Originally Posted by A and C
The only difference is that the ballistic chute gives you more options and the decision on when to use it needs to be taken on the ground long before you fly the aircraft having carefully digested the advice from Cirrus.
As evidenced by this thread, calling the parachute the only difference
fails to reveal the significant challenge in getting Cirrus pilots to consider its use.
Forum discussions like these perpetuate the mythology that pilots don't need a parachute, that pilots can train to avoid using it, and that pilots who do pull are ___ (fill in your favorite pejorative adjectives). All of those notions appear in this thread alone.
For Cirrus pilots, even after carefully digesting the advice, even after training with skilled Cirrus instructors, we see them go from a briefing to flying a sim and in 5 minutes killing themselves because they didn't pull the red CAPS handle. The sim instructors claim that "they usually only have to kill them once" before these pilots realize what is needed to maintain awareness of the option to pull the parachute handle.
Think. Train. Practice. All of those are necessary so pilots will have a better chance of utilising the parachute, let alone the skills to avoid needing one!
Cheers
Rick