South Woodstock, CONN. / July 30, 2013 — Pilot Safety has always been one of the major concerns of Flight Design when creating new aircraft. The safety record of Flight Design aircraft shows that the design has reached a very good occupant protection level, already. For the all-new C4, Flight Design will advance this philosophy by another major leap.
Initiated by Norlin — Nothern Lightweight Design Network of Hamburg, Germany, and with the C4 as target project, development funding has been granted to the project Safety Box through the German Ministry of Economics and Technology. The project will identify realistic crash-design cases for the complete 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.
“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.”
The project Safety Box is conducted together with multiple renowned 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 finally integrates the system to 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.
FACTS ABOUT FLIGHT DESIGN GmbH
Flight Design is a 25-year-old manufacturer based in Germany. The company remains the worldwide Light-Sport Aircraft market leader thanks to its popular CT series of aircraft. More than 1,800 of these aircraft are flying in 39 countries. One of the first aircraft certified under ASTM International standards in 2005, the CT (“composite technology”) remains the top-selling LSA in America through eight consecutive years. Flight Design sold the first LSA to India and was the first LSA to earn Chinese Type Design Approval. Three times a CT has been flown around the world. In 2011, the German company unveiled its C4 four seat aircraft based on the CT technology.
