Protein^®

This new jet plane has just taken its first test flight - but the pilot need not rely on his personal parachute in the event of a problem. The small plane packs one big enough to let the whole craft drift to earth.You can see the new plane take off in this video - it sports an usual split tailplane design. The new jet from Cirrus is a follow up to its parachute-packing propeller plane.In a second video, you can see footage from inside the cockpit of a propeller model as the parachute is deployed, after running into a glider tow wire.Cirrus can use the parachute approach because their planes are small, relatively slow and have a lot of composite materials in their construction to make them light. That means you are unlikely to see much larger planes floating around like thistle down.For larger aircraft, perhaps a better approach would be to extend the wings when trouble hits, making them easier to handle. That would be a crude version of the morphing wing designs proposed to let craft loiter or dash at will by changing the shape of their wings. See a video of a small morphing plane modelled on a bird here.Tom Simonite, online technology editor