Now the plane, purchased about eight years ago by Dr. Louis Hanson of Durham, is featured in a new documentary about Dario Manfredi and Angelo Raiti, the late pair who created the parachute system. Manfredi’s son, Dario Jr., hopes to use the film to ignite interest in an updated parachute system by his company, Aviation Safety Resources of Long Island, N.Y.

Every time he sees news of a fatal crash, Manfredi wishes more people had listened to his dad, he said.

“I get very frustrated that the system is not out,” he said. “I think, ‘Maybe that person might have made it home.'”

Manfredi’s short documentary includes footage from the 1967 test, sanctioned by the Federal Aviation Administration. In it, grainy film shows the fuselage swaying in the air beneath a parachute. There are images of the pilot, who parachuted from the plane as he engaged the system. And there is footage from the TV crews who covered the experiment.

Newscasts on TV across the country and in Europe showed the event.

Then the partners fell on hard times. They sold their plane, which spent the next two decades in storage. By 1984, the elder Manfredi had purchased another plane and was preparing more experiments when he suddenly died.

The safety system had been a tough sell, said the younger Manfredi. Pilots had a tough time buying into a system that would take away their control when control seemed most needed, he said.

The plane and the experiment was little more than a footnote by the time Hanson spotted the Stinson in 2001 at Twitchell’s Airport and Seaplane Base in Turner. There was a “for sale” sign in the window.

“I didn’t really know much, except that I thought it was a beautiful airplane,” said Hanson, who had yet to earn his license. In the late 1990s, the plane had undergone a complete overhaul, removing all signs of the 1967 test.

Hanson loved the old-school simplicity of the plane. And when the owner suggested they take a ride, eventually handing over the controls, the doctor was a goner.

“It was all over,” he said, smiling. He named her Isabelle.

“This is just a lovely bird to fly,” he said. “If there is one thing, one possession that I love, it’s this.”

He had owned it only a short time when an instructor suggested he check the plane’s history.

Hanson searched the Internet for the tail numbers, N39443, and was shocked at what he discovered.

“I was amazed that it had this little secret about it,” he said. He also discovered that the plane had been photographed for a pilots’ magazine. The story touted the new Stinson.

“It’s serial number is No. 13,” Hanson said. “It was the 13th plane off the production line.”

Hanson called Manfredi, who was surprised that the plane was still flying.

It seemed as though his dad’s work was unfinished.

Manfredi and his sister, Savia Giarraffa, are working to complete their father’s work.

They have assembled a team of test pilots, parachute and ballistics experts, and avionics engineers to bring their father’s invention to market. Their company has two patents pending with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, one for the TriChute Safe Landing System and another for a complementary sensor-based Smart Recovery System.

If everything works, the new system could be installed in small private planes for $20,000 to $30,000. Systems could support even small jets, Manfredi said.

The cost of not pursuing the system would be far greater, he said.

“Even if it saves 50 percent of people, those are people who get to go home to their families,” he said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link