PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Aircraft down in Channel
View Single Post
Old 15th May 2014, 18:39
  #190 (permalink)  
Blind Squirrel
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Rennes
Posts: 177
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I think the difference is that few (any?) RV-8s come equipped with autopilots, glass cockpits and ballistic parachutes as standard, whereas the Cirrus does. Not many of the former can be flown from Seaford to Le Touquet hands-off in IMC (or conditions that may as well be IMC), whereas the latter will do it without difficulty. It's a lot easier, then, for the low-time, low-experience pilot to get himself into serious trouble in a Cirrus than in an aircraft that requires to be hand-flown all the time. It's also easier for such a pilot to depend on the technology as a crutch, and if it should ever not be available to him -- either because of equipment failure or of inadvertent de-activation -- to find himself in a situation from which there is no escape.
Blind Squirrel is offline