Electric motors in their specs usually have an entry specifying a 30s or one minute window during which the motor can operate at around twice the power without damage.
In this state the motor cannot maintain temperature, so going beyond that time window will shorten its lifespan or cause damage if continued.
Hobbyst EVs often take advantage of this by having a small motor and overloading it when accelerating.
Parachutes. They are now a very practical option for GA aircraft. More than a few cessnas have been saved. The concept of "off-field forced landing" should too be going away.
"Q. How much damage will be done to my plane if I land it with a parachute?
A. In all likelihood the aircraft will suffer some significant damage. The terrain where you land will affect this greatly. Though the extent of damage has varied from plane to plane, most GA aircraft that have come down under a BRS deployment have eventually (or will soon) fly again."
Call me a skeptic until they provide hard numbers and details of what planes make it back into the sky v's scrapped, and those planes have a year or two of a service history showing they make it back into a reasonable service lifestyle, I'd be shocked to hear this is great at saving planes. I find a lot of the old 172's i fly have plenty of bumps and scratches, but wouldn't be super excited to trust the frame of a plane that went through an experience like this.
I like it from a safety perspective, but in my mind, the reward you get out of a system like this should be your life...I have zero expectations the plane will ever fly again.
It seems that, at least until fairly recently, most Cirrus aircraft that used their parachute were written off, and that is still the most likely outcome.
How many are written off is irrelevant. What matters is passenger lives. Success is measured in total number of not-dead people because of not crashing as violently.
In addition to the point verelo raised about the repair/replacement cost of having used a parachute (vs. replacing a motor), I was thinking specifically of a wingtip-motor failure at takeoff (typically the worst-case scenario), possibly too low for a parachute (some figures here: [1]).
This is a 9-passenger airplane, maybe too large for current recovery parachutes? (though I imagine that will change.)
Maybe, but that does not solve low-altitude problems, if indeed there is one. It is possible that two small-airplane sized parachutes will inflate faster than a single larger-airplane parachute, but apparently current small-airplane parachutes do not inflate fast enough to save you at low altitude.
Actually, this has me thinking: not all low-altitude situations are the same - an airplane with a downwards trajectory, such as one in a spiral dive, will need more height to save than one that is in a glide, such as after a power failure. This is why even a zero-zero ejector seat will not always save you, if you are descending rapidly at low altitude.
Even so, replacing a motor, if that is all it takes, is going to be cheaper than repairing or replacing an airframe that has undergone a parachute recovery.
With respect to engine failure at takeoff, low altitude begins at the point where, if the engine fails, you will not be able complete a landing on a runway (or overrun area, if there is one.) With respect to my original question, if the remaining engines give sufficient performance, using a parachute would not be the standard response even if you had the height and speed for it to work.
A quick google search shows a page from the FAA saying that typically a couple hundred planes crash each year, and a few hundred people die. There's an order of magnitude more GA planes than commercial airliners.
In this state the motor cannot maintain temperature, so going beyond that time window will shorten its lifespan or cause damage if continued.
Hobbyst EVs often take advantage of this by having a small motor and overloading it when accelerating.