Building Escape Parachutes - a summary of designs

[pchapman 261]

I've put together a rather long post on building escape parachutes, looking at the various designs I read about. Over the years I was curious about these devices, and all the variations that were marketed.

So I thought I'd summarize the info I collected. Post if you have corrections or further info, especially on the lesser known systems.

I have used only information available on the web, some of which took considerable digging. It would be interesting to contact people at the companies involved and get their retrospective view of what may well have been largely a short-lived industry.

(P.S. - If anyone replies, let's keep this to the history of these devices, not whether it's all a dumb idea or not.)

================================

Building Escape Parachutes

The idea of using of parachutes to escape from buildings is not new. There was daVinci in the 1400's, and Faust Vrancic in the 1500's, US patents by Americans and Austro-Hungarians in 1911, and a US patent for a South American inventor in the 1970s for example.

Marketed designs, however, became common after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US. There is considerable variation in design and design philosophy, which makes the differences interesting. Much argument is possible about the degree to which such products are needed or practical, and whether the companies involved were just trying to make a quick buck or were attempting to fill a perceived need among the public.

Building escape system canopy choices vary from unsteerable pull-down apex round paragliding emergency parachutes, to a pilot's round reserve, to a Rogallo paragliding emergency parachute, to a square BASE canopy.

All systems use a static line deployment system, direct bagged as far as I can see. The static lines are long, to allow hooking up to something solid somewhere inside the room.

Harness designs vary in the type and number of connections, and to what degree the straps are loose or integrated into a 'vest' that covers some of the holes between the straps. I could see that harnesses with a lot of loose straps could be difficult for almost-untrained people to use. More than one person commented on a poor demonstration on a popular TV show in late 2001. As dropzone.com moderator PhreeZone wrote:

"The host asked the seller to have his assistant put the system on after the seller just said how quickly and easily these systems could be put on. The lady couldn't get the leg straps on and actually had to be caught from falling over trying to put it on. Then she managed to get the chest strap and the static line tangled together. The chest strap was a B-12 connecter, and when she finally got it put on (over 3 minutes) the static line was wrapped around her, under the main lift webs, through the B-12 connector and under the sleeve."

Despite the large variation in design philosophy, product info from the companies tends to be sketchy or even evasive. At times there's little information about why a company believes their choices might be better than those of another company. The marketers of the products are often not those who designed and who manufacture the product, and the web sites are often very vague about these relationships.

I wonder how many of the devices have actually been sold!

Here are seven different designs of modern building escape parachutes:


Executive Chute (a.k.a. Escapeline)
The Executive Chute is a light weight system, with the canopy in a narrow backpack container.

The canopy is supposed to be from an established emergency parachute company. Although the supplier was not mentioned, research shows it to be from the well known Apco paraglider company in Israel. Their paragliding-certified Mayday design is an unsteerable pull-down apex design of about 325 ft. sq. (That compares to a Phantom 22 at 315 ft. sq., but the pull-down apex makes significantly more effective use of its area in creating drag.)

Although there are various dangling harness straps, there are some attempts to clarify how to put the harness on: large coloured labels are used to identify the straps, the two leg straps are tied together, the leg straps are step-in with no adjustments, and so the only connection to be made is a slip-through buckle at the chest. However, this was the system mentioned above where a person bungled the procedure to don the harness properly.

The company and its head, John Rivers, gathered a lot of publicity in the months after 9/11. John was interviewed for numerous newspaper articles, and claimed "hundreds of orders on the books". He states that he was working on a parachute escape system concept in the year before 9/11, after being questioned by an insurance company executive, but until 9/11 dropped the idea both because of the lack of market and technical considerations.

The original website, www.executivechute.com, is gone, but Executive Chute now runs a site at escapeline.com/parachute.htm. John Rivers is based in the midwest US, and has a background leading a powered parachute company, Destiny Aircraft, which appears to now be defunct.

The video on the website of a test drop is currently not working. What kind of test it is is unclear. At least early in the design's history, the Executive Chute was criticized for having test drops only of dummies off a crane, not a person from a building.

The stated descent rate of 900-1000 fpm (15-17 fps) is considered by the company to be good for getting the jumper to the ground quickly, "to avoid floating precariously on air currents".

What the descent rate would actually be for this or some of the other escape chutes is not certain. Pull-down apex designs are less stable than well vented round canopies that skydivers were used to. It is still an issue of discussion in the paragliding industry just how stable the canopies will be in use. The use of long bridle lines, and the extra drag of the collapsed paraglider (not applicable to escape chutes) will reduce the tendency to oscillate. Whether or not a particular design will oscillate, and drop faster than the ideal test results indicate, is not clear.

The Executive Chute is supposed to be used from no lower than 15 stories or 125 ft. Repacks are recommended every 3 to 5 years. While one early report suggested some form of vacuum packing was used, this can't now apply, as the company states that any certified parachute maintainer can do the repacks. The repack interval is particularly generous and progressive. Even in paragliding, repacks are usually recommended at least yearly.

The price is $1200. This is up from a very low price of $799 at which it was marketed as late as 2006. For a business as small as escape parachutes, it will be difficult to decide on a sales price that not only covers production costs for each chute, but that of setting up the company and designing the product in the first place.


H.O.P.E.
The High Office Parachute System comes from Aerial Egress Inc., formed by "three of the most experienced and capable people in the parachuting industry today." One of those was Anne Helliwell, in 2001 at the Basic Research BASE company, now incorporated into Apex BASE. The H.O.P.E. was on Basic's web site, but is not on Apex's site now, nor does there appear to be any Aerial Egress web site. However there is still a phone number, which happens to match that of Apex BASE.

The system is available through an independent emergency equipment supplier www.saferamerica.com, which lists three of the systems in this article. (All three are stated to be "in stock", if that is to be believed.) At that site, no information is provided on the canopy type or repacking requirements.

One observer at Vertigo stated that the prototype was ready within days of 9/11. I did once see a video of Helliwell test jumping a system from a bridge, but I'm not sure whether it was over land or water. The canopy appeared to be a small pull-down apex round canopy. A well known BASE jumper wrote that the canopy was based on existing technology. Between that and the timing, it suggests that a modified paragliding emergency canopy was used, as such canopies are not in production in the BASE world. While I don't know the source of the canopy, the only American source I know of for pull-down apex rounds is Wills Wing, a hang glider company. Their emergency canopies are built for them by Free Flight Enterprises, which like the other companies is also in California and has a skydiving industry experience.

The observer also suggested that the canopy was very small. If so, it was a conscious decision by Aerial Egress to provide a lightweight, inexpensive unit. While pull-down apex canopies are available in different sizes, for some applications they are built small because it is assumed that the broken hang-glider is still providing some drag area to reduce descent rate. Without that drag, the canopy will be even more high performance in terms of descent rate.

The H.O.P.E.'s performance is unknown. The system is suggested for use from heights over 100 feet, or approximately 9-10 floors. Cost is $1,145.

Evacuchute
The Evacuchute company upgraded their web page in the last year or two (www.evacuchute.com), with more information than I've seen on any other design, so they are actively marketing their design.

The Evacuchute uses a conical round canopy with meshed drive vents. The canopy is certified to TSO C23d (175 mph!), so it is stronger than the systems based on paraglider emergency parachutes, which typically are tested to around 80-90 mph maximum. The company does emphasize this choice of large, high strength, steerable canopy, rather than a light weight unsteerable pull-down apex from the paragliding world. Photos of the harness show it to be quite heavy duty, being a small variation on a pilot emergency rig.

They show a video of a live jump from a building, although a small ramp is used for a little extra clearance. Even with the conical design and steering vents, it is a round canopy, so there is some initial oscillation after opening, and with the wind the jumper ends moving backwards on landing.

The web site says little about what the company really is and where its experience was gained. For an address, there is only a California post office box listed. Extensive design experience is alluded to, and photos suggest manufacturing capabilities and experience with products such as ballistically deployed ultralight aircraft recovery parachutes. However, the California company can't be much more than a location for marketing and perhaps servicing of their product. Searching on the web establishes that the canopy comes from the Czech firm Stratos 07, which builds various parachute products for different area of aviation. They developed the product, the Stratos owner states, and the technology is licenced by Evacuchute.

The Evacuchute system includes interesting and possibly useful accessories not found with the other designs, a helmet, hook knife, smoke-hood, and attachment bag for infants and small pets. A variant is marketed to "professional rescue workers", which has a larger carry bag that can be hooked up in front, and uses fire resistant container materials. "Coming soon" is a tandem harness attachment system for rescuing civilians, although there is no word on what will be done for a canopy.

Evacuchute suggest its products be used from 140 ft or 15 stories upwards. The regular canopy is about 430 ft. sq. (which roughly corresponds to a typical "26 ft" conical round), and offers an 18 fps descent at 220 lbs. Annual repacks by the company are recommended, with porosity and strength tests every five years. The Evacuchute comes in two sizes, and costs $1499.


e-vest
The e-vest ("escape vest") uses a steerable, flarable Rogallo. The canopy is most likely one of the European Rogallo designs that have been certified as paraglider emergency parachutes, given that the company is Austrian and states that it has people involved who have long experience in the field of hang glider and paraglider emergency parachutes.

Using the Rogallo is a very interesting compromise, that allows for a lightweight single surface canopy with some round canopy characteristics, yet still has reasonable forward speed and easy steering. Like a pull-down apex round, the relatively flat design of the Rogallo gives it a fast opening. The canopy is about 400 square feet, although that is hard to compare to either round or square canopies.

The harness clearly is based on paraglider harnesses, so it is shaped to provide a sitting position (not hanging straighter as for a parachute harness), and does not suffer from a lot of straps hanging loosely. The connections are simple, for there are only two to be made: a snap connector on the belly strap connects to a combined pair of leg straps and to the snap on the other side of the belly strap. As used on many paragliding harnesses, the connector design makes it impossible to do up the belly strap yet leave the leg straps accidentally undone.

A clever feature is an integrated airbag that inflates under the seat after launch, in order to cushion a bad landing. This technology is also from the paragliding world.

The e-vest is marketed through www.conceptsafety.com. Live tests from buildings and other launch points are shown. They also have a slightly morbid page showing numerous hi-rise fires from around the world. The last news items on the site are from 2004. No prices are given.

EscapeChute
The EscapeChute was made available, although little marketed, by Precision Aerodynamics. Its page on the company's website no longer exists. Owner George Galloway made the concept available very quickly after 9/11 when the issue came up, but it was in his words simply listed on a web page without any advertising at all, "to act more like a lightning rod to measure the public scope of interest in this idea, than as a real sales tool." Galloway said he did not want to seem opportunistic.

The EscapeChute was developed along with Vertigo BASE, now part of Apex BASE, and is not on the latter's site either. One model was simply the Dagger BASE canopy (that Precision has manufactured for Vertigo/Apex BASE), with Vertigo's Wizard BASE container, plus a full length deployment bag for the static line system. Eight canopy sizes were available, and it was marketed for heights of 120 ft and above.

Galloway wrote in September 2001 that he was working on a static lined round canopy version as well, in his opinion more suited for the untrained.

The details of the models actually marketed and not just experimented with are unclear to me. The company stated that the basic model is worn like a traditional parachute, and the deluxe model is worn like a garment (which would fill unused holes between straps). One source gave prices as starting at $1575, while another mentioned a low end price of $900, which would for cost reasons have to refer to a round canopy version.

BES -- Building Escape System
Brian Choppin, an active BASE jumper around 2001 in California, started the Building Escape company in the months after 9/11, but his website a www.buildingescape.com is no longer active. Mick Knutson might have been involved, since he had a web page for the BES on his own site, which was a well known BASE website at the time. I have found nothing more about the design of his system.

Egress Parachute System
As of late October 2001, it was reported in an interview with Nancy LaRiviere of JumpShack, that JumpShack was selling an Egress Parachute System. I have heard nothing further about this system.

[howardwhite 5]

You and Beatnik have already responded to a post I made a while ago about the H.O. Bucker escape canopy.
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2600274;search_string=bucker;#2600274

I guess that's the "South American inventor" you refer to. It is, of course, obscure, but did get a mention in Parachutist -- a letter from Bucker, if I remember rightly.

HW

[NickDG 23]

Nice job, Peter . . .

I was in on the HOPE system when Basic Research first designed and marketed it. "HOPE" stood for High Office Parachute Escape. And yes, it is still available from Apex (which used to be Basic Research.)

The reason Basic Research got into it was one day, after 9/11, we saw the Executive Chute being marketed on the web and I took it to Todd Shoebotham and said, "Look at this, these guys don't even jump!"

I saw it as non-jumpers piling on the 9/11 bandwagon and cashing in by using off the shelf technology. In fact there is a hilarious early Executive Chute video where the "CEO" is showing a reporter how easy the system is to don but when the reporter gets tangled up even the CEO can’t figure it out.

So Basic Research designed a system, based on all we knew about BASE jumping and taking into account the users would be non-jumpers. But, and this is a big but, it's a last chance ditch effort at life saving. Just something a bit better than taking a flying leap unaided to escape smoke and flame. And we are always clear about saying that.

The earliest versions of these systems were first seen (besides Faust Veranso in the 16th century) from Jimmy Tyler in the early 1980s. In a segment for the TV show, "That's Incredible," Jimmy and friends showed off the first modern system for parachute building escape. They used rounds, but they first dropped a steel cable off the building rooftop. Below the fire department tied off the cable to the bumper of a fire engine and backed up until it was taught and at a 45 degree angle. The jumpers on the roof then clipped onto the cable with carabineers and jumped. The rounds opened, retarding the fall, while the cable delivered the jumpers right into the hands of the firefighters. The idea here was even Granny could manage it.

Overall these systems have met with uncertainty, and mainly because most people would rather believe they'll never be in a position to need them. And the analogy of a life vest on a boat and a parachute on a tall building hasn't quite sunk in yet. But as the world builds taller and taller structures I think it's just a matter of time. It will just take one person to actually save themselves this way, and bingo . . .

And yes, Anne Helliwell, of then Basic Research, jumped the HOPE System at the Potato Bridge and landed it on land without injury. But yes, a non-steerable small round parachute, over an urban area, is a big death sandwich to bite from, but wuffos tend to get the idea when most skydivers don't because they don't over-think it.

Donald Trump bought a bunch of them and they also hung in a window of Sporting Goods store in New York's Time's Square and they sold fine. The question you have to ask yourself is this - jump and try - or stay and fry . . . ?

NickD