At home and abroad, the government’s use of manned and unmanned airborne platforms for surveillance and training has countless applications. Emerging technology in both these applications is reducing the cost of intelligence gathering and training for a variety of government agencies. In either application, a primary responsibility is to protect civilians and preserve government assets.

Since 1980, BRS Inc. (Ballistic Recovery Systems, Inc.) has developed a line of whole-aircraft recovery systems credited with saving hundreds of lives and minimizing property damage. These unique safety systems are designed to provide a parachute-assisted descent that facilitates recovery of a disabled unmanned craft with minimal-to-no damage to onboard sensors. The documented success and acceptance of this technology has evolved into a robust product line of engineered systems and has become standard equipment on the world’s best selling certified General Aviation aircraft.

For government applications, BRS has developed two innovative product lines: PASSIVE™ and MAVEREC™:

PASSIVE™ for UAS (Parachute Assisted Safety System for Internal Vehicle Emergencies) The increasingly congested National Airspace System will see more and more pressure from government and private agencies wanting to utilize it for UAS operations in congested areas. This could be problematic from a public policy acceptance viewpoint if errant UASs should cause property damage or human injury. However, the BRS on-board PASSIVE system minimizes risk to the general population by providing a proven fail-safe mechanism for recovery of an unmanned craft in the event of an unmanageable in-flight failure. In addition to public safety issues, PASSIVE will save the agency or private firm operating the UAS untold millions in damage to on-board sensors when uncontrollable failures occur.

BRS PASSIVE Systems can be deployed manually from the ground or automatically from the UAS. Safety margins can be established allowing the UAS to self-deploy PASSIVE in the event of uncommanded maneuvers, minimum controllable airspeed, excessive vertical speed, and more. PASSIVE Systems can be fitted to UASs ranging in weight from 500 to 7,500 pounds maximum gross weight.

MAVEREC™ Initial military flight training aircraft are generally not equipped with ejection seats since they are typically civilian General Aviation aircraft adapted by the military for initial pilot candidate screening and primary flight training. MAVEREC offers a final margin of aircrew safety for flight training operations in light training aircraft. Proven MAVEREC parachute systems can be fitted to a wide range of basic trainers up to a 7,500 pound maximum gross weight.