Parachute architecture for low-altitude vtol aircraft

A method to deploy a plurality of parachutes, comprising:

• receiving an indication to deploy a parachute system from a flight computer;
• determining that an aircraft is at least one of:
• in a hover mode of operation and a forward flight mode of operation;
• in response to the determination that the aircraft is in the hover mode of operation, apply a hover deployment sequence including instructing a first rocket to extract a first canopy from an associated canister and a second rocket to extract a second canopy from the associated canister simultaneously;
• and
• in response to the determination that the aircraft is in the forward mode of operation and above a threshold airspeed, applying a forward deployment sequence including instructing the first rocket to extract the first canopy from the associated canister before the second rocket extracts the second canopy from the associated canister.

A system to deploy a plurality of parachutes, comprising:

• container means for holding a respective parachute canopy in a packed state;
• deployment means for extracting an associated canopy from the container means;
• and
• controller means for:
• determining that an aircraft is at least one of:
• in a hover mode of operation and a forward flight mode of operation;
• in response to the determination that the aircraft is in the hover mode of operation, apply a hover deployment sequence including instructing a first rocket to extract a first canopy from an associated canister and a second rocket to extract a second canopy from the associated canister simultaneously;
• and
• in response to the determination that the aircraft is in the forward mode of operation and above a threshold airspeed, applying a forward deployment sequence including instructing the first rocket to extract the first canopy from the associated canister before the second rocket extracts the second canopy from the associated canister.