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Old 21st May 2014, 11:38
  #339 (permalink)  
mm_flynn
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Surrey
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Originally Posted by Pace
Gliding down you have complete control. the space shuttle can glide in from space! If you fly into a brick wall its you who have done so.
Be constantly aware and don't fixate on landing at one point. If its not looking good go 45 degrees left or right and take one of the other areas you as a constantly aware pilot will have marked with you eagle eyes.

If I had such a failure over a City i would glide clear. If not possible or no landing site was available yes pull the chute because you have no choice.With a gliding aircraft you are in control pull the chute and you are no longer in control.

Come down into someones back garden on top of the pram with a baby in it and you live with that.
Pace,

You seem to have a remarkably large faith in your gliding and an unreasonable concern about parachuting. I say this on the basis of the relatively signficiant track record of property damage and personal injury caused by aircraft coming down after a powerplant failure or loss of control and the negligable incidents of injury or material damage from chute deployments over built up (or rural) areas in similar circumstances.

I can certainly agree that an attiude of 'I'll just pull the chute if it feel like too much' would be wrong, but I believe the facts are very clear that your odds of injurying/killing yourself and people on the ground are negligable in a chute pull compared to a forced landing.

In fact, I believe there is a specific case in the US, where a Cirrus with an engine failure elected to glide to a (nearly) empty beach rather than pull a chute. Unfortunately the beach jogger didn't get out of the way and the pilot didn't perfectly control his glide to avoid and the jogger - who was struck and killed by the gliding aircraft.
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