I've been saving these questions for a long time.

Factual Questions
21

The largest airplane I know of that can be equipped with an emergency descent parachute is the Cessna 150/152. There are homebuilts that are a little larger that are also equipped with them. No one has invented a parachute that is light enough for use with a commercial airliner.

Some military craft have a braking parachute they can deploy. If your friend’s flight was delayed by another craft that deployed a parachute out of its rear, it would have been military, not commercial.

22

Elbows: I’ve found a few odd books while travelling, too. When I get finished with a book, I just stick it on someones shelf next to some other books. Good books I send home.

23

Well, I just got back from the factory floor, and I can report the following, according to the commercial aircraft line foreman to whom I spoke.

  1. No current commercial Boeing aircraft has any kind of parachute, in or on the aircraft.
  2. No one can remember any Boeing commercial aircraft with a parachute attached. Some remember parachutes being carried in DC-3 types. (Remember that Boeing is now old Boeing + McDonnell Aircraft + Douglas Aircraft).
  3. The F-4 Phantom II was the last military aircraft that had 'em. The F/A-18, AV-8, T-45, F-15, F-16 (not ours, but we have oodles of intel on it), and C-17 do not.
  4. As a point of interest, did you know that the U.S. Air Force F-15 has a tailhook? Certainly not for carrier landings, but for arrested ground landings in emergency situations. At Lambert Field in St. Louis, we sometimes need to rig thte wires across the runway to trap a hurting F-15, F/A-18, or T-45.

Chuck L.
The Boeing Company

24

Its quite possible she meant “chutes” to mean those little yellow slides on the side of the aircraft. Despite all of the controversy it has caused here, it hasn’t been much of a conversation piece among me and my S.O. I’ll tak you guys word on it that there is indeed no such animal on any major comercial airliner.

Jason R Remy

“No amount of legislation can solve America’s problems.”
– Jimmy Carter (1980)