German Government Assisting In Funding The Research

Pilot Safety has always been one of the major concerns of Flight Design when creating new aircraft, and the safety record of the company's aircraft shows that the two-place airplanes have already reached a very good occupant protection level. For the all-new C4, Flight Design says it will significantly advance this philosophy.

Initiated by Norlin — Northern Lightweight Design Network of Hamburg, Germany, and with the C4 as target project, development funding has been granted to project Safety Box through the German Ministry of Economics and Technology. The project will identify realistic crash-design cases for the aircraft. Considering design constraints of real aircraft, a “Safety Box” concept has been developed. The concept will include dedicated energy-absorbing elements, as well as an improved seat and restraint integration, on the basis of a crashworthy cockpit ergonometric and interior design. Flight Design Technical Director Oliver Reinhardt described the concept during a Tuesday news conference at Oshkosh as being like a Formula One  racer, where a monocoque cage protects the driver and other structures absorb the forces of impact.

“This is a major step forward compared to today’s design philosophy, where elements are considered on their own, but not in concert as an integrated system,” Oliver Reinhardt, Technical Director of Flight Design, said. “In the end, the modular system will allow for a very efficient integration to real aircraft, and will even more enhance the overall safety of the C4 and beyond.”
 
Project Safety Box is being conducted as a collaboration between multiple partners from industry, university, research and testing. HAW Hamburg together with iDS Hamburg provide the ergonomic cabin design, and run the integrated system simulation. FIBRE Fiber Institute Bremen develops and tests the crash absorbers, ultimately leading to a realistic full-scale test with the C4 aircraft, using anthropomorphic dummies and extensive data recording to evaluate the effectiveness of the integrated design. Titan Präzis Mettalurgie GmbH takes care of an improved fire protection. CH.Schneider integrates seat and occupant restraint systems with the airframe. Silence Aircraft produces the composite elements and crash absorbers.
 
Flight Design plans to integrate the system into the C4 aircraft overall design. The system will be developed in a way that allows subsequent integration to the other Flight Design aircraft models. It will also be available to aircraft models of other manufacturers. Flight Design will share the experiences in a suitable way within ASTM F37 and F44 committee meetings, to allow to take benefit from the investigations and tests for the generation of improved compliance standards for aircraft certification.

FMI: www.flightdesignusa.com