AmSafe

[aviatoreb]

Looks like Amsafe is here!
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/april/12/amsafe-aftermarket-airbag-seatbelt-systems-in-the-works?utm_source=ePilot&utm_medium=email&utm_content=snf&utm_campaign=180412epilot

 

So is that it?  Is it available now?

Any idea of install time?

[carusoam]

Nice find, Erik!

Who and Where’s our AmSafe contact?

Best regards,

-a-

[Tommy]

Unlike the parachute, this is something we can all agree on that will save life. 

Any idea of how much it will cost? Parts + installation. 

 

[INA201]

It said a two seat kit was $2500.  Looks relatively easy to install.

 

[RobertGary1]

Its on all the Cessnas we fly. Its a pouch on the lap belt. You don't really notice it while flying. There is a 9v battery that requires periodic replacement and I believe the entire thing goes in the trash after 10 years. Or maybe you can exchange it. I've never crashed with it of seen it deploy.

-Robert

[aviatoreb]

So is it available now?

any guesses on install time?

[mike_elliott]

22 minutes ago, RobertGary1 said:

Its on all the Cessnas we fly. Its a pouch on the lap belt. You don't really notice it while flying. There is a 9v battery that requires periodic replacement and I believe the entire thing goes in the trash after 10 years. Or maybe you can exchange it. I've never crashed with it of seen it deploy.

-Robert

And better than that, it is on all the new or late model Mooneys if you care to fly one of them, Robert.

[EricJ]

I'm a little skeptical.   Automotive airbags typically take a ton of engineering for integration into a vehicle, partly because all of the safety systems need to be designed to work together and there are a lot of details that matter.

In race cars it is usually required to remove any factory airbags for a number of reasons, one of which is that they present a hazard to safety responders.   They can also interfere with safety systems that exist in a race car that don't exist in most street cars, and they can impede egress.

So I wouldn't conclude that it's a slam dunk, nor would I conclude that they're not useful.  Given the amount of engineering that it takes to really make such systems effective in cars, I'd be hesitant to adopt a retrofit into a vehicle, especially a generalized one, without a lot of background into the tradeoffs and considerations.

Just dos centavos, FWIW.  YMMV.

[mike_elliott]

They have been around in Mooney's for a while, this isn't new ground breaking stuff, just FAA new stuff for the older models and hopefully available at some point. It isn't a street car converted for SCCA or off road racing either. Its just a simple airplane that I sure wish had AMsafe belts of other airbag technology in when I went down in one. It might have saved me 14 broken ribs and a host of other broken bones and stuff, and perhaps saved Bill.

[Tommy]

Our cabin environment is a lot more like a normal family sedan than a race care. In a race car, the driver wear helmet so s/he does not get knocked unconscious by the steering wheel / dash / windshield - one of the few benefits offered by the air bag. Don't think helmets are viable alternatives in our case. Also the race cars are often subjected to high G manoeuvre which increases the risk of accidental deployment. For the same argument, it's probably not a good idea to fit one on a Red Bull Air Race plane. 

You spoke like this air bag stuff is some sort of ground breaking new technology. It has been around for many years and proven to save life. There are also plenty of test and quality standards to adhere to. 

In my 10 years as a critical care specialist, I never heard of airbag being an "obstruction" to the rescue effort. They are normally deployed and the bag deflates easily. 

The only legitimate concerns will be 1) accidental deployment but depending on how it is designed, it may well be a non-event. 2) non-deployment. Well.... 

 

[320KPH]

there's motorcycle airbag jackets now too...

 

The suits detect crashes prior to impact thanks to built-in accelerometers, and a trio of gyroscopes. Dainese's system also utilizes a GPS unit. These sensors constantly feed data to a main computer, communicating around 1,000 times per second. The use of multiple sensors works as a safeguard to prevent false deployments and to ensure deployments do occur when needed. If one accelerometer senses a crash and the others don’t, the system won’t deploy. Because this technology is so well refined, there are no recorded instances of either systems deploying falsely or failing to deploy when needed.

The GPS on the D-Air system is another important element as it allows the ECU to know how fast the bike is moving and whether or not to deploy based on speed. So, for example, if you drop your suit on the ground, it will know that it isn’t moving quickly and won’t deploy. In fact it won't deploy under 25-30 mph. The Tech-Air system uses an advanced algorithm instead of a GPS unit. The advanced software has logged two decades of crashes and can determine when a wreck is traumatic enough to necessitate deployment of the airbag. The Tech-Air system also goes into a stand-by mode while off the bike, assuming the rider is out of harm's way.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

Our cabin environment is a lot more like a normal family sedan than a race care. In a race car, the driver wear helmet so s/he does not get knocked unconscious by the steering wheel / dash / windshield - one of the few benefits offered by the air bag. Don't think helmets are viable alternatives in our case. Also the race cars are often subjected to high G manoeuvre which increases the risk of accidental deployment. For the same argument, it's probably not a good idea to fit one on a Red Bull Air Race plane. 

You spoke like this air bag stuff is some sort of ground breaking new technology. It has been around for many years and proven to save life. There are also plenty of test and quality standards to adhere to. 

In my 10 years as a critical care specialist, I never heard of airbag being an "obstruction" to the rescue effort. They are normally deployed and the bag deflates easily. 

The only legitimate concerns will be 1) accidental deployment but depending on how it is designed, it may well be a non-event. 2) non-deployment. Well.... 

 

The point is not the environment, it's the interactions of everything in the environment.   In a street car the entire vehicle is designed as a safety system, and the air bags, passive restraints, seats, crumple zones, etc., are all designed together so that they work as a system and interact appropriately and don't defeat each other.   Retrofitting a bag system to an environment that wasn't designed around it seems sketchy to me.   That's all.   This is also why race cars typically don't have bags:  everything else in the environment has been changed, so the interactions won't be the same.   A race seat behaves very differently in a crash than a street car seat, because it's designed to be used with a cage around it and a harness on the driver, which a street car doesn't have.   Any one piece of the safety system may not be as effective without the rest of the pieces that are supposed to go with it, and bags are just one piece in a bigger puzzle.   If the rest of the puzzle doesn't go with it, it may not work as expected.

The issue with rescue (and a lot of other issues having to do bags) is that they release a LOT of energy when they go off, so they're a hazard in a crash to rescuers when they have NOT gone off.  In a modified vehicle, like a race car, this is a potential problem.   This is also why bags deserve a lot of respect when put in an environment that they haven't been specifically designed into.   Wearing one attached to a belt makes me even more hesitant for this reason.

Maybe a lot of engineering went into these and my concerns are not valid, that's just my two cents.

[carusoam]

Stay positive...

These highly engineered systems have been around a while...

Approved for all long body Mooneys...

Kind of odd for anyone with a Mooney that is not a long body... the front of the cabin, the yokes and steel cage, are so similar...

What was missing was the FAA paperwork...

The paperwork only existed for the long Bodies...

The most frequent accidents that MSers have involve high speed ground operations... like landing off Airport with an engine out...

Getting it down is great... then there are the ground obstacles... High deceleration and sheet metal tearing...

Being conscious to exit the plane is going to be helpful...

 

This is  nice to hear...  it would be better to hear it directly from the source...  We had an MSer at one time, associated with AmSafe...

Please be nice if he comes around. ask tough questions... they have answers.

I would be happy to have warning decals applied for rescue personnel...

Best regards,

-a-

[carusoam]

I wrote a letter a few months ago... to AmSafe... don’t see a response...

 

If anyone has a contact.  Let’s get it shared....  

best regards,

-a-

 

 

[Tommy]

4 hours ago, EricJ said:

The point is not the environment, it's the interactions of everything in the environment.   In a street car the entire vehicle is designed as a safety system, and the air bags, passive restraints, seats, crumple zones, etc., are all designed together so that they work as a system and interact appropriately and don't defeat each other.   Retrofitting a bag system to an environment that wasn't designed around it seems sketchy to me.   That's all.   This is also why race cars typically don't have bags:  everything else in the environment has been changed, so the interactions won't be the same.   A race seat behaves very differently in a crash than a street car seat, because it's designed to be used with a cage around it and a harness on the driver, which a street car doesn't have.   Any one piece of the safety system may not be as effective without the rest of the pieces that are supposed to go with it, and bags are just one piece in a bigger puzzle.   If the rest of the puzzle doesn't go with it, it may not work as expected.

The issue with rescue (and a lot of other issues having to do bags) is that they release a LOT of energy when they go off, so they're a hazard in a crash to rescuers when they have NOT gone off.  In a modified vehicle, like a race car, this is a potential problem.   This is also why bags deserve a lot of respect when put in an environment that they haven't been specifically designed into.   Wearing one attached to a belt makes me even more hesitant for this reason.

Maybe a lot of engineering went into these and my concerns are not valid, that's just my two cents.

The Mooney cabin is really no different to a street car. 

The air bags have been a standard safety feature on billions of cars and thousands of GA aircrafts in the last 15 years. If the problems / concerns that you mentioned are genuine and real, they would've been removed a long time ago. 

Billions...

I am just not sure what more evidences do you need? Do you also have doubts on seatbelts and helmets?

 

[tony]

Tommy,

What Eric is saying is that in a car, there are many design features that are Incorporated to increase the delta T (Extend the time of the deceleration).  This is done by sensors up front predicting the crash and crumple zones to extend the time of the crash.  Its hard to see how a self contained unit can be effective (fast enough ) to increase the delta T.    I agree with Eric, I'm skeptical.  I"m having a hard time seeing how this is going to be effective.  It will deploy, but will it be effective.  Might just be a waste of money.  

Tony

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by tony

[INA201]

The good thing about a plane is that in most cases the aircraft goes straight into an obstruction during an accident.  Aircraft usually don’t have side impacts.  I’d like to see a little more data on this. If this thing protects frontal impact injuries effectively then having the airbags in addition to our steel cages is on its way to being a really effective safety net.  There are still a lot accidents that airbags will not protect you in.  

[aviatoreb]

Im not hemming and hawing IF I will get this, but how much it will cost and where I should go to get it installed.  I have literally been waiting for this for about 8 or 9 years for my mooney when I used to email to AmSafe hoping they would extend their STC to my airplane.

Airbags are good....  I learned that again about 2 years ago in a car accident in which the car was totaled and all I got was a bruised chest from the seatbelt catching me so hard and my son came away just achy.

This seems a very reasonable price point.  I am just curious how much the install time and how hard it is to do...any ideas?

[Tommy]

11 hours ago, tony said:

Tommy,

What Eric is saying is that in a car, there are many design features that are Incorporated to increase the delta T (Extend the time of the deceleration).  This is done by sensors up front predicting the crash and crumple zones to extend the time of the crash.  Its hard to see how a self contained unit can be effective (fast enough ) to increase the delta T.    I agree with Eric, I'm skeptical.  I"m having a hard time seeing how this is going to be effective.  It will deploy, but will it be effective.  Might just be a waste of money.  

Tony

  

That's a better explanation than just to say that the car interior environment is different than a GA aircraft. They are not that dissimilar.

I agree that the technology used in determining the deployment of airbag may well be different but that in itself is not a reason to dismiss the effectiveness of the air bag. 

I doubt that there will ever be a proper research conducted to see if it really does make any difference - won't pass the ethics so all that we can rely on are retrospective and prospective anecdotal evidence. 

In fact FAA is quite satisfied with available evidence to allow bulkhead rows to have seating passengers provided they are fitted with seatbelt airbags. 

 

[MB65E]

I have had a 182 with the airbags apart for almost a month waiting for amsafe to finish work. The airplane has 450hrs on it. The belts have a 10years overhaul per chapter 5. Sent all belts off for re-cert. One belt was redtagged and said it was BER. Ordered a one new belt and re-cert on the other 3. Ordered the 4 inflator carts (10years Life limit), 6-8 weeks on those components. We are now approaching 5k on that invoice alone.  Lost nearly 2mo of flying. 

Just saying,

-Matt

[Hank]

10 minutes ago, MB65E said:

I have had a 182 with the airbags apart for almost a month waiting for amsafe to finish work. The airplane has 450hrs on it. The belts have a 10years overhaul per chapter 5. Sent all belts off for re-cert. One belt was redtagged and said it was BER. Ordered a one new belt and re-cert on the other 3. Ordered the 4 inflator carts (10years Life limit), 6-8 weeks on those components. We are now approaching 5k on that invoice alone.  Lost nearly 2mo of flying. 

Just saying,

-Matt

The airbags in your car are supposed to be checked 10 years after manufacture date (check the tag inside the driver's door), too.

Since airplane airbags are a low-volume thing, it may be wise to give AmSafe a heads up a month or two in advance that you are sending yours in. With the car, I just made an appointment at the dealer. 

[Marauder]

There have been a steady stream of improvements on autos that enhance the overall safety and the effectiveness of these items. Collapsible steering wheel shafts was one big one. A number of people got skewered in the early days of autos as the shaft came right through the driver’s seat during a crash.

I am hopeful that there is science behind these seat belts. I think anything to improvement crash worthiness of something designed and built in the 1960s would well worth it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[RobertGary1]

Its probably better than nothing but I agree that the airbag does not work in a stand alone system. The entire car is designed to behave in a crash based on the airbag performance. If you hit anything head on in a plane with any speed you'd probably hit the glare shield before the bag can deploy (or worse, as you are mid-forward).  There aren't really crumple zones in a plane to give the bag time to inflate correctly.

 

-Robert

[Mooneymite]

4 hours ago, MB65E said:

I have had a 182 with the airbags....

@MB65E, for a guy who has never seen these installed in a plane, can you explain what the safeguards are to prevent an accidental/inadvertent activation from interfering with the flight controls (specifically pushing the yoke forward)?

[RobertGary1]

19 minutes ago, Mooneymite said:

@MB65E, for a guy who has never seen these installed in a plane, can you explain what the safeguards are to prevent an accidental/inadvertent activation from interfering with the flight controls (specifically pushing the yoke forward)?

We have no idea. We just put on our lapbelt and its integrated. I don't know what safeguards are in place in my car either.

-Robert