Nigel_
Second Officer
Flight distance : 388642 ft
United Kingdom
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"if someone could come up with a parachute recovery system for around $200 dollars would you consider buying one?"
I guess it is going to be single use, probably requiring explosives for deployment?
The Phantom already has a sort of parachute, if it falls from 400ft then as the propellers slow it starts to plummet towards Earth, then when the propellers stop it becomes unstable, then the propellers spin up backwards and generate enough drag that if it lands on something soft it can survive undamaged, on harder ground the landing gear is sacrificed but that is still cheaper to replace than a $200 single use parachute, on hard ground the gimbal is also sacrificed, currently that is a bit expensive on a P4P but not too bad on a P4. So from 400ft I'm not sure a parachute is either required or cost effective.
Most damage is caused when falling from 50ft since it hits the ground while the propellers are stopped, it's falling fast and it is unstable so often an arm gets destroyed, but from 50ft with a parachute, it's going to take 20ft to decide to deploy, another 30ft to open, when it hits the ground the parachute will have had little effect, nobody is going to pay $200 for something that doesn't work when it is most needed, except possibly if it comes with free insurance against it not working, which would probably put the manufacturers out of business fairly fast!
Of course most falls causing damage on a P4 so far have been covered by warrantee.
Quite a few of the remaining ones have been caused by hitting something above the aircraft where a parachute that deploys upwards may not work well.
And most of the rest have been from flying into things at altitudes where the parachute isn't going to have time to deploy.
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