Cirrus SR20 deploys ballistic parachute near Banbury
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: london
Posts: 246
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I did something very similar in a PA38 during basic PPL training, on my first solo away from the circuit. I'd flown for about an hour with my instructor in the local area, dodging (& sometimes flying through) the clouds. I told my instructor on landing that I was really looking forward to being able to take the aircraft away from the circuit on my own, and to my surprise he checked the bookings sheet & handed me the keys back with a 'don't be away more than 40 mins... and KEEP OUT OF THE CLOUDS!!!'. What I really wanted to do was fly over my house, which was about 10nm from the airfield but in the opposite direction to the local training area. So once out of sight of the tower, I did a quick course reversal & headed off east. Of course, the cloud cover was much less broken that way.... ....and to cut a long story short, flew straight into one. I just focused on the panel, turned through 180 & was out in a couple of minutes - about the same time as the radio boomed out 'G-xxxx return IMMEDIATELY'. Managed to find my way back around the weather & on landing both myself & the instructor who'd authorised the flight had the pleasure of a long & most uncomfortable 'no tea & no biscuits' session with the CFI, who'd apparently been taking advantage of the weather to conduct IMC training & was horrified to learn that one of the students was out in those conditions solo.
My point in posting this story is this. I survived this very silly misadventure because I'd just done the same thing with an instructor, in the same aircraft, in the same weather, an hour before. Currency & confidence prevented a nasty incident, despite my best efforts to cause one.
Everyone presumably still has to demonstrate some basic ability to fly on instruments in order to get a licence. In theory, any PPL holder should be able to fly themselves out of a cloud in a situation like this. But if a pilot hasn't done it recently in the type they're flying, and their last 50 hours has been spent flying VFR with the autopilot engaged, then it's understandable that they'll frighten themselves badly, panic, and pull the 'chute. IMO every VFR-only pilot would benefit from flying any aircraft they fly regularly in actual IMC with a suitably qualified instructor. But how are folks going to be able to get this potentially life-saving experience if they're flying a VFR-only type?
My point in posting this story is this. I survived this very silly misadventure because I'd just done the same thing with an instructor, in the same aircraft, in the same weather, an hour before. Currency & confidence prevented a nasty incident, despite my best efforts to cause one.
Everyone presumably still has to demonstrate some basic ability to fly on instruments in order to get a licence. In theory, any PPL holder should be able to fly themselves out of a cloud in a situation like this. But if a pilot hasn't done it recently in the type they're flying, and their last 50 hours has been spent flying VFR with the autopilot engaged, then it's understandable that they'll frighten themselves badly, panic, and pull the 'chute. IMO every VFR-only pilot would benefit from flying any aircraft they fly regularly in actual IMC with a suitably qualified instructor. But how are folks going to be able to get this potentially life-saving experience if they're flying a VFR-only type?
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Stockholm,Sweden
Age: 43
Posts: 44
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Join Date: May 2001
Location: 75N 16E
Age: 54
Posts: 4,729
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
but I think most "stick" tourers are routinely flown on the AP because the stick doesn't lend itself to quite such precise control as a yoke.
By the way there have been many numpties killed by IMC in PA28's (for example) so I think the parachute is a red herring and obviously saved the day in this case. You'll always get morons flying outside their experience levels in every type of aeroplane. Probably a Cirrus moron has more money than a PA38 Moron though.
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: NE England
Age: 53
Posts: 230
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Thank you for making your contribution to a hostile discussion environment where people will keep their mistakes to themselves and therefore forcing everyone to learn from their own mistakes instead of other's.
Opposite direction to training area? As a student? into IMC? with no instrument experience (apart from an instructor flying through a cloud)? Near London TMA one assumes? for at least 4 minutes? presumably unaware of Notams, CAS, danger areas, restricted areas etc etc etc?
It just beggars belief what some people do, really. Its one thing to post on here saying I made a mistake and have learnt from it but the above just floored me. I can't really believe that anyone is going to try to defend this as "woops, I made a mistake" - its just downright stupidity, nothing more to be said.
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: london
Posts: 246
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
How can the parachute be a red herring when the outcome would so obviously have been completely different without it? Either the pilot would have got it together, recovered the aircraft & flown back to VMC, or he'd have lost control completely, crashed & likely lost his life.
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I would still consider the Avidyne PFD to be good enough to fly in IMC - all the "6 pack" information is on the PFD. I think any PPL is able (should be) to do 180 in IMC, the problem in this case, IMHO, is that the pilot didn't noticed the attitude (nose way down, high bank and speed sounds like spiral entry to me) while looking at MFD and obviously wasn't able to recover on instruments (didn't have any training). I guess in this situation opening the parachute wasn't such a bad option.
On the speed the parachute has got opened - the Cirrus has demonstrated speed no maximum speed for deployment.
Psychologically, if the parachute encourages the pilots to be more reckless or not I don't know, I know that until I get my IR I'm maintaining 1.5km/1000 feet from them clouds
On the speed the parachute has got opened - the Cirrus has demonstrated speed no maximum speed for deployment.
Psychologically, if the parachute encourages the pilots to be more reckless or not I don't know, I know that until I get my IR I'm maintaining 1.5km/1000 feet from them clouds
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Stockholm,Sweden
Age: 43
Posts: 44
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Do I really need to point out the utter stupidity of what this guy did?
Opposite direction to training area? As a student? into IMC? with no instrument experience (apart from an instructor flying through a cloud)? Near London TMA one assumes? for at least 4 minutes? presumably unaware of Notams, CAS, danger areas, restricted areas etc etc etc?
It just beggars belief what some people do, really. Its one thing to post on here saying I made a mistake and have learnt from it but the above just floored me. I can't really believe that anyone is going to try to defend this as "woops, I made a mistake" - its just downright stupidity, nothing more to be said.
Opposite direction to training area? As a student? into IMC? with no instrument experience (apart from an instructor flying through a cloud)? Near London TMA one assumes? for at least 4 minutes? presumably unaware of Notams, CAS, danger areas, restricted areas etc etc etc?
It just beggars belief what some people do, really. Its one thing to post on here saying I made a mistake and have learnt from it but the above just floored me. I can't really believe that anyone is going to try to defend this as "woops, I made a mistake" - its just downright stupidity, nothing more to be said.
Maybe the above example will cause a student reading it to abort a flight, recognizing it has similarities to the story shared?
Very sorry for the thread hijack.
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Midlands
Posts: 2,359
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
If you read through the “saves” for the cirrus BRS and then look at accidents for other similar touring aircraft it is hard to escape the fact that there are lower time less qualified pilots getting out of their depth and puling the BRS in much grater numbers than accidents in non BRS aircraft. The weather might be a bit much but I have a BRS so it will be all right and the forecast is always pessimistic, is an approach that you are unlikely to take if you have no BRS. I am not saying BRS is all bad, but it does appear to encourage more risk taking because there is a fall back.
Rod1
Rod1
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: london
Posts: 246
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
If you read through the “saves” for the cirrus BRS and then look at accidents for other similar touring aircraft it is hard to escape the fact that there are lower time less qualified pilots getting out of their depth and puling the BRS in much grater numbers than accidents in non BRS aircraft. The weather might be a bit much but I have a BRS so it will be all right and the forecast is always pessimistic, is an approach that you are unlikely to take if you have no BRS. I am not saying BRS is all bad, but it does appear to encourage more risk taking because there is a fall back.
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: London
Posts: 519
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I'm still interested in the BRS. It has a max demonstrated speed for operation yet that speed isn't particularly high. As can be seen from this report the BRS was operated way above that demonstrated speed, and the pilot was lucky it worked when the report also states that there have been recorded cases where the BRS hasn't worked above the max demonstrated speed.
Given an unusual attitude and faced with an increasing airspeed, isn't it possible that a pilot may decide to pull the chute before exhausting all other options just because they were aware of the possibility of the chute not working beyond a particular airspeed?
The pilot said there was a jolt and he noticed increasing airspeed. It's really not too surprising that he automatically assumed the worst and didn't want to wait around to confirm his suspicion.
A last resort isn't exactly a last resort if there is a particularly limiting operational factor. What do you guys think?
Given an unusual attitude and faced with an increasing airspeed, isn't it possible that a pilot may decide to pull the chute before exhausting all other options just because they were aware of the possibility of the chute not working beyond a particular airspeed?
The pilot said there was a jolt and he noticed increasing airspeed. It's really not too surprising that he automatically assumed the worst and didn't want to wait around to confirm his suspicion.
A last resort isn't exactly a last resort if there is a particularly limiting operational factor. What do you guys think?
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Gt. Yarmouth, Norfolk
Age: 68
Posts: 799
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I'd opt for a stick every time
Join Date: Jan 1999
Location: north of barlu
Posts: 6,207
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Rasti121
You are quite correct about the Avidyne being good enough for IMC flight and with the correct equipment fit it is, in this case the aircraft was not fitted with the standby instruments that are required for IFR flight. So the aircraft becomes VFR only because of no back up attitude indication if the Avidyne fails.
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: EuroGA.org
Posts: 13,787
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I think IO was referring the the side stick,
This "Cirrus business" has been done to death on every pilot forum going, UK, USA, the lot. There are a number of factors which are not going away:
Cirrus advertising, in the USA anyway, has been aimed to draw in new blood. They correctly realised that flogging a new idea (actually an SR20/22 is hardly innovative when you look at what is actually in there, and what bodge was done to get rid of the prop rpm lever, but I am talking about perceptions here) to the ultra conservative population of ageing GA pilots was a dead horse. So they aimed it at younger affluent people who, given the cost of this hardware, are nearly all business / professional high achievers.
This in turn has created a number of issues.
Those who fly regularly IFR know that a plane will never be a car. The only plane which approaches the despatch rate of even a Trabant will be a heavily de-iced turboprop or above. But the Cirrus dealer is not going to tell you that, and neither will the PPL instructor. Even with an IR, full TKS, a turbo, oxygen, and currency you are only going to be around the 90-95% mark. Without full TKS, around 75% unless you like the odd "eventuful flight" and your passengers are very devoted to you
But if you advertise a plane like it is a 150kt car (and the current Cessna 400 adverts in the US mags, where the very smart businessman with great hair is visiting 3 cities in one day, do the same thing, if far less successfully than Cirrus have done) then statistically you are bound to draw out of the woodwork some people who believe it, and some of them are statistically bound to fall through the cracks in the PPL training system and actually try it. Hence you would expect more "stupid" crashes in Cirruses than the older types, but I can't see anybody should be blamed for this. GA cannot carry on running on WW2 hardware. It desperately needs new blood (and women 
).A large % of business / professional people are not easy to train to fly. At best, they are successful in their jobs and they are equally demanding of all service providers including their PPL instructors, and we all know that a % of instructors are technically useless and/or useless communicators. This causes a relationship breakdown, in such cases. If you want to teach professionals to fly, you need to be very competent yourself and your whole training business has to be very polished. Money is not an issue, after all.
A % of business / professional people are aggressive and arrogant. These are just going to be hard to train anyway.
Looking at the Cirrus chute pulls, most of them were in basically dumb circumstances, and it's probably due to a combination of the above factors. But even those vary. The one where they stalled/spun while probing the operating ceiling, in turbulence and icing or whatever, that has killed loads of normal pilots, and I would not call that a "Cirrus factor". The one where he pulled the chute because his aileron fell off was plain dumb because AFAIK the plane was fully flyable.
The chute pulls have reflected in high insurance premiums. I know one UK insurer has whacked up the deductible from £3500 to £15000, following one well publicised UK chute pull a year ago. And US Cirrus owners now pay something like 2x more than TB20 owners, despite the "low insurance rate" (haha) fixed gear which costs them about 10-15% extra avgas on every flight. Whatever you think of this trend, it is going to kill the sales, and the only way out is mandatory and thorough pilot training, but this is tricky to implement because it is way on top of ICAO requirements.
Then you have loads of traditional pilots who don't believe a proper pilot should be provided with a get out of jail card, and upon making a mistake he should die like a man, while saluting the queen of course. So a lot of Cirrus crashes get taken apart... but all the time you have people pulling the chute for daft reasons the "GA lynch mob" will carry on
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Midlands
Posts: 2,359
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
IO I think we are saying the same thing, so what is the solution? Mandatory training with a formal test on the aircraft systems? Alternatively I suppose the insurance co’s will “solve” the problem by making insurance unobtainable or too expensive to seriously consider.
Rod1
Rod1
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: In the boot of my car!
Posts: 5,982
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
The insurance for reasons of the chute system doesnt make sense. What is the bigger insurance claim loss of an airframe or 4 lives with either loss of life or serious injury?
On the sidestick issue the problem is not the sidestick but the roll rate which means that any less than competant pilot in cloud could with slight distraction quickly end up in a high angle of bank.
Cirrus have fitted an emergency auto leveler button so they must themselves appreciate that the aircraft is lively in roll.
There is nothing especially wrong with the aircraft but equally it is not the easiest IFR platform hand flown.
Rely on systems and you are in for a big shock when they fail.
In the hands of a competant pilot the Cirrus is a fast safe aeroplane but here lies the problem as often a Cirrus gets into the hands of wealthy low time pilots or not so competant pilots who because of the percieved safety additions will fly the aircraft in conditions they are not up to!
Pace
On the sidestick issue the problem is not the sidestick but the roll rate which means that any less than competant pilot in cloud could with slight distraction quickly end up in a high angle of bank.
Cirrus have fitted an emergency auto leveler button so they must themselves appreciate that the aircraft is lively in roll.
There is nothing especially wrong with the aircraft but equally it is not the easiest IFR platform hand flown.
Rely on systems and you are in for a big shock when they fail.
In the hands of a competant pilot the Cirrus is a fast safe aeroplane but here lies the problem as often a Cirrus gets into the hands of wealthy low time pilots or not so competant pilots who because of the percieved safety additions will fly the aircraft in conditions they are not up to!
Pace
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Up North
Age: 57
Posts: 557
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
They could do to Cirrus what they have done to Piper (at least in UK, maybe all JAA/EASA states?) and take it out of the SEP(L) class and make pilots get a type rating, like you have to do for the PA46. They could also designate it as a "high performance aircraft", this of course would make them unpopular with the manufacturer and current owners.
My :02 cents
I am disappointed by the wiff of "real pilots should not need to be saved by a parachute" in some of the posts on this forum. Sadly the accident record says otherwise and IMO anything that can reduce the headlines gleefully reporting yet another "smoking hole with dead bodies" is obviously good for not only the people saved but for the industry as a whole.
The sad fact is every fatal accident is another one of a death by a thousand cuts that will cause more airports that operate "dangerous" small aircraft to close and more pressure to regulate GA out of existance. This is not just a UK issue, it applies to pretty much everywhere there is still privately operated small aircraft.
This accident has "training failure" written all over it. One huge issue which IMO is not getting sufficent heat and light is the fact that the type conversion training has to to have 2 parts. The first part is the fly it up, fly it down basic aircraft control which usually happens, what is missing is the second part, Practical knowledge and strategies for using the technology.
The turn off the electrics and use a map and stop watch brigade have to get their heads out of the sand and get with the program, because properly used the technology makes flying easier, more precise, and safer.
So for example if you are A VFR only pilot in a technoloically advanced aircraft and inadvertantly get into cloud the first thing you should do is turn on the autopilot in heading and alt hold mode. The aircraft will fly straight and level (straight because you have been taught to always set the heading bug on to your current course) while you asses the situation and then initiate a turn towards the nearest VMC. This would obviously be the last part of a trained response that wouldl start with the pilot decision making to not get into IMC in the first place.
I am disappointed by the wiff of "real pilots should not need to be saved by a parachute" in some of the posts on this forum. Sadly the accident record says otherwise and IMO anything that can reduce the headlines gleefully reporting yet another "smoking hole with dead bodies" is obviously good for not only the people saved but for the industry as a whole.
The sad fact is every fatal accident is another one of a death by a thousand cuts that will cause more airports that operate "dangerous" small aircraft to close and more pressure to regulate GA out of existance. This is not just a UK issue, it applies to pretty much everywhere there is still privately operated small aircraft.
This accident has "training failure" written all over it. One huge issue which IMO is not getting sufficent heat and light is the fact that the type conversion training has to to have 2 parts. The first part is the fly it up, fly it down basic aircraft control which usually happens, what is missing is the second part, Practical knowledge and strategies for using the technology.
The turn off the electrics and use a map and stop watch brigade have to get their heads out of the sand and get with the program, because properly used the technology makes flying easier, more precise, and safer.
So for example if you are A VFR only pilot in a technoloically advanced aircraft and inadvertantly get into cloud the first thing you should do is turn on the autopilot in heading and alt hold mode. The aircraft will fly straight and level (straight because you have been taught to always set the heading bug on to your current course) while you asses the situation and then initiate a turn towards the nearest VMC. This would obviously be the last part of a trained response that wouldl start with the pilot decision making to not get into IMC in the first place.