The CB1100 Community Forum

I've always wondered what I'd do if on coming car made a left turn in front of me or pulled out from a side road at the last moment with almost no reaction time left...I always thought I delay the injury/death by just jumping straight up as hard as I could (the advantage of having your feet under you like the CB1100 vs crusiers being out front).

Then I thought well unless the collision is with a tall vehicle like a semi or bus, I'd at least fly over top and the collision won't kill me but the landing sure could.

Now whether I'd have the gumption to react that way could only be tested with a real situation which I hope never happens, but like jumping out of the 911 buildings, if you are in a frying pan, you'd might just jump out of it and not care where you were jumping to.

But in my sleep tonight I had a brilliant idea.

What if you had a backpack that would deploy a rocket propelled parachute or inflate some helium type balloon that would be triggered somehow like a fighter jet pilot ejection or like a car air bag?

It could pull you off the bike and take you just high enough, say 20-30 feet and maybe even stop your forward motion a bit...unless you were under a bridge or in a tunnel, it would beat a direct hit with the side of a car?

The trigger would be the hardest part, not too soon, not too late.
Everyone thought air bags were an crazy idea too until they figured out how to deploy them in a fraction of a second. I've heard fighter pilots can actually eject sitting on the ground and they will go high enough for their parachutes to open and work.

I know there are a bunch of engineers and inventors on this site....your task jim (mission impossible music playing) if you decide to accept it has been give to you ;-)

My other ideas were to have an inflatable ball inflate around you, but I think this is more doable. I know there are some inflatable devices out there but none that would completely remove the rider from any collision

Spaceman,

Clearly a job for you.

Knowing my luck the rocket would save me from a collision with a mini and throw me into the path of a semi-trailer!

I've had some engineering, but not enough. I just went to Kings Island two weeks ago and rode a couple of rides that inverted humans 6 or 7 times, dropping them, twirling them etc...I'm assuming those engineers have a good understand of the G forces a human can take without harm (although my wife did suffer a little "red out" from the negative G's)

Maybe some engineer like that could come up with the max forces a rider could take when being pulled up and back off the bike from 60mph?

Then the mechanical engineers could work on the mechanics?
I also thought, well maybe power lines or stop lights could be a problem, so maybe an ejection of 15 feet, then deflate like an air bag to lower the rider back to earth. Would not clear a semi, but they tend to move slower anyway, giving more reaction time.

Maybe the tether could be electronic and sense the speed of the bike and adjust the power of the deployment to match? More for 70 mph vs less for 30 mph?

Just trying to think outside the box ;-)

(05-24-2014, 08:21 PM)Cormanus_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Spaceman,

Clearly a job for you.

Yeah, I posted the Spaceman ejection system a month or so ago. Guess its a good idea after all!

I do like the possibilities of adding a giant balloon though. Might as well do some sightseeing while you're up there.

I'm leaning more towards the air bag suit idea. Powers lines and over head obstacles would create problems for an ejections system without some more thought into angling back and up, maybe more back. A triggering system would need to activate before impact for the ejection system. All good ideas!

Air bag suits already exist for motorcycles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRJPnFgMyvw

They have rocket propelled parachutes for small airplanes and they work pretty well. The problem with your idea is that you need the rocket(s) to propel the rider as well as the parachute. I've had some experience with military ejection seats and can see numerous problems trying something similar on a motorcycle. The least of those are that the rockets are heavy and bulky, and unless you were tightly strapped to your motorcycle seat it would probably take off without you. Designing a workable activation system would also be a tough nut to crack.

I have a friend that flies a civilian Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The ejection system is so complicated and expensive to maintain that they disabled it.

About 30 years ago I was in an accident like you described. When I saw that impact was inevitable and also that the roof of the car was at eye level, I tried to straighten up on the pegs at impact. I just cleared the roof and landed about 75 ft. on the other side of the car. I had curled up in a ball and rolled another 50 ft. I ended up with scrapes, bruises, sprained ankle and some torn cartilage in my knee. I think I came out better than if I'd hit that Cadillac head first at 50 mph.

(05-24-2014, 10:23 PM)The Spaceman_imp Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-24-2014, 08:21 PM)Cormanus_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Spaceman,

Clearly a job for you.

Yeah, I posted the Spaceman ejection system a month or so ago. Guess its a good idea after all!

I do like the possibilities of adding a giant balloon though. Might as well do some sightseeing while you're up there.

This dude may offer you some inspiration. http://www.darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html

Offroadfx4, this is seriously worth pondering some more. Given humans' technical cleverness, there will be a better way of helping bikers in accidents. Knowing my luck, the bloody ejector would deploy under an underpass and I'd end up having my head stuck through the road above where it would be knocked off by a passing milk float.

Honda offers a Goldwing equipped with a airbag. I don't thing it would require too much modification for engineers to produce a device using airbag technology to lift you off the seat (hopefully without crushing too many vertebrae). But, I don't see any company rushing to be the first to be sued after their motorcycle ejection seat howitzers you to a less than ideal landing spot. Springing up off the pegs has also long been my plan of action for the impending collision scenario. Although these days it is mostly a mental exercise