Cirrus 22 Crash - 1 Dead. Crisis.

[Lowtimer]

Having read that document, and the POH, I must say I'd have no qualms flying the aeroplane and would be happy to stall it. If you tried to certify the Chipmunk as a new design today, you'd end up with exactly the same fuss being made... that too often requires FULL forward stick for spin recovery.

[Genghis the Engineer]

that too often requires FULL forward stick for spin recovery.

Which is fine so long as that's what it says in the POH. The concept of the "Standard Spin Recovery" is a myth put about by people who can't read a POH properly, or haven't flown enough types to realise that they aren't all the same.

G

[valenii]

En-route stalls / spins

The Cirrus fleet is clocking up hours like no other aircraft type, so its not supprising that the whole of the flight envelope is being explored, probably inadvertantly by pilots that make mistakes.

I know of two en-route stall/spin incidents, resulting from bad weather at high altitude.

One was over heavy convective weather in California. One was over the rocky mountains at night.

In both cases I think the aircraft was flying very high on autopilot and caught in severe downdrafts/mountain waves.

An AP in altitude hold will pitch up when experiencing negative VSI, which at high altitude can cause an aircraft to stall at normal cruise power settings. Torque/Fuel Imbalance/Turbulance/Pilot Panic etc can then make things worse.

In both these cases the pilots pulled the Chute and walked away. The Mountain incident was two adults and two children saved, the california incident was a CFII and his wife.

If they had been in a traditional aircraft design, the AAIB would still be trying to work out what went wrong, and their families would be greaving.

Ian

BTW you can recover from a spin in a Cirrus, but its slightly unconventional, like a chipmunk! However it has not been proved that all spins are recoverable, without pulling the chute (which was tested in an inverted spin)

[Confabulous]

which was tested in an inverted spin

Bloody hell I'd like to see a Cessna get out of an inverted spin without making a crater! I wonder how it got into that spin mode in the first place?

The regs will require that the structural failure load is roughly 2.25 times limit, not 1.5. So for a 3.8g value of N1, structural failure should occur at around 8.6g.

Interesting - wasn't aware of that until now, but it makes a lot of sense.

When assembled, the facts mostly exhonorate the aircraft itself, so what pilots really need more of (in any spin prohibited aircraft) is discipline, plain and simple, is in the areas of energy management, flight planning and contigency management. As it stands I'd be happy to fly a Cirrus - much happier then flying a PA28.

The only thing about the SR22 that may be lacking is the POH - giving only some advice about inadvertant spins is bad, but giving no advice is fatal, although:

Cirrus has reached strong conclusion that any spin recovery guidance in the AFM distracts pilot from immediately activating CAPS system when the aircraft has departed controlled flight.

If the a/c can recover in an emergency, it's probably better to tell us that, as Diamond did with the DA40. Maybe a bit of type specific sim training? I know the sim might have problems with stall/spin aerodynamics (as X-Plane does), but it's far better than nothing.

Everytime an aircraft crashes we benefit from the knowledge gained, so that's why poring over GA/airline accident reports is so critical - it contributes hugely to our overall knowledge and decision making skills.

PS: Where can I test fly Angelina Jolie??

[SR20flyDoc]

@ Englishal

Angelina Jolie just finished her PPL in her own SR22 , N805MX

S.

[IO540]

The only thing about the SR22 that may be lacking is the POH

I think that if the SR22 was sold in the UK in any volume (which won't happen because there isn't anywhere near enough money floating about in UK GA) there would be a far bigger problem here than they might have in the USA. Here, most instructors wouldn't know how to switch on even the cockpit lights in something like that

[max roll rate]

IO540 must be some cash around !
I have seen more new sr22 in the last year than i ever saw new private piper sales with 13 years at oxford , i think 3 delivered this month alone so as i say must be some cash about hehehe

p.s i was flying a new SR22 GTS yesterday and they fly like a dream

[Genghis the Engineer]

Bloody hell I'd like to see a Cessna get out of an inverted spin without making a crater! I wonder how it got into that spin mode in the first place?

Roll inverted, push the stick forward, put in full rudder at about Vs+10kn. I've never inverted spun a Cessna, but from experience on other types I'd expect it to probably be unpleasantly oscillatory, but very quick to recover.

which won't happen because there isn't anywhere near enough money floating about in UK GA)

Some may have noticed my analysis posted recently of new aircraft bought in the UK during 2004. I'm in the process of doing a much deeper analysis covering 2000-2004, 5 years in total.

The analysis isn't complete yet, once it is I'll post it on Pprune somewhere. But, provisionally during that 5 year period there were 145 new-build Robinson R44s sold into the UK, 113 new Europas, 50 R22s, 37 DA40s, 29 Pegasus CT2K, 22 new Cessna 172s, 34 new Piper Archers and Warriors (and one Boeing 747!). There's money out there somewhere, just wish I saw more of it

G

[Chuck Ellsworth]

quote:
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Bloody hell I'd like to see a Cessna get out of an inverted spin without making a crater! I wonder how it got into that spin mode in the first place?
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Roll inverted, push the stick forward, put in full rudder at about Vs+10kn. I've never inverted spun a Cessna, but from experience on other types I'd expect it to probably be unpleasantly oscillatory, but very quick to recover.

.......................................

Good one, that is what the troops need, some simple atraight foward facts in a simple straight foward presentation.

Chuck

[Divergent Phugoid!]

Hey guys you're all over reacting....

A colleagues son was at a certain flying club/school at Humberside at the weekend and was in conversation with their new CFI who stated quite categorically that icing was not a problem on aircraft. The expense to have a citation or similar de-iced was not worth the risk of icing being a problem... this filtered down to all aircraft!!

How on earth are students expected to learn the safety rules when plonkers like this are giving out recommendations such as this.

HE also hs a different view on spin recovery from the long standing highly qualified instructor, (who also is a qualified aeros pilot and we think instructor aswell) which totally contradicts the rule book for a PA 28.

Dont think this guy knows what he is doing or talking about.

Advised the son to stay clear from the lonely sounding club and go to a more safety orientated one!!

[englishal]

Angelina Jolie just finished her PPL in her own SR22 , N805MX

Rumour has it that Ms Croft will be going through CPL / IR.....and that also the A/C will be based in England (can't say where, though it'd be nice to meet her at Compton Abbas for Lunch)...

Maybe we could arrange a celebrity show-down between her and Madonna (I know who my money would be on )

[Julian]

Indeed she has, seen her aircraft and she certainly hasnt skimped on the avionics. But there again probably equivalent of a bus fare to her

[IO540]

MRR

I have seen more new sr22 in the last year than i ever saw new private piper sales with 13 years at oxford

I can see that - Piper SEP sales are close to zero now in the UK, very low single figures. I mean, WHO would pay 150-200k for a PA28 Archer? Cessna aren't doing much better.

[A and C]

Having had the chance to look rather closely at the Cirrus I think that it is undoubtedly a step forward in the market but the composite technology somewhat lags that seen from Grob or Extra.

This is also apparent by the factorys ( shall we say) conservative approach to damage repair and shows a lack of experience in this field. If I was running the Cirrus factory I would buy in some one who has a lot of time fixing composite structures to advise them on repair techneques before the insurance rates on the type go sky high and make buying this aircraft unatractive.

My overall opinion is that it is a fine aircraft that lacks the product support that it deserves not because the factory don't want to do the job but because of the lack of practical experience that other aircraft factorys have with composites.

[Lowtimer]

Ghenghis,

If you ever get theopportunity, try invertied spins in the Super Decathlon. Only did it once, in the USA, but it was 12 turns and smooth as silk, a very regular and even pattern once the first three turns had gone by. Instructor flying, not me...

[Genghis the Engineer]

Should the opportunity arise, I certainly shall; there is far too little excitement in my life at present and I could do with some.

Incidentally, I've got to the bottom of that UK registrations analysis, posted it at http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...hreadid=162953, Interesting how much it varies from what one might have guessed.

G

[NeedaJet]

Back to stalling the Cirrus....

I have stalled (and do so quite regularly as it happens) both the SR20 and the SR22 and have to stress that it really isn't very frightening at all.

I'm not going to wax lyrical about the stall characteristics, but I will say that an average pilot, with average ability and dare I say average proficiency (?) can safely recover from a stall in either of the Cirrus without any problem.

The Cirrus does a lot of things very well (and I really could talk forever about the plus points/advantages of thissuperb machine)....but like ANY aeroplane.... it will turn around and bite you in the ass if you go pushing it beyond its design limits...or it's demonstrated limits....so...DON'T!

My friend Tony says "They're gggrrrreeeaattt!"

[valenii]

COPA - Cirrus Stall Tests

This thread has matured from what seemed like a malicious Cirrus-bashing stunt to a decent discussion of what I believe is the best new GA aircraft design in the last twenty years.

The Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) offer specific training called CPPP.

At one of these regulat meetings, the Cirrus training instructors from the factory flew down with a Cirrus and a Lancair (Yes Cirrus have one which was traded in against a new SR22), to demonstrate stalling in different configurations for all the present instructors.

Specifically they did the following:

• Full power coordinated/uncoordinated with and without 50%
flaps
• Power off coordinated/uncoordinated with and without 100%
flaps
• Accelerated 30° bank coordinated/uncoordinated

You can read an informal report made of the post flight discussions here (240k pdf)

In all cases I think that we can show that the stall characteristics of this aircraft are better than previous designs.

Ian

[Flight Safety]

Genghis, I created a thread in the Tech Log forum some months back, regarding the spin characteristics of the Cirrus SR20 and SR22. Basically, these aircraft are certified to a new FAA philosophy regarding spins, in that spin avoidance is emphasized at low altitude, rather than traditional spin recovery at higher altitudes. So these aircraft (along with other recently certified GA aircraft) are NOT certified to the same spin recovery standard that your father's airplane was. These new aircraft are not even tested for spin recovery (actually due to their design, they CANNOT be spin tested, as they have no designed in ability to recover).

Here's the link to the thread, and I hope the informative links within still work.

Cirrus SR20/22 - Was this a bad idea?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Thanks, I'd missed that one.

As for my father's aircraft - he designed bits of obscure British jet fighters, goodness only knows what the spinning characteristics of the Supermarine Attacker were !

Incidentally, I don't think in a fair number of years of bouncing off the subject, I've ever come across a really useable theory of the spin recovery (i.e. determining how well a particular aircraft will recover from the spin, and under which conditions) - it's one of the great holy grails of aerodynamics so far as I'm personally concerned.

G