Moreover, realistically for most GA pilots 800 hours IS a high time pilot.
Quite irrelevant. 800 hours is very inexperienced, no matter how you slice it.
"Hours" mean very little, and do not equate to experience. Most of the pilots under discussion were fairly inexperienced, regardless of their hours...and their decision making unfortunately showed it to be.
SNS3Guppy - you appear to be obsessed with the Cirrus and its chute. I dont understand why. Do you have something against chutes other than having convinced yourself a pilot with a chute lets go of the normal rules about blundering into weather?
I am not obsessed with cirrus, other than the thread turned in that direction, and specific statements I made were called under question...and quickly shown to be clearly the case.
Do I have something against "chutes?" As I'm one of few in this thread with considerable parachute experience....I think not. More to the point, I strongly advocate the use of parachutes, as well as a thorough knowledge of them, and have repeatedly stressed proper education and training in their use if one does in fact intend to have them available for use. Read the thread.
Cirrus, of course, relies heavily on the parachute as a marketing gimmick to entice inexperienced pilots with more money than training to buy. They market an airplane that feels like a nice car inside. They market it with sleek lines, and sell it as a safe airplane, largely predicated on the parachute. The very fact that Cirrus sells airplanes with the parachute system as a major attraction makes it very much fair game for criticism, and the statistics bear this criticism out.
I do wish you wouldnt keep referring to the chute as the "panic button". It makes me think you have never seen a Cirrus.
You mean the panic button most often used not on airplanes that aren't capable of flying, not by pilots who are incapacitated, but on perfectly good, flyable airplanes by pilots who panic...pilots who have been enticed to fly far, far beyond their own capabilities or means, and even beyond that of the airplane, on the hope of having a safe emergency panic-button backup..that panic button? You don't happen to mean the panic button which the manufacturer itself refers to as expected to cause severe aircraft damage, and that will likely result in severe injury or death? The one which has caused severe injury or death, and in every case results in an airframe which could have been safely flown and landed, being unable to fly and land...that system?
How many of those pilots, of course, had ever bee under a round canopy, could appreciate the vertical descent rate, or the pendulous motion which often accompanies a round canopy during descent...and which can signficantly increase the injuries and damage by contributing to the impact forces? How many of those pilots simply blasted off with the parachute at their disposal, never having used a canopy in their life?
Many pilots kill themselves making forced landings - the outcome is by no means assured.
Ah, but we're not talking forced landing situations. We're not talking airplanes that were unable to fly due to power loss and couldn't be flown safely. We're talking about perfectly flyable aircraft which never required making a forced landing...which if not for the ineptitude and foolishness of their pilots could have been flown cross country at leisure to a landing at an attended airport and runway. There's a big difference between this and a situation in which the aircraft is no longer viable. A better comparison might be made between an aircraft with an ejection seat and the cirrus, and the military aircraft being flown by pilots of questionable competence who fly beyond their means, panic, and punch out. That's what happening with the cirrus pilots under discussion. Yes, it's a panic button, and yes it's the vast majority as shown case, by case.
Is your point that pilots of Cirrus aircraft are unworthy, improper, inexperienced, and therefore should not be flying?
The ones who elect to fly into level 5 thunderstorms, severe icing, and thunderstorms over the mountains at night...yes. Definitely.
Is your point that pilots who are stupid enough (your phrase) should not be flying? If so, do you have a test for that?
Yes, the pilots under discussion have been tested by their own efforts, and have been found wanting. The test results are typically found in accident and mishap reports, just as we see here. Was the stupidity pulling the panic button? No, though it did contribute to some of the crashes and certainly to some fatalities. The stupidity was being there in the first place.
Is your point that the Cirrus innovation to certify an aircraft with a whole airframe parachute is bad enough to warrant action, perhaps to remove it (no more panic button)?
This is a merged thread, involving two separate discussions which have been placed together (and are therefore somewhat out of context) regarding pilot use of parachutes. My point is, and always has been, that the use of parachutes should never be made without proper training. As stated before, I don't carry a firearm without first showing proficiency, including malfunction drills, and a knowledge of when to shoot and when not to shoot, as well as proper care, handling, carriage, storage, etc. I don't own a parachute, and am not allowed to jump it at a drop zone, without meeting the inspection and repack intervals, without proper training and certification, and without having demonstrated capability with that parachute rig.
Conversely, a pilot who can afford an airplane has little safeguards in this respect. A pilot who flies his sailplane or aerobatic airplane straps on a canopy not even knowing the color of the parachute or what it should look like when inflated over his head, not knowing how to steer it or even if it can be steered, not knowing how to safely land in water, in trees, downwind, or to do a proper PLF (parachute landing fall). Excuses run the gamut from "I don't slam my head against the airplane to know how to use my helmet so I don't need to have any training or experience with my parachute to properly use it," to "the odds are very low I'll ever have to use it, so why bother learning?" Dangerous mentalities. We certainly can't apply this line of thinking to an airplane...we study constantly to prepare for an emergency by learning and rhearsing maneuvers we may never need in daily life...never the less, we need to know them. We perform stalls, we perform rejected takeoffs, no-flap approaches, etc...we learn everything about the airplane, even if we may never need to apply that knowledge. To fail to prepare in this way would be very poor airmanship.
A parachute canopy is an aircraft. It's relative wind comes from below, but then so does the airflow through a gyroplane or helicopter in autorotation. It may not be powered, but neither is a sailplane. It moves through the atmosphere, it's proper operation may save your life, it's improper operation may kill you. Learning it is every bit as important as learning your airplane. when you strap a parachute to your back, you're just put on a complete aircraft system.
A pilot who straps on both a parachute and an airplane has a duty and obligation to know both, thoroughly.
Another point of this thread, along with pilots and parachutes, is whether pilots need parachutes...and generally this is not the case. Further, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the panic button, along with the indiscriminate wearing and use, of parachutes, is indeed a dangerous thing.
Wow! A treatise almost 2,500 words long.
You
counted??