Reports of a light aircraft down in Blue Mountains
I'm trying to work out why applying power is a good spin recovery technique?
An altogether very embarrassing lack of skills on display, but I suppose embarrassment by CAPS is better than death (I'm sorry)
An altogether very embarrassing lack of skills on display, but I suppose embarrassment by CAPS is better than death (I'm sorry)
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Right Royal fxxxk up...
The two passengers on board (LHS and rear passenger) were mightily unimpressed as the salesman demonstrated (unasked) an accelerated stall too low over rough country that also had houses et al (and a few steep 200m cliffs nearby).
The sound of the salesman saying "I'm sorry" did not sit well.
They have been restrained about their experiences so far but expect the matter to get more publicity in the weeks ahead.
The prospect of being fried on a 132 KVa power line did not appeal.
At least the old lady whose fence they neatly crushed offered them a cup of tea!
Overall, a very casual outing that led to all sorts of threats, "unintended aircraft states" and general mayhem.
When the chute fully inflated, they were 4.2 seconds from a possible fiery death.
One commented in a splendid example of gallows humour that at least he could have cut out the middleman at the crematorium.
I wonder what steps, if any, Cirrus (since he was a Cirrus "designated salesman" acting at the request of a senior member of the Cirrus Australian sales team in an N register aircraft) have taken to protect their rear, if any?
Perhaps some cockamamie Air Law 101 (fail) excuse will be advanced?
The ATSB report is delightfully restrained, isn't it? He will develop protocols!
The sound of the salesman saying "I'm sorry" did not sit well.
They have been restrained about their experiences so far but expect the matter to get more publicity in the weeks ahead.
The prospect of being fried on a 132 KVa power line did not appeal.
At least the old lady whose fence they neatly crushed offered them a cup of tea!
Overall, a very casual outing that led to all sorts of threats, "unintended aircraft states" and general mayhem.
When the chute fully inflated, they were 4.2 seconds from a possible fiery death.
One commented in a splendid example of gallows humour that at least he could have cut out the middleman at the crematorium.
I wonder what steps, if any, Cirrus (since he was a Cirrus "designated salesman" acting at the request of a senior member of the Cirrus Australian sales team in an N register aircraft) have taken to protect their rear, if any?
Perhaps some cockamamie Air Law 101 (fail) excuse will be advanced?
The ATSB report is delightfully restrained, isn't it? He will develop protocols!
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Can't imagine it will help sales when people read the aircraft is not certified for a recovery from a spin other than by pulling the red handle.
What's wrong with Cirrus pilots? - Air Facts Journal
And from the Cirrus site - Why Cirrus (CAPS & Stall/Spin)
"In short, modern general aviation airplanes are not certified for spins,
nor are pilots equipped to recover them."
What's wrong with Cirrus pilots? - Air Facts Journal
And from the Cirrus site - Why Cirrus (CAPS & Stall/Spin)
"In short, modern general aviation airplanes are not certified for spins,
nor are pilots equipped to recover them."
I look at the design of these plastic toy like high performance planes as being sitting precariously on a balance bar. In order to get the high efficiency they spruke about IE speed etc out of these sleek airframes something has gotta be sacrificed, stability & simple handing, both left well behind on the designers drawing board in pursuit of getting in their eyes a better product out there to sell.
Remember these manufacturers are commercial company's, they are not there for purely yr enjoyment they are targeting a specific market (wealthy A/C drivers) & they are there solely to make money.
Wmk2
Remember these manufacturers are commercial company's, they are not there for purely yr enjoyment they are targeting a specific market (wealthy A/C drivers) & they are there solely to make money.
Wmk2
At a presentation I attended given by the Australian Cirrus agents some months ago it was explicitly stated the Cirrus can recover from a spin without using the CAPS, but only if there is sufficient altitude.
That's the key thing - sufficient altitude. In the case of the Blue Mountains accident, there wasn't sufficient altitude, and the only way to save the situation was to fire the 'chute.
Result? Three people walked away alive, rather than being carried away, dead and charred, in body-bags.
The lack of altitude in this case was no fault of the Cirrus aircraft.
We were also told at the presentation that in training the Cirrus instructors use the simulator to put potential Cirrus purchasers (many of whom are highly-experienced pilots) into situations from which recovery is not possible, and these highly experienced pilots repeatedly wind themselves and the simulator into the ground, rather than firing the 'chute.
The habit of flying the aircraft "as far into the crash as possible" (attributed to Bob Hoover) is so deeply ingrained that the idea of reaching up for the firing-handle and pulling it just doesn't seem to occur...until the pilot has crashed the sim a few times, and realises that the 'chute would have saved them. When the sim is put into an irrecoverable situation and the instructor sees the student's hand reaching for the firing-handle, then the message is starting to sink in.
The Cirrus requires a major adjustment to pilot mind-set. It is a matter of re-educating these pilots to use the aircraft parachute system before the situation becomes so bad that even the 'chute is not going to save them because it is being operated outside its design limits. If used within its design limits, the CAPS does save lives, and Cirrus has the statistics to prove this. Go ahead, ring them up and ask them. Ask them how many people have survived parachute deployments on the Cirrus when the 'chute was operated within its operational envelope. Ask them what their injuries were for those incidents.
Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the Cirrus? Probably not. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with many of the pilots who fly it? Quite probably, yes there is.
It is not for the low-hour GA pilot, for a start. It is not a "seat-of-the-pants" aircraft. It has to be flown "by the numbers", the same as any similar high-performance single-engine aircraft. Like any other IFR-equipped aircraft it requires a pilot to be current and up-to-date on IFR techniques to be successfully and safely operated in IFR flight.
Some aircraft are designed to be deliberately stalled, and some are not. I personally think the de-emphasis on stall and spin-recovery training is not a good thing in GA. Even so, there are many GA training aircraft with adverse stall and spin characteristics (Chipmunk and Tomahawk, for example); aircraft which you did not intentionally get into a stalled or spinning situation at low altitude.
The debate about whether it is better to have a training aircraft with a benign stall or a sudden onset with rapid wing-drop has been raging for decades now, each side arguing the their case with the ferocity of wizened clerics arguing an abstruse point of canon-law. However, the Cirrus (or Lancair, or Columbia, etc) are not training aircraft, and therefore not designed to be intentionally stalled or spun.
Equipping the Cirrus with CAPS was not an admission of failure on the part of the aircraft. It was an attempt to give pilots who make a series of successively greater mistakes resulting in loss of control one last chance to save themselves and their passengers.
It is one of relatively few aircraft to do so. It has saved lives in the past which would have been lost, and it will continue to do so in the future. And, even though it may not save the life of a Cirrus pilot who has a fatal heart-attack in flight, if his or her passengers fire the 'chute, it will almost certainly save them.
That's the key thing - sufficient altitude. In the case of the Blue Mountains accident, there wasn't sufficient altitude, and the only way to save the situation was to fire the 'chute.
Result? Three people walked away alive, rather than being carried away, dead and charred, in body-bags.
The lack of altitude in this case was no fault of the Cirrus aircraft.
We were also told at the presentation that in training the Cirrus instructors use the simulator to put potential Cirrus purchasers (many of whom are highly-experienced pilots) into situations from which recovery is not possible, and these highly experienced pilots repeatedly wind themselves and the simulator into the ground, rather than firing the 'chute.
The habit of flying the aircraft "as far into the crash as possible" (attributed to Bob Hoover) is so deeply ingrained that the idea of reaching up for the firing-handle and pulling it just doesn't seem to occur...until the pilot has crashed the sim a few times, and realises that the 'chute would have saved them. When the sim is put into an irrecoverable situation and the instructor sees the student's hand reaching for the firing-handle, then the message is starting to sink in.
The Cirrus requires a major adjustment to pilot mind-set. It is a matter of re-educating these pilots to use the aircraft parachute system before the situation becomes so bad that even the 'chute is not going to save them because it is being operated outside its design limits. If used within its design limits, the CAPS does save lives, and Cirrus has the statistics to prove this. Go ahead, ring them up and ask them. Ask them how many people have survived parachute deployments on the Cirrus when the 'chute was operated within its operational envelope. Ask them what their injuries were for those incidents.
Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the Cirrus? Probably not. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with many of the pilots who fly it? Quite probably, yes there is.
It is not for the low-hour GA pilot, for a start. It is not a "seat-of-the-pants" aircraft. It has to be flown "by the numbers", the same as any similar high-performance single-engine aircraft. Like any other IFR-equipped aircraft it requires a pilot to be current and up-to-date on IFR techniques to be successfully and safely operated in IFR flight.
Some aircraft are designed to be deliberately stalled, and some are not. I personally think the de-emphasis on stall and spin-recovery training is not a good thing in GA. Even so, there are many GA training aircraft with adverse stall and spin characteristics (Chipmunk and Tomahawk, for example); aircraft which you did not intentionally get into a stalled or spinning situation at low altitude.
The debate about whether it is better to have a training aircraft with a benign stall or a sudden onset with rapid wing-drop has been raging for decades now, each side arguing the their case with the ferocity of wizened clerics arguing an abstruse point of canon-law. However, the Cirrus (or Lancair, or Columbia, etc) are not training aircraft, and therefore not designed to be intentionally stalled or spun.
Equipping the Cirrus with CAPS was not an admission of failure on the part of the aircraft. It was an attempt to give pilots who make a series of successively greater mistakes resulting in loss of control one last chance to save themselves and their passengers.
It is one of relatively few aircraft to do so. It has saved lives in the past which would have been lost, and it will continue to do so in the future. And, even though it may not save the life of a Cirrus pilot who has a fatal heart-attack in flight, if his or her passengers fire the 'chute, it will almost certainly save them.
At a presentation I attended given by the Australian Cirrus agents some months ago it was explicitly stated the Cirrus can recover from a spin without using the CAPS, but only if there is sufficient altitude.
If the agents are openly stating that the only requirement for spinning is altitude then they are putting themselves into test pilot territory and lives at risk. The ATSB report seems to back that up.
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I think we all agree the aircraft was no way at fault in this instance.
The cowboy salesman should be working on finding a new career about now and Cirrus Aircraft can chalk up another example of how the aircraft's ultimate "get out clause" has proven it's value.
Despite Darwin trying to weed out 1of the 3 on board and as Criticalmass writes:
"Three people walked away alive, rather than being carried away"
Which is the silver lining to this very sad tale of a severe lack of judgment.
VB
The cowboy salesman should be working on finding a new career about now and Cirrus Aircraft can chalk up another example of how the aircraft's ultimate "get out clause" has proven it's value.
Despite Darwin trying to weed out 1of the 3 on board and as Criticalmass writes:
"Three people walked away alive, rather than being carried away"
Which is the silver lining to this very sad tale of a severe lack of judgment.
VB
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how many pilots these days actually have any real spin and upset recovery training? obviously this salesman/pilot didnt.. how much height is actually needed to recover a cirrus from a spin?
One could ask whether the PIC had done any SIM training, induction training?
Smacking the rudder at the stall was never part of my official Cirrus approved endorsement.
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Wow that is pretty sobering reading. I am going through PPL training at the moment, so maybe it is all fresher in my mind than someone a few years out of training, but basic HASSEL checks include the location as one of the checks. A good look out the window during a clearing turn to check for obstacles, potential landing sites etc. This site would seem to fail on some many levels 
Here is a pretty interesting report on spin recovery of Cirrus
http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/...spinreport.pdf
I'm overseas and don't have time to read it thoroughly, but I think it is saying that Cirrus gained an exemption on the spin requirements for certification because it argued that the ballistic parachute would be used in the case of an inadvertent spin obviating the need for spin recovery.
To me this the equivalent of saying that you don't need to design an aircraft properly if you have technology to compensate.
I know car design better than aircraft. There are some cars which have poor chassis dynamics and they use electronic stability control to mask it. The better cars and the more enjoyable ones to drive are the ones with fundamentally good chassis dynamics and use electronic stability control simply as a safety net.
I'd be interested to hear DJPilks view.
On another note, it would seem to me that either the ATSB have copied down the PIC's statement wrong, or the PIC did not use best practice spin recovery technique. Among other things, adding power in a developed spin is pretty entertaining.
I don't like the statements I have read rationalising Cirrus' unproven spin recovery by saying its typical of other high performance aircraft. Its just not true and practically all of Cirrus' competitors have been through full spin testing as part of certification.
But, given the lack of spin certification for Cirrus aircraft and the Cirrus advice against intentional spins, Spinning would seem to have no place at all in demonstration flights.
http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/...spinreport.pdf
I'm overseas and don't have time to read it thoroughly, but I think it is saying that Cirrus gained an exemption on the spin requirements for certification because it argued that the ballistic parachute would be used in the case of an inadvertent spin obviating the need for spin recovery.
To me this the equivalent of saying that you don't need to design an aircraft properly if you have technology to compensate.
I know car design better than aircraft. There are some cars which have poor chassis dynamics and they use electronic stability control to mask it. The better cars and the more enjoyable ones to drive are the ones with fundamentally good chassis dynamics and use electronic stability control simply as a safety net.
I'd be interested to hear DJPilks view.
On another note, it would seem to me that either the ATSB have copied down the PIC's statement wrong, or the PIC did not use best practice spin recovery technique. Among other things, adding power in a developed spin is pretty entertaining.
I don't like the statements I have read rationalising Cirrus' unproven spin recovery by saying its typical of other high performance aircraft. Its just not true and practically all of Cirrus' competitors have been through full spin testing as part of certification.
But, given the lack of spin certification for Cirrus aircraft and the Cirrus advice against intentional spins, Spinning would seem to have no place at all in demonstration flights.
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The PIC then took control of the aircraft and stated ‘watch this’
Seems to me like the Cirrus parachute recovery system could have deleterious effects upon that necessary regular scrub out, of the gene pool.
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I'm with Ultralights,
I don't mean to embarrass anyone but given what I've read I would strongly suspect that Ultralights has a Spin endorsement in the logbook to recover from fully developed spins as part of the Aerobatic journey (which is a good thing...). I agree with what is suggested but still shake my head in disbelief regarding this demonstration flight (if that's correct of course..) taking into account the circumstances of the flight as publicy reported by the ATSB.
Surely no one in their right mind would intentionally enter into an induced spin or a flight profile that would contribute in that direction over tiger country or anywhere else for that matter where you don't have the benefit of altitude, an identified landing area (should it go pearshape) or most importantly, being in an aircraft that is not spin certified. Of course this is taking into account that the PIC has a good operational experience and requisite knowledge of the aircraft being flown.
They are all very lucky to have survived this accident.
I fondly recall whilst undertaking my Spinning endorsement that the entry altitude for a fully developed spin was at least 6000ft AGL and that's whilst entertaining a stabilised descent rate of 100ft/s (in the R2160). You can do the math from a fully developed flat spin (recovery from 10+ spins).
I've never flown a Cirrus but I see that "The Banjo" has given in his post that "The maximum vertical speed reached about 14,000 feet per minute prior to the CAPS deployment". That's about 230fps. (Would this be right XXX?) Even given some time following entry into that profile to wind up to that descent rate that's quite frightening......god knows what the recovery would be.
Critical Mass's post also provides many valuable points for consideration as does Old Akro's. Well done guys and thank goodness you've taken the time to contribute to this.
I'm sure that Cirrus is a great aircraft provided it's operated within its flight envelope and I see that the SR22T is on a demonstration tour around the country between September to December (according to an advertisement in the July 2014 Aviation Trader). From what I've read of the aircraft it seems to just get better and better provided (of course) that it's flown the way it should be.......
Stiky
I don't mean to embarrass anyone but given what I've read I would strongly suspect that Ultralights has a Spin endorsement in the logbook to recover from fully developed spins as part of the Aerobatic journey (which is a good thing...). I agree with what is suggested but still shake my head in disbelief regarding this demonstration flight (if that's correct of course..) taking into account the circumstances of the flight as publicy reported by the ATSB.
Surely no one in their right mind would intentionally enter into an induced spin or a flight profile that would contribute in that direction over tiger country or anywhere else for that matter where you don't have the benefit of altitude, an identified landing area (should it go pearshape) or most importantly, being in an aircraft that is not spin certified. Of course this is taking into account that the PIC has a good operational experience and requisite knowledge of the aircraft being flown.
They are all very lucky to have survived this accident.
I fondly recall whilst undertaking my Spinning endorsement that the entry altitude for a fully developed spin was at least 6000ft AGL and that's whilst entertaining a stabilised descent rate of 100ft/s (in the R2160). You can do the math from a fully developed flat spin (recovery from 10+ spins).
I've never flown a Cirrus but I see that "The Banjo" has given in his post that "The maximum vertical speed reached about 14,000 feet per minute prior to the CAPS deployment". That's about 230fps. (Would this be right XXX?) Even given some time following entry into that profile to wind up to that descent rate that's quite frightening......god knows what the recovery would be.
Critical Mass's post also provides many valuable points for consideration as does Old Akro's. Well done guys and thank goodness you've taken the time to contribute to this.
I'm sure that Cirrus is a great aircraft provided it's operated within its flight envelope and I see that the SR22T is on a demonstration tour around the country between September to December (according to an advertisement in the July 2014 Aviation Trader). From what I've read of the aircraft it seems to just get better and better provided (of course) that it's flown the way it should be.......
Stiky
Last edited by Stikybeke; 8th Aug 2014 at 09:26.