Engine Failure
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One has an opportunity to practice a forced landing every time one lands an airplane.
"Request PFL to land"
"Negative due circuit traffic, join overhead runway ... "
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At the moment I will take the predictable 3G any time.
Cirrus might have changed their sales pitch since then, but when that thing was introduced the chute was expected and intended to save you from certain death, not injury. In a situation that would otherwise lead to a destroyed plane and a dead pilot, the chute would result in a destroyed plane and an injured pilot. Whereas an even somewhat successful forced landing results in an uninjured pilot and a possibly undamaged and probably repairable plane.
In my view, suggesting a pilot would be so poor that they would not even be able to accomplish a forced landing on suitable terrain is setting the piloting standards way, way too low.
Even a pilot who only flies 20 hours per year needs to spend enough of those hours practicing to be reasonably certain they could pull it off. That is the message that should be given, rather than "an average low hours pilot is so lousy they shouldn't even try it, just pull the chute and pray".
One thing that could probably be emphasized more is the option to choose a landing site that provides a suitable rate of deceleration. Performing a real-life forced landing on a 1000 ft smooth grass surface without rolling off the far end at speed would be somewhat challenging for many, and pulling off the same on a 500 ft field would be downright tricky. But if that 500 ft field has high, standing crop or low young trees in it, providing for deceleration in maybe 50 - 100 ft, anybody could pull it off; just land anywhere in that field, even in the last 200 ft, and you should be fine shouldn't you? (genuine question, I have not heard this method described anywhere).
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bjhornall
Have a look at the record.
Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) Deployment History - Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association
It challenges some of your assumption and just about all of Mr Guppies.
My friend had over 10,000 hours, a good mix of CAT and GA. She landed her Pitts in field - and it looked a very good field indeed. The aircraft hit a rock, flipped and she spent six months in hospital. With respect tell her she was not a good pilot - not many are better.
As to your last paragraph you make a valid point. However if you read my earlier post you address the point I sort to make. Objects may help to disipate the energy but equally might fail to do so. Toying with hard objects is not predictable.
Mr Guppy
Have a look at the COPA web site (see above). The whole of your post is ill informed and has little or no basis in fact.
You are well advised to avoid getting to close to anything factual.
Have a look at the record.
Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) Deployment History - Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association
It challenges some of your assumption and just about all of Mr Guppies.
My friend had over 10,000 hours, a good mix of CAT and GA. She landed her Pitts in field - and it looked a very good field indeed. The aircraft hit a rock, flipped and she spent six months in hospital. With respect tell her she was not a good pilot - not many are better.
As to your last paragraph you make a valid point. However if you read my earlier post you address the point I sort to make. Objects may help to disipate the energy but equally might fail to do so. Toying with hard objects is not predictable.
Mr Guppy
Have a look at the COPA web site (see above). The whole of your post is ill informed and has little or no basis in fact.
You are well advised to avoid getting to close to anything factual.
Interesting reference to Cirrus
As they say never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Cirrus seems to attack a lot of stories that rarely match the facts.
Just to note, the Boulder crash was a midair and the plane was one fire. In fact I think the occupants jumped out.
Only two loss of power incidents noted, one of which was stated to be a fuel management problem. No mention of the cause of the second one so engine failure does not seem to be a major issue.
Icing was involved in a lot of the incidents, suggesting being where you don't belong remains the major menace in GA in all types of planes.
What is interesting is there are a lot more fatal incidents in Cirrus's where the CAP was not deployed. COPA is trying to drum into people to use the chute.
Another interesting note is mid airs were a driving factor behind developing the chute. But like engine failures mid airs seem to be rare on the list.
Despite all the hot air I think the CAPS is a useful device. Is it worth the price is another question.
20driver
Just to note, the Boulder crash was a midair and the plane was one fire. In fact I think the occupants jumped out.
Only two loss of power incidents noted, one of which was stated to be a fuel management problem. No mention of the cause of the second one so engine failure does not seem to be a major issue.
Icing was involved in a lot of the incidents, suggesting being where you don't belong remains the major menace in GA in all types of planes.
What is interesting is there are a lot more fatal incidents in Cirrus's where the CAP was not deployed. COPA is trying to drum into people to use the chute.
Another interesting note is mid airs were a driving factor behind developing the chute. But like engine failures mid airs seem to be rare on the list.
Despite all the hot air I think the CAPS is a useful device. Is it worth the price is another question.
20driver
Last edited by 20driver; 18th Aug 2010 at 21:56.
Vy climb to 1000 feet?
Conventional wisdom is it is best to climb at Vy to 1000 feet. I don't buy into that in my case.
Case A - Climb at Vy. In my TB-20 this is very nose up with no view of the ground below. If you have a failure in the 3-5 seconds it will take to identify and act you are stalled or very close to it. It will take a very strong push over and leave you in a strange attitude trying to avoid a stall and looking where to go. Trying this with an instructor has always being pretty demanding.
Case B - Climb closer to Vx - I figure if the engine does fail I want to be in a better attitude to control the plane and I'm already looking where I'm going. At my local field I know which way I will turn. (In a high wing plane I would see this differently, but I fly a low wing) You are going down, There is little point in trying to restart, so control your airspeed and fly it into the ground under control is the best you can do.
In the scenario A by the time you have things under control you have probably lost any altitude you gained over case B and you are no doubt mentally saturated.
Interesting in all the real cases listed here of failures no one has mentioned one in a GA SEP on takeoff.
20driver
Case A - Climb at Vy. In my TB-20 this is very nose up with no view of the ground below. If you have a failure in the 3-5 seconds it will take to identify and act you are stalled or very close to it. It will take a very strong push over and leave you in a strange attitude trying to avoid a stall and looking where to go. Trying this with an instructor has always being pretty demanding.
Case B - Climb closer to Vx - I figure if the engine does fail I want to be in a better attitude to control the plane and I'm already looking where I'm going. At my local field I know which way I will turn. (In a high wing plane I would see this differently, but I fly a low wing) You are going down, There is little point in trying to restart, so control your airspeed and fly it into the ground under control is the best you can do.
In the scenario A by the time you have things under control you have probably lost any altitude you gained over case B and you are no doubt mentally saturated.
Interesting in all the real cases listed here of failures no one has mentioned one in a GA SEP on takeoff.
20driver
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Cirrus are dangerous.
We can now see that the Cirrus fatal accident rate is higher than the overall general aviation (GA) rate of 1.19 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.
Comparing Cirrus to the GA fleet is a tough comparison because GA includes multi-engine turboprops and turbojets flown by two pilots. This redundancy and professionalism produces significantly fewer fatal accidents. Backing out the flight hours and fatalities for those aircraft from the survey reduces flight time to about 14 million flight hours and produces about 261 fatal accidents.
Thus, the single-engine piston accident rate is about 1.86 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.
The Cirrus rates of 1.42 to 1.76, depending on the time scale, compares very favorably with single-engine piston aircraft rate of 1.86.
But what about other competitive aircraft like Cessna, Beechcraft, Mooney, Columbia, or Diamond? Unfortunately, none of those manufacturers publish their fleet hours. The legacy manufacturers have produced considerably more aircraft over a long period of time, so fleet comparisons may not be meaningful. For instance, the FAA survey of GA activity reports planes less than five years old fly about 200 hours a year, while planes 25 years or older only fly 125 hours per year.
As for fleet sizes, other new manufacturers have such small fleets in comparison to Cirrus Design, perhaps one-tenth to one-third the number of airplanes, that just a few accidents can cause a huge fluctuation in their accident rates. Until more information becomes available, no meaningful comparisons are possible.
I think that is pretty balanced. Make your own mind up, but please base your views on the facts, rather than the usual ill infomed views expressed by some, who see the facts as a nuisance.
The parachute leads pilots into places they should not be.
Do you recall the many many accidents I am sure we have all read about involving pilots "finding" themselves in conditions beyond them or their aircraft (or both). Do your recall those cases of CFIT. Do you recall pilots losing instruments in IMC. Do you recall icing. I do.
Pilots can, and will always get themselves in fixes. There most of us go for the Grace of God. That doesnt mean we shouldnt do everything we can to avoid getting ourselves into a fix in the first place. However given that it will continue to happen, it is no bad thing to have an out. I think the chute is an out.
I think fitting seat belts to cars is a good idea because someone's son or daughter will think he is Stirling Moss.
With no apologies I think arguments to the contrary are dangerous and foolish because only a fool believes he will never make a mistake. I had the pleasure to be in the sim a few weeks ago with a pilot with nearly 40 years behind him, 10s of thousand hours, etc. During the simulated engine failure he "missed" a very obvious indication of the problem and "failed" to take the appropriate vital action. The training captain smiled and said nearly everyone does that! As I said you are a fool if you think you will never get yourself into a situation when the chute might come in handy unless, of course, you possess the very advanced flying skills of our friend Mr Guppy.
We can now see that the Cirrus fatal accident rate is higher than the overall general aviation (GA) rate of 1.19 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.
Comparing Cirrus to the GA fleet is a tough comparison because GA includes multi-engine turboprops and turbojets flown by two pilots. This redundancy and professionalism produces significantly fewer fatal accidents. Backing out the flight hours and fatalities for those aircraft from the survey reduces flight time to about 14 million flight hours and produces about 261 fatal accidents.
Thus, the single-engine piston accident rate is about 1.86 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.
The Cirrus rates of 1.42 to 1.76, depending on the time scale, compares very favorably with single-engine piston aircraft rate of 1.86.
But what about other competitive aircraft like Cessna, Beechcraft, Mooney, Columbia, or Diamond? Unfortunately, none of those manufacturers publish their fleet hours. The legacy manufacturers have produced considerably more aircraft over a long period of time, so fleet comparisons may not be meaningful. For instance, the FAA survey of GA activity reports planes less than five years old fly about 200 hours a year, while planes 25 years or older only fly 125 hours per year.
As for fleet sizes, other new manufacturers have such small fleets in comparison to Cirrus Design, perhaps one-tenth to one-third the number of airplanes, that just a few accidents can cause a huge fluctuation in their accident rates. Until more information becomes available, no meaningful comparisons are possible.
I think that is pretty balanced. Make your own mind up, but please base your views on the facts, rather than the usual ill infomed views expressed by some, who see the facts as a nuisance.
The parachute leads pilots into places they should not be.
Do you recall the many many accidents I am sure we have all read about involving pilots "finding" themselves in conditions beyond them or their aircraft (or both). Do your recall those cases of CFIT. Do you recall pilots losing instruments in IMC. Do you recall icing. I do.
Pilots can, and will always get themselves in fixes. There most of us go for the Grace of God. That doesnt mean we shouldnt do everything we can to avoid getting ourselves into a fix in the first place. However given that it will continue to happen, it is no bad thing to have an out. I think the chute is an out.
I think fitting seat belts to cars is a good idea because someone's son or daughter will think he is Stirling Moss.
With no apologies I think arguments to the contrary are dangerous and foolish because only a fool believes he will never make a mistake. I had the pleasure to be in the sim a few weeks ago with a pilot with nearly 40 years behind him, 10s of thousand hours, etc. During the simulated engine failure he "missed" a very obvious indication of the problem and "failed" to take the appropriate vital action. The training captain smiled and said nearly everyone does that! As I said you are a fool if you think you will never get yourself into a situation when the chute might come in handy unless, of course, you possess the very advanced flying skills of our friend Mr Guppy.
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Mr Guppy
Please let me help you:
Let me google that for you
Thats my lot - I think it has been done to death.
Please let me help you:
Let me google that for you
Thats my lot - I think it has been done to death.
Conventional wisdom is it is best to climb at Vy to 1000 feet. I don't buy into that in my case.
Case A - Climb at Vy. In my TB-20 this is very nose up with no view of the ground below. If you have a failure in the 3-5 seconds it will take to identify and act you are stalled or very close to it. It will take a very strong push over and leave you in a strange attitude trying to avoid a stall and looking where to go. Trying this with an instructor has always being pretty demanding.
Case B - Climb closer to Vx - I figure if the engine does fail I want to be in a better attitude to control the plane and I'm already looking where I'm going. At my local field I know which way I will turn. (In a high wing plane I would see this differently, but I fly a low wing) You are going down, There is little point in trying to restart, so control your airspeed and fly it into the ground under control is the best you can do.
In the scenario A by the time you have things under control you have probably lost any altitude you gained over case B and you are no doubt mentally saturated.
Interesting in all the real cases listed here of failures no one has mentioned one in a GA SEP on takeoff.
20driver
Case A - Climb at Vy. In my TB-20 this is very nose up with no view of the ground below. If you have a failure in the 3-5 seconds it will take to identify and act you are stalled or very close to it. It will take a very strong push over and leave you in a strange attitude trying to avoid a stall and looking where to go. Trying this with an instructor has always being pretty demanding.
Case B - Climb closer to Vx - I figure if the engine does fail I want to be in a better attitude to control the plane and I'm already looking where I'm going. At my local field I know which way I will turn. (In a high wing plane I would see this differently, but I fly a low wing) You are going down, There is little point in trying to restart, so control your airspeed and fly it into the ground under control is the best you can do.
In the scenario A by the time you have things under control you have probably lost any altitude you gained over case B and you are no doubt mentally saturated.
Interesting in all the real cases listed here of failures no one has mentioned one in a GA SEP on takeoff.
20driver
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Be comfortable landing with and without power. Land fast, land slow. Get comfortable hitting the numbers each and ever time. Get comfortable getting down and getting stopped. Get comfortable not using brakes.
SN3Guppy
I think the hostility of your last post is not really necessary....
I think the hostility of your last post is not really necessary....
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I find myself agreeing with Guppy more and more as I read his comments.
Especially about single engine IFR, and his logical approach on adusting your climb profile to suit the airplane and the mission you are flying.
As to This:
Getting shot at with small arms, missiles, and other arms is part of the job description; a professional endeavor, as opposed to flying in one's Cessna to visit Grandma on one dark and stormy night. Big difference
.
Exactly, and unless one has experienced these things one should not form preconceived ideas about it.
Guppy the last time I had a close call flying in a no fly zone they scrambled two Mig 29's on me....one of my crew actually saw them light the afterburners.
( Dire Dawa )
Especially about single engine IFR, and his logical approach on adusting your climb profile to suit the airplane and the mission you are flying.
As to This:
Getting shot at with small arms, missiles, and other arms is part of the job description; a professional endeavor, as opposed to flying in one's Cessna to visit Grandma on one dark and stormy night. Big difference
Exactly, and unless one has experienced these things one should not form preconceived ideas about it.
Guppy the last time I had a close call flying in a no fly zone they scrambled two Mig 29's on me....one of my crew actually saw them light the afterburners.
( Dire Dawa )
Got the x and y mixed up
Another way to look at it, if you lost power close the the ground what pitch attitude would you rather be in?
Given the reaction time to do something, I'd rather have the 20 knots extra airspeed and be able to nose over in a smooth maneuver than finding myself nose high on the verge of a stall.
It would be interesting to calculate the total energy vs time for a Vx and Vy climb profile to 1000 feet. I suspect the difference is minor. Might make a fun little flying experiment to time the two profiles.
A second consideration is relative risk. Engine failures on climb out are very rare. So are collisions in the traffic pattern. Both have happened in the area I fly in, but collisions are more frequent. On a TB-20 with a long cowling you have a limited forward view in a nose high attitude, so climbing at a lower rate with a lower pitch gives you some safety margin in terms of visibility.
20driver
- We did have a plane loose power on takeoff at a local field. The cause, I was told, was water in the fuel.
Given the reaction time to do something, I'd rather have the 20 knots extra airspeed and be able to nose over in a smooth maneuver than finding myself nose high on the verge of a stall.
It would be interesting to calculate the total energy vs time for a Vx and Vy climb profile to 1000 feet. I suspect the difference is minor. Might make a fun little flying experiment to time the two profiles.
A second consideration is relative risk. Engine failures on climb out are very rare. So are collisions in the traffic pattern. Both have happened in the area I fly in, but collisions are more frequent. On a TB-20 with a long cowling you have a limited forward view in a nose high attitude, so climbing at a lower rate with a lower pitch gives you some safety margin in terms of visibility.
20driver
- We did have a plane loose power on takeoff at a local field. The cause, I was told, was water in the fuel.
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Guppy, so you are saying that single engine IMC is dangerous and shouldn't be done at all - ever?
I have an IMC rating and don't make a habit of flying in hard IMC but have flown on top many times since getting the rating. My criteria for flying on top (or in IMC) are
1. Don't fly on top where the MSA is in the clouds and
2. Don't try to climb on top where the freezing level is well below the tops.
Are you therefore saying that anyone with an IMCR or an IR who flies SEP should just not venture out at all unless its clear VMC for the whole route? No-one would fly if that were the case, would they? Surely, there's an argument which says that in actual fact, flying MEP in IMC is (potentially) more dangerous for the simple facts that there is the temptation by many MEP owners to fly closer to the limits of maintenance etc. and if they are in hard IMC and have an engine failure, there is a greater chance of loss of control?
I'm not talking about those pilots / owners who fly 1000+ hrs a year but the "average" GA, say 50-100hrs p.a.?
I only have 150 hours total so I'm not in a position to preach to anyone, I'm just more than a little surprised I suppose, at the suggestion that "anyone" flying SEP in IMC (or on top) is asking for trouble - period?
I have an IMC rating and don't make a habit of flying in hard IMC but have flown on top many times since getting the rating. My criteria for flying on top (or in IMC) are
1. Don't fly on top where the MSA is in the clouds and
2. Don't try to climb on top where the freezing level is well below the tops.
Are you therefore saying that anyone with an IMCR or an IR who flies SEP should just not venture out at all unless its clear VMC for the whole route? No-one would fly if that were the case, would they? Surely, there's an argument which says that in actual fact, flying MEP in IMC is (potentially) more dangerous for the simple facts that there is the temptation by many MEP owners to fly closer to the limits of maintenance etc. and if they are in hard IMC and have an engine failure, there is a greater chance of loss of control?
I'm not talking about those pilots / owners who fly 1000+ hrs a year but the "average" GA, say 50-100hrs p.a.?
I only have 150 hours total so I'm not in a position to preach to anyone, I'm just more than a little surprised I suppose, at the suggestion that "anyone" flying SEP in IMC (or on top) is asking for trouble - period?
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Mr Guppy (a CIA agent and a one-time Belgian Congo mercenary, apparently, whose biggest risk in aviation is small arms fire) does his best to make some good points (like quite a few of the Cirrus chute deployments being nothing other than sheer pilot stupidity, which I agree with) but he then he totally undermines his fearsome reputation with
What a load of utter bollox.
Pilot disorientation in instrument conditions, in a single engine piston airplane. Pilot shouldn't have been there to begin with.
Fly Conventional Gear
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What a load of utter bollox.
Moderator
the number of engines one has has nothing to do with disorientation
Fly Conventional Gear
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The allegiance to single engine instrument flying is generally the domain of the inexperienced; those who simply don't know better yet.
I would much rather fly IMC in the modern G1000 C182 that I do for example with its solid state AHRS and vacuum pump driven back up AI, backup battery for the essential systems and all the other trimmings that a modern IFR certified GPS/EFIS system comes with than the vast majority of shabby twins you see lying around in the UK which cost a lot more and are more complicated to operate. Although Guppy you quite rightly warn against using aircraft with single power sources for the instruments in reality few people actually fly IFR regularly with just one vacuum pump even if the aircraft itself has only one engine. I find it ironic as well that you criticise the Cirrus when in fact the latest versions have excellent system redundancy, the G1000 system for the Cirrus for example has two separate AHRS systems. They are designed to fly IFR safely and can so, which has nothing to do with idiots flying into thunderstorms or getting disorientated. 737s have crashed due to pilot disorientation just as Cirri have, it is not usually the aircraft's fault.
I personally think the Cirrus is an excellent design and has really improved the piston end of the GA scene in the US in terms of the quality of the aircraft available.
