Safety and Escape Technology - Planes & buildings
January 2017 The New President just said, "We will make America safe again" "We will support innovation" ...we can do better than that and nearly now. Since America's Bicentennial, it has been possible to end the deaths from plane crashes and building collapses, like those on Nineleven. The pods, and variations to help people to safety have been possible for years and even practical and affordable. And not done, due to earlier suppression of the project, in days when it was too far advanced an idea.
It is clear from my own "family of tecchies" research alone that the nineleven deaths did not need to happen. NONE of it. I was there in the 1960s when the remedy was proposed and squelched due to UNreadiness, then later , undone, having been suppressed earlier, and so people die every day who might have lived.
The Technology:
For Buildings:
We learned to our horror, on nineleven, that escape in stairwells and elevators is suicide since both become chimneys in fire - and bodies piled in the death traps are possibly in the nightmares of those who could have prevented it. Why won't they win their redemption? It is easy to install pods , like elevator cars in the space between the inner and outer walls on even existing buildings. In a fire or collapse scenario, adequate number of the pods would be located on every floor and eject out from the side of the building to take occupants to safe ground, powered by several possible means and sequenced so that they do not collide while descending, and skip the "chimney effect" of current escape paths. This works for existing buildings and new construction.
For Aircraft - picture a bunch af grapes - the plane framework is the stemwork of the grape bunch, and ejectable passenger and pilot cabins are the grapes. In the event of failure of the plane for any reason, the cabins can be released like plucking a grape off the stem; and land on sea or land. The ejected cabins are equipped with GPS to aid rescuers. The cabins are equipped also with food and first aid and communications to keep the occupants well till rescue arrives. Due to the extensive design alterations for the planes, it would probably need to be done when an existing plane ages out and must be replaced.
After nineleven, talking with the families of the victims, I was relieved to find that I was not alone in pursuing this path. But with war at the top of the agenda, no one would listen to them ...even government reps hid behind the door when the grieving families visited. NOT the American Way of respect for these sorrowing people.
In spite of the fact that most third graders could understand the technology needed to make these upgrades, to which we have RIGHTS, as we have rights to life, we are told it cannot be done. The thing for buildings is even cheap - easy - and could be in progress in a year. The one for the planes of course, is harder. But it is surely the way and we can do it and should. NOW.
Please do a little research online on this topic and you will see - then email your leaders to ACT - if I get comments here, I will make a petition to pass around online and off; it is shameful that this issue has been so long neglected. But we can win here and enjoy it!
Background explains why this cause is one of only a few to me and a serious action path:
1957 The Story Begins
My Mother Albina Filanowski Backiel Smith Duffy loved my Father Richard Charles Smith very much - their marriage was from heaven and three fine children later, and me eldest, His Army Air Corps days behind him he was helping with early NASA coated fabrics projects at the DuPont plant his dad helped build, and his son would later Admin. Friends and neighbors were aeronautic engineers and similar respected..pioneers in things - and noted ones. Post WWII excitement was about life in a free world, in peacetime, and included designs for occupant safety and escape for planes and tall buildings!
I was a little girl and attracted to their table one day in the mid-1950s because of their excited talk of the pods for easy escape in case of disaster and other methods to make planes and skyscrapers NOT deathtraps. They smiled and encouraged my interest. "Don't worry, littlegirl! " they said, "by the time you are grown up , it will be safe for all!"
" Wow! "...not really understanding, I was still impressed, and satisfied, I jumped down and skipped away.
But Months later, when I wondered to my Mother what had become of the neat Planes project, "SHHHHH!!!" she warned, "NEVER bring it up to your Father - they tried and it did not go well. " They were humiliated and said to be too far ahead of themselves, and now they are upset, so do not mention to him, okay?
Their ideas were NOT practical - tech was not ready and what COULD be done was much too expensive to be used effectively. The entire idea was squelched , EXCEPT for ejection seats for SOME jet pilots. I was good and never brought it up again, as Mother asked, and worked to forget it , in fact - with success.
2001 The Story Returns
Then it was NINELEVEN - that evening and living near Ground Zero in NYC, from my patio, I saw the protective planes guarding the night, flying low overhead - A unique sight for many in a land that had not known attack on home soil. Grateful and secure, and they calmed me, after the day's horrors, and love of country filled my heart.
Back indoors to begin my supper, alone in my bungalow, suddenly overwhelmed, my head snapped back, legs caved in beneath me and I grabbed the kitchen counter, so as not to fall.
MEMORY of the sunny kitchen table meeting about safety escape returned , all at once! And instantly the realization: NO ONE NEEDED TO DIE TODAY! There could have been fast escape and no one dead...or nearly that.....it was too much! A SECOND HORROR MOMENT there was for me that evening.
If I could have cried , I would have, but tears would not come! To have that Occupant Safety and Escape Technology memory sweep over me like a tsunami, after 40 years, stunned.
It was a wild day for people, and my rosary was nearby . I prayed for all of us and was silent....slept.
But The next day or soon after - I acted on that memory and understanding. Out from my door, huge flags were everywhere, and the lame walked on the patriotic passions generated on that day. I was one of them - injured and still disabled - truly lame. My late husband would say of me "She walks on water" to make me smile and empower me in the touchy moment. I felt him with me then.
- I told my neighbor chat friend - she looked at me. " I have no idea what you are talking about, but I am with you."
- The Sikorsky team that built the Helicopter and employed important friends and neighbors and sometimes, my DAD became United Technology.So, next, I told one of their former resource librarians, now at our library, a few blocks away - and very smart. I went to her and told her my memory and was heard with understanding and respect.
- In the following days others joined the chat and they said, almost laughing , the classic " you go...you go..." to the United Technologies Admin office 15 minutes away , in Hartford CT the state Capitol, and make them listen.
- I got to the lobby and was told to "go right up" - I looked at the receptionist in disbelief, UT is big and one respects - Did someone call ahead, to have me so easily received? The receptionist reassured me and said no one had called ahead about me.....they were just that nice and ready to talk.
- But at that point appeared the phantasmagoric feeling ....all alone in the middle of a vastness and suddenly realized they'd think me mad - and went home to collect better data and then return. Still the nice reception encouraged, so I DID go home and get busy finding better data.
- I Made webpages and talked to people like M.I.T. for design ideas / options for the actual achievement - and they were AWFUL....wiseguy remarks and more, but many who KNEW and could be respected SUPPORTED my passion for approaching leaders , at a better timing.
2017 BETTER TIMING - and better yet, to come.
The public fright is in line, the war maybe soon over and our new President Trump speaks specifically about supporting invention and regaining adequacy as a nation after the crippling expenses of recent history. With the paranoia in line and a no-fault approach, this lifesaving upgrade may win for us all now!
Squelching and burying the Occupant Safety and Escape Technology Innovations back in the 50s- 60s, was so well done, that , later, in the 70s and later, when it COULD have been done, for some reason, no one would DARE bring it up! A very unpopular banner. Even though it made the life/death difference for many thousands, it was avoided.
My injuries were healing and my art going to the White House took me away from this issue and its work had to be set aside as I regained a normal life again. It was just as well: the earlier work on the Occupant Safety project had resulted in a consensus to WAIT and then find the leaders and say: "Okay , first the ideas were ahead of their time and squelched. Then it was 1976 and it could have been a jewel in the American Bicentennial crown , but NO. It did not happen. Then it was a recession and everyone was saying NO to everything.
But then it was too late - it was Nineleven and with no effective, safe, tech escape options, LOTS of people died . OUR people. And nobody needed to die!
" But whattabout NOW? !"
Many of the genius innovations upgrades are NOT even genius anymore....but safe, obtainable, and affordable to do.
... and yet they are not done.
Why?
When may they be done ?
There are so many different ways to do it easily and safely....and affordably, that I will not describe them here.
With the new technology, NO one would be hurt and there is this amazing collateral benefit!
DEATH is the incentive for acts of terrorism. But with the safety upgrades there would be no death and , therefore, no incentive to terrorists.
IN the planes it's fancier technology, but escape cabins with GPS, food and water and first aid could detach from a threatened plane and let the passengers escape IN the cabins, to land or sea , till help arrived. It would also make bulwarks in the planes, or airships, as they were called in olden days.
THIS ONE BANNER I COME BACK TO ALL THE TIME - for me, it is not an option.
It never leaves me alone, due to my childhood experience and conscience and then the dramatic way it found me at nineleven.
Thousands have needlessly died, but millions will be saved when this upgrade finally happens.
I was a den mother, wife of honored corporate, employee of honored firms and redcross in wars....I am not an airhead.
I was head of the class all through schools and passed another course top marks again just a few months ago. RESPECT ME.
AND PRAY that one day, this idea touches the angels the right way, breaks thru to mankind and finally gets DONE
I promise to work to do my part in it as best I can. I am not paid for this and so it changes my powers to act.
But I will act and you can, too! Response is welcome here.
elle
p.s. I mentioned above that I had made web pages - I did with better detailed supportive materials and images - but my old site of fourteen years was hacked a year ago and it was a LOT of work , setting up my art site at amazing Squarespace and my focus must be the artwork I sell to restore my finances, and donate. So this page is okay but.....I will clean it up as I can and add correct images and CAREFUL materials - I plan to make the family "Sto lat!" - live one hundred years - mandate. So do not go radical - I won't co-operate.
e.
