BRS equipped plane for training

[Contacttower]

Is there anywhere that offers training in an Ikarus C42 (the VLA version, not the microlight version) with a BRS near(ish) London (or of course a similar BRS equipped alternative that I am not familiar with)?

Coming back to original question...

I rather doubt it, I may be wrong but apart from the Cirrus you'll struggle to find many BRS equipped planes for training in the UK; please someone correct me if I'm wrong...

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by Contacttower

Coming back to original question...

I rather doubt it, I may be wrong but apart from the Cirrus you'll struggle to find many BRS equipped planes for training in the UK; please someone correct me if I'm wrong...

All Ikarus C42 VLAs in the UK are homebuilts, so can only be used for flying instruction of the sole owner.

There are lots of C42s in microlight schools, these are the type approved microlight version. Some of them I'm sure have BRS fitted, although probably not very many.

There are BRS mods available for lots of common light aeroplanes. The fact is, very few operators see this as a valuable addition, so very few few of these aeroplanes have BRS fitted. Also, it's a lot harder to get approval to fit these to a UK than a US aeroplane, and very few people in the UK have the ability to get mods approved.

G

[Pilot DAR]

so very few few of these aeroplanes have BRS fitted

When I received notification of an Airworthiness Directive which might be applicable to my C 150 (which always makes one shudder!) I was relieved to read that it was applicable only to BRS equipped C 150's, and that there are only 4 known to be so equipped in North America. (kinda makes me wonder why AD it, just contact those 4 owners directly!)

So that's about one in every 3500 C 150's in North America - not common

[paulp]

This isn't a criticism of BRS, or of Cirrus. It is a criticism of some Cirrus pilots, a certain proportion of whom have definitely fallen into the SILLY category.

Having looked at most Cirrus accidents and a lot of others too the thing that strikes me is the similarity of Cirrus accidents to those of other high performance planes. The silly and the stupid seem to be very well spread around the flying community. I sometimes teach a critical decision making class. One example I use is a Debonair accident from the 1960's. It was the Cirrus of its day. It gets loaded with the pilot, his wife, an in-law and several kids for a flight from the east coast of the US to the west coast. I show a picture of the plane including the interior to show how stupidly overloaded it was. In the end the plane ices up and crashes. For all of the idiocy all the pilot had to do was turn around when he encountered ice. When you compare Cirrus accidents to other planes be sure to compare to other high performance aircraft and not a C172. If you go to Flightware.com and look at the aircraft in the US ATC system you will see the large number of Cirrus aircraft being flown IFR. Currently there are 27 SR22's and one SR20. Compare that to 17 BE36, 6 BE35, 3 DA40, 2 DA42, and 20 C182. These numbers will vary a lot but having looked at them for several years now the thing that jumps out is that a lot of Cirrus aircraft are being flown in the IFR system compared to other makes.

[patowalker]

There are lots of C42s in microlight schools, these are the type approved microlight version. Some of them I'm sure have BRS fitted, although probably not very many.

There is a BRS equipped C42 in the microlight school at Deanland. As mentioned earlier, the parachute was added to benefit from an additional 11kg in crew or fuel weight, not for safety reasons.

[sdbeach]

I'm happy to hang my hat on all of this; I do however think that I have read a lot of Cirrus accident reports that fall fairly into the "BAD AND STUPID" category I defined above.

While I may be influenced by my Cirrus experience, I have come to realize that avoiding labels such as "pilot error" and "stupid" forces the discussion into more constructive areas of action. After I made that choice for myself, I began to realize that accident investigators also avoid those terms.

Heard the line "You can't fix stupid!"

So, as I got deeper into the accident reports and the underlying public information dockets, accidents that people called "stupid pilot tricks" or similar "pilot error" foibles revealed accident chains of inadequate decision-making or failing to mitigate risks.

Those you can fix.

Unfortunately, we don't have strong motivators for the average (or below average) pilot to fix them. No type ratings. Not much more than a flight review. Hmmm...

Cheers
Rick

[SEP Flyer]

172 Driver - None of the a/c I fly has BRS fitted, but given the option I'd take one any day. Call me what you may - if I can increase the safety of my flying, I damn well will.

I'll second that!

One point of interest is that those generally not in favour of fitting BRS seem to be high hour, experienced flyers. I would suggest that most private flyers do not have the hours or experience, or are able to fly as regularly as they would like - I'm certainly one - so the reassurance of a BRS would be a bit like having the instructor next to you. It gives you extra confidence. I don't think most private pilots would push their or their plane's boundaries any further with a BRS system. And I'm sure it would help many passengers be more relaxed as well!

Similarly, I don't need my GPS (I'm VFR only), after all I was trained to navigate without one, but I feel a lot safer and more confident with one. It makes my flying more enjoyable, and I'm sure safer.

Although the top of my wish list is the mandatory (retro)fitting of non icing carburettors as standard and so ending the dinosaur requirements of carb heat...that would surely reduce the seemingly high number of carb ice accidents at low level where BRS would not work anyway. But that's another discussion!

[Pilot DAR]

those generally not in favour of fitting BRS seem to be high hour, experienced flyers. I would suggest that most private flyers do not have the hours or experience, or are able to fly as regularly as they would like

A valid point about not flying regularly, however, to me it's the broader issue of competence in any given flying environment. If you're really relaxed in a given flying circumstance, you're probably "good", but verging on complacent. If you really know that you have no business in a given flying environment, get out, stay out, or go with competent mentoring. If you're in the middle, and the conditions appropriate, you should probably be going, but with caution. That's probably the safest kind of flying.

I get pointed toward a plane from time to time, with the instruction to go an fly it for whatever purpose. Sometimes it's a type I've never flown before. I take a breath, and remind myself of the test pilot's prayer: "Please keep me from buggering up!". Then I read the flight manual, and fly as though there's trouble around every corner. Then, when I'm done for the day, I get in my plane, and fly home, about as though it is my car.

I think that the "high hour experienced fliers" are not safer because of lots of hours, they're just more "at one" with the plane and the environment, and perhaps (though certainly not always!) relaxed so as not to rush into poor flying circumstances too quickly. If they're not in the poor circumstances, they're not having to get themselves back out.

I don't for a moment suggest that's there's a number where a pilot becomes "high time" or "safe", it's more of an attitude thing. But, were I to be the passenger to a pilot who felt that they "needed" a BRS, (or a number of other non standard safety items) to fly a reassuringly safe flight, I'd be worried. I'd rather that they feel on the edge, and say the test pilot's prayer to themselves, then fly with caution - it'll be fine....

[Aphrican]

Ceteris paribus, I would prefer a plane with BRS to one without it.

Unfortunately, having a BRS probably means that things don't remain the same after just a few hours for a low hours pilot like me.

The new equilibrium post BRS is probably more risky than the old equilibrium pre BRS.

[007helicopter]

I'm happy to hang my hat on all of this; I do however think that I have read a lot of Cirrus accident reports that fall fairly into the "BAD AND STUPID" category I defined above.

Genghis I have read every Cirrus fatal accident report and would actually say the "BAD AND STUPID" ratio appears to me broadly the same for other types.

I certainly prefer to have BRS at night and over any hostile terrain and to be completely honest I do now prefer to have it period just as I do prefer air bags and ABS in my car.

So if ever we do get to swap our hour and have any reason to need to land off airfield, sorry it will be a CAPS pull...

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by 007helicopter

Genghis I have read every Cirrus fatal accident report and would actually say the "BAD AND STUPID" ratio appears to me broadly the same for other types.

I certainly prefer to have BRS at night and over any hostile terrain and to be completely honest I do now prefer to have it period just as I do prefer air bags and ABS in my car.

So if ever we do get to swap our hour and have any reason to need to land off airfield, sorry it will be a CAPS pull...

Fair enough, your aircraft after-all, but if you start flying towards icing conditions - I reserve the right to express some strong opinions before we get there ! In reality, the Cirrus is a beautiful fascinating aeroplane and I'm keen to have a go in it.

When I flew the Tucano (ejector seats) or Bulldog (personal parachutes and a jettisonable canopy) as observer on various flight trials, the Test Pilots were always clear than in the event of an engine failure, their first preference was to land in a field. Either way, the first thing we'd try and do is re-start the engine!

On the other hand, if you read the BRS website (or did, I've not looked for a few years) there always used to be various accounts of people who used BRS in the pre-Cirrus days as their route out from some perfectly recoverable situations. There will always be somebody who relies excessively upon the safety aids. I noticed in my own flying, when I used to do a lot more microlight flying than I do now, that I was far more likely to continue into marginal conditions when I had doors and windows on the aeroplane - as if that little bit of perspex would really make a blind bit of difference if I hit anything!

I hopefully will be in touch shortly - my beastie is about to come out of a bit of maintenance, and the weather seems to be occasionally quite useable lately.

Cheers,

G

[Contacttower]

There is a BRS equipped C42 in the microlight school at Deanland. As mentioned earlier, the parachute was added to benefit from an additional 11kg in crew or fuel weight, not for safety reasons.

How come one gets an extra 11kg if you fit the parachute?

[patowalker]

Sorry, it is about 7kgs. That is because the weight allowance is 22.5kg and the GRS Galaxy system for a C42 weights about 15kgs. On a school microlight, depending on the size of the instructor, it can make the difference between being able to accept or having to reject students of a certain weight.

[A and C]

And another job floats down out of the sky!

Low time pilots who are not very current & BRS, you just got to love e'm. Great for business!

[Tinstaafl]

Sigh... lovely debate to have it summed up nicely as stating that safety innovations are not justified -- instead of saving yourself, you could invest in more training and useful load.

More training nearly always translates into a safer pilot, lowering risk for most or all aspects of a flight, and not just the limited flight envelope a BRS is certified for. And useful load doesn't necessarily mean more bags or bums. *Fuel* is useful load too.

[sdbeach]

More training nearly always translates into a safer pilot, lowering risk for most or all aspects of a flight, and not just the limited flight envelope a BRS is certified for. And useful load doesn't necessarily mean more bags or bums. *Fuel* is useful load too.

All good.

Denigrating the ballistic parachute by your earlier comment that "risk is not great enough to justify the cost" belittles the innovation.

Cirrus decided that you could not buy one without CAPS; no option. In the history of CAPS deployments, pilots found themselves in a wide variety of situations, well beyond the expected scenarios imagined by the innovators.

All too often, critics and skeptics trot out their hypotheses about other ways of handling those bad situations. Of course, one cannot prove those hypotheses because you were not there, you did not experience what that pilot experienced. Except, we now can interview the pilot and learn something from their decisions.

I put it to you, is living a sufficient reward for pulling the red parachute handle? So far, 100% of the people aboard Cirrus aircraft survived when the parachute was activated within design parameters. And 4 people died and 12 survived in 10 accidents when the parachute was activated too low or too fast.

Cheers
Rick

[007helicopter]

Fair enough, your aircraft after-all, but if you start flying towards icing conditions - I reserve the right to express some strong opinions before we get there ! In reality, the Cirrus is a beautiful fascinating aeroplane and I'm keen to have a go in it.

Genghis drop me pm with your location or come over to Rochester and we can do it, not a FIKI aircraft so promise I am ice adverse

N95GT goes in for annual 1st feb so after then will be likely March and happy to bank the return hour when ever convenient.

[Pilot DAR]

Cirrus decided that you could not buy one without CAPS; no option.

It is simply my guess that Cirrus did this because they suspected that most purchasers would not spend the extra, given the choice, and so for the few they sold, the cost would be disproportionately high.

I recall reading somewhere in this thread a cost of $1000 per year for the system (I have no other knowledge of the cost). For an average user this would equal around $10 per hour? To many, this would seem expensive, to others, not so much.But for those who choose to fly with the BRS, don't complain about the cost of flying being $10 per hour higher!

Personally, I would (and do) rather devote that expense to recurrent training, to develop my skills more broadly, and keep me out of trouble to begin with. As I have said, in all these years, I have never wanted to abandon the flight. Is there something different about flying these days, as opposed to the "old days", which makes abandoning the flight by pulling the red handle, more important or necessary now than before? Is training now less appropriate for teaching pilots to stay out of trouble in the first place?

[peterh337]

Is there something different about flying these days, as opposed to the "old days", which makes abandoning the flight by pulling the red handle, more important or necessary now than before? Is training now less appropriate for teaching pilots to stay out of trouble in the first place?

Very good questions...

I think what has mostly happened is that - using mining terminology - Cirrus have exposed a new stratum of customers. Look at their U.S. adverts, of years ago. Very aspirational, aimed at young men with money. These people have rarely previously featured in GA (any part of GA) which tends to be dominated by a rather different community

Very few owners of traditional metal aircraft have sold up and bought a Cirrus. I do know of a few but none of them describe the move as significantly beneficial, which makes sense since an SR22 has no actual capability over a similarly equipped older type. And I would not swap my 2002 TB20GT for a brand new SR22, either.

I think a good part of the Cirrus marketing has been a con, however. The crude way they have removed the prop RPM lever which makes their pilots pay perhaps 5-10% more on fuel. The fixed gear which makes their pilots pay perhaps 10-20% more on fuel. All sold as "simplicity" but the RPM lever and retractable gear are non-issues in reality. I spend perhaps £200 on each Annual having my gear dismantled and greased properly; it is a fair point that most maintenance shops won't do that (they just drip some oil all over it) but that is a different argument to the one Cirrus put forward. Their insurance premiums finally put paid to the " simplicity" argument.

The BRS argument will run and run. I don't have a problem with it; in flying you should always have an escape route. The chute gives a good escape route for overflying bad terrain (forests, mountains) and layers of low cloud/fog, and protects from a catastrophic structural or control linkage failure (extremely rare as those are, unless you maintain your plane like you maintain your lawn mower). I do some flying where the escape routes are hardly great but the time windows are short. My gripe with the BRS is the loss of payload (50kg?) which is quite a lot; of the order of 25% in that class of aircraft and equivalent to one woman of just the right size (size 8) And the other reality is that most of the BRS pulls to date have been in scenarios where a normal forced landing would have been possible had the pilot chosen to do that, and this demolishes the argument that the chute has saved lives. Some chute pulls have been in scenarios which are more tricky e.g. structural icing which arguably the pilot should not have got into (or escaped from pronto) but I see that more as an admission that the PPL and IR training is not good enough to enable people to actually go somewhere; also the high frequency of minor icing occurences in real flying makes the BRS chute a lousy solution to icing

Ultimately, Cirrus have done what nobody before or since has managed which is a revitalisation of the long distance VFR/IFR GA market and for that they should be admired. In the meantime, Socata folded up their piston production (for reasons one can only speculate on) which was a real loss.

But an SR22 has no real technical innovations, the efficiency gains of its sleek airframe are thrown away into dragging the fixed gear along, and I think it is a pity that they did not come out with something genuinely more advanced.

Cirrus crashes will also draw extra attention because the brand symbolises wealth and wealth is looked down on

[Fuji Abound]

Ultimately, Cirrus have done what nobody before or since has managed which is a revitalisation of the long distance VFR/IFR GA market and for that they should be admired. In the meantime, Socata folded up their piston production (for reasons one can only speculate on) which was a real loss.

I think that is right.

There will always be those who dont want to buy aircraft out of production, poorly supported by the manufacturer or of archane design. Its a reason why cirrus and diamond have sold so many aircraft.

In some ways forget the prop., the undercarriage and the brs as distractions because you are left with a modern design, that performs as well as almost any single, is comfortable and a delight to fly. As a tourer it really does everything well. It is a single for grown ups that want to go places in comfort and at a good speed who arent going to be too worried about using a little more fuel.

As to the chute its become a part of the real pilots dont use gps philosophy. Real pilots should be able to perform a forced landing if need arises, and should be able to navigate with pencil and paper. Well maybe they should. Howver i have pulled the lever on enough pilots to know that i wouldnt be assured of their forced landing skills. Dont think you are better than you are, i reckon unless you are practising a forced landing at least once a month you are not as good as you believe.

So the reason i posted in favour of cirrus was because you are buying a known package with no surprises. If you dont like the brs or single lever ops dont buy one. However i can tell you if you want a rock solid tourer that is really nice to fly with or without the autopilot, is comfortable, gives as good a ride in weather as any single i have flown (and better than some twins) and in my experience at least, with which very little goes wrong, then a cirrus should be on your shopping list.

At the very least fly one before you get involved in some of the distractions that are commonly heard.