydiving is a pseudo-proposition, and there is no such option in real life.
Helicopter does not meet the conditions for skydiving
Globally, helicopter flight safety has always been a difficult problem.
According to the statistics of the Japan Transportation Safety Commission, a total of 436 helicopter accidents occurred between 1974 and October 25, 2018, more than one-third of all aircraft accidents, and there are seven aircraft types.Most accidental aircraft.
Data from the United States Federal Aviation Administration show that there were 106 helicopter accidents in the United States in 2016, of which 17 were fatal. The accident rate per 100,000 flight hours was 3.19%, which is also much higher than the safety record of passenger aircraft.
The Kobe’s helicopter is Sikorsky S-76. It has been manufactured in 1991 and has 29 years of age. The price is about 15 million US dollars. The accident rate per 100,000 flight hours is only 0.22%. , Is a relatively safer model, but a relatively lower accident rate can not save Kobe.
In this context, when designing an escape system for helicopters, the mainstream trend is still to start with anti-collision without considering parachuting. Why?
First, time is too late. When an accident occurs, it is often an instantaneous event. There is almost no time to carry a parachute and open the door to jump. For example, when Kobe ’s helicopter was in an accident, the altitude from the ground was 411.5 meters, and the descending speed was 1482.5 meters per minute. The flight time for the crew members was less than 17 seconds. Whether they can successfully put on the parachute at this point is a problem.
A skydiving enthusiast told Zinc Scales: “Skydiving from a 400-meter tall building can be successful, provided that it is fully trained, prepared in advance, and the take-off height is not changed. Obviously, the helicopter Kobe was riding did not meet the above conditions. . “
Second, it is not safe. Many industry insiders have publicly stated that when the helicopter crashed, the surrounding airflow environment and airframe attitude changed rapidly. If accidentally involved, it could be involved, and it was difficult to escape safely in the form of a parachute. Currently, military helicopters use catapults to escape.
According to the companyAccording to the report, only the Russian Ka-50 / Ka-52 armed helicopters equipped with ejection escape systems worldwide. Before the ejection, the pilot manually activated the explosion spiral at the bottom of the propeller blades to ensure that all 6 blades were blown up and detached. Quickly out of the cockpit, the ejection rocket on the back of the pilot’s seat completed the ignition, and flew out of the helicopter with the pilot’s connected seat ejected.
Some senior military fans indicated to the zinc scale: “Between electro-optic and flint, to test the pilot’s ability to respond, the full set of operations must be seamlessly connected.” Again, spin maneuvers are equivalent to being equipped with parachutes. When a helicopter is in an accident, most of the cases are not planted at one end, but descended by rotation. At this time, the main rotor is like a large parachute, which reduces the falling speed to a certain extent.
Civil aviation is not equipped with a parachute
It’s not just helicopters. Civil aviation did not consider parachuting when designing: at high altitudes and high speeds, it is not suitable for most people to choose parachuting to escape.
The maximum altitude that a human body can withstand is about 4,000 meters. When the aircraft is flying at high altitude, it must be pressurized in order to ensure the safety of passengers.
LIM KHOY HING, a flight simulator instructor at AirAsia AACE Flight Academy, once stated publicly: “Unless the aircraft descends at 10,000 feet, the hatch cannot be opened in mid-air, even if you open the door, at high speed and chaotic air flow Under this circumstance, any passenger who tries to jump out will be extremely vulnerable, including crashing into an aircraft or being caught in the engine. “
Even if it is not injured, it will face the test of hypothermia and hypoxia.
The cruising altitude of civil airliners is generally around 40,000 feet. This altitude corresponds to a temperature of minus 56 degrees and the oxygen is thin. Skydivers quickly lose consciousness and encounter a life crisis.
In addition, the standard parachute is mostly suitable for opening at a speed of about 110 knots, while civil aviation aircraft mostly fly at a speed of 400 knots to 500 knots (editor’s note: 1 knot = 1.852 km / h), in this state parachuting The bag may be torn into pieces.
High-altitude and high-speed is not suitable for skydiving. Is it possible for a passenger plane to descend to low-altitude and low-speed?
A flight attendant answered the question about the zinc scale. Aside from the hard conditions, there are many soft conditions for skydiving: “The passengers on the plane are of different ages, different physical states, and different physiques, and most of them have never been trained and are present The teaching effect is different, the need to wear the umbrella bag, the control of the skydiving time, and the need to knowCan’t be standardized. “
In short, skydiving is not a consideration.
A pilot who knows the remarks as China Eastern Airlines said: “Looking back at the accident history of civil aviation for nearly 40 years, we know that there is no chance to parachute you in the event of an air crash. The most important point is that after a major situation of the aircraft, The plane is equipped with a parachute. Who would you guess would be the first one to come out? “
No one knows which of tomorrow and the accident will come first. When the accident arrives first, it doesn’t matter if you parachute.
The deceased is gone, the deceased is dead, Kobe will continue to carry forward the spirit of fearlessness in the face of strong enemies, and there is no Kobe in Los Angeles at four in the morning.