Cirrus pilots are dangerous
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All perfectly logical comments there PaulP and backed up by my experience in them. A quick elaboration - comment re chute not working properly x1 meant that it didn't have the desired effect, eg pulled too late. There was of course the Sydney engine failure where the chute basically didn't deploy at all. Very lucky those guys to get out of that aircraft alive.
Probably a good way to approach flying a Cirrus would be to fly it like an airliner. Fly it on instruments when properly rated, fly a stabilised approach and go around if necessary, fly a practical and safe wide circuit, fly by the numbers and don't do anything in it that the 100 passengers behind you wouldn't enjoy.
When you are more experienced, then you can try and fly it like you would a Cessna 172.
Probably a good way to approach flying a Cirrus would be to fly it like an airliner. Fly it on instruments when properly rated, fly a stabilised approach and go around if necessary, fly a practical and safe wide circuit, fly by the numbers and don't do anything in it that the 100 passengers behind you wouldn't enjoy.
When you are more experienced, then you can try and fly it like you would a Cessna 172.
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The Sydney incident is the one that resulted in the AD.
There have been way too many deaths where a chute pull would have saved a life. In one case the pilot was known to be dismissive of CAPS. He had engine trouble and did an off field landing. The landing didn't go well and he died along with a passenger.
As far as CAPS, I can see people not liking it because of initial cost, repack expense, space utilization and/or weight. However, if you have it then realize it has it's place. The system itself has an impressive record and has worked well even outside the stated design limits.
To the previous poster, you hit on what is really dangerous about a Cirrus. It is a high performance plane. I tell people to treat it with the same respect you would stepping up to a 310 or a Baron and you will be fine.
There have been way too many deaths where a chute pull would have saved a life. In one case the pilot was known to be dismissive of CAPS. He had engine trouble and did an off field landing. The landing didn't go well and he died along with a passenger.
As far as CAPS, I can see people not liking it because of initial cost, repack expense, space utilization and/or weight. However, if you have it then realize it has it's place. The system itself has an impressive record and has worked well even outside the stated design limits.
To the previous poster, you hit on what is really dangerous about a Cirrus. It is a high performance plane. I tell people to treat it with the same respect you would stepping up to a 310 or a Baron and you will be fine.
----- simply because glass wasn't introduced for safety
I suggest you acquaint yourself with the literature on the subject. There is enough of it about.
In the airline environment, the introduction of "glass" and the safety outcomes are well known and understood ( as are some of the "new" problems, see the AA training video) and the benefits, including much better situational awareness, was expected to be seen in GA.
Largely, it hasn't happened. Again, some of the "syndromes" in the AA video are probably even more applicable to GA.
The interesting matter of relative cost needs to compare apples and apples, the "glass" cockpits ( except the very elementary ones) have such greater potential capability, that comparing to a sixpack is not a comparison. Even the expected much reduced maintenance costs are not being evenly realised ----- given the generally low utilization in GA, this benefit was grossly over stated.
Tootle pip!!
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I had a discussion with Alan Klapmeirer a few years back regarding the adoption of glass by Cirrus. It may point to something interesting. Alan said he didn't fly much IFR because his scan was lousy with the small AI. He said that he pressed Avidyne to make the AI as large as possible so he could tune radios and still see the AI with peripheral vision. The result was that he now felt much more comfortable flying in IMC. He said he thought what he had done here was more important than CAPS. I was recalling this while thinking about why glass hasn't improved things. Perhaps this is another example of risk homeostasis. It might be that the extra capability of glass has more people flying more serious IFR and the result is a relatively unchanged accident rate. People buy twins in order to take on more challenging missions. Maybe it is the same thing. Just a thought.
