The most unnecessary chute pull ever?
 

'PLANE' LUCKY: pilot and passenger walk away from crash

Engine failure in a Cirrus at 5000 ft, day VMC, over a dream-field for a forced landing (check out picture No. 3): would you have pulled the chute?

Don't know, but I wouldn't have been flying wearing a "pilots shirt", complete with epaulettes !

Sommat don't make sense:

He claims he was on the ground one minute after engine seizure, at 5000 feet. So he glided (!) from 5000 to 2000, then pulled the chute and hit the deck, all in one minute?

What's the "best glide speed" and glide ratio of a SR22? If it's that bad, maybe I should just tie an engine to a rock!

And yeah, that's an awfully nice flat field he gave up on!

I have many hours on the Cirrus and recall the Cirrus instructor saying many times during the conversion "engine failure above 1000ft agl - pull the chute" I went along with this drill to appease him but in real life I think I would adopt a full forced landing and control the aircraft to the ground.

My initial training was with an ex RAF instructor in a C152/steam dials.

I took my old instructor for a ride in the Cirrus a few weeks ago and he reinforced again.
Fly the aircraft DON'T pull the chute. IF you do, you have lost control of the aircraft and will simply end up where the wind takes you.

The field in picture No 3 looks perfectly acceptable to me

No good fields available but thankfully the aircraft found a really nice one for them.

My vote for the most unnecessary thread of the year award.....

Please tell me this is a windup. :\

This has been done to death in the DG&P forum, General Aviation, Cirrus crash near Dubbo.

Unfortunately some of us are not currently up to date on what's playing three levels down in the DD&G forum. Especially when not much was decided there.

Seems like a legitimate topic of discussion for the general aviation population at large. There are lots of Cirri in the skies out here.

i've landed on rougher runways than that field, it's as good as a forced landing spot as i've seen if I was engine out and was presented with that to land on my hand would never even think about touching the "wimp's handle".

i agree the worst example of unnecessary chute pull ever.

fats

Calling it a "Wimps Handle" is just about the stupidest thing I have read about the Cirrus chute. I suppose that cruise ships have too many lifeboats these days, and the RAF are a bunch of knobs for bailing out in a similar situation?

From that article hmmmm....
I wonder if they flew the other cirrus, the one he owns, and landed in the field next to the accident aircraft?

Everyone who says that anyone who pulls the shute has made a mistake gets no respect from me.
You weren't there. You have absolutely no idea how you'd react in the same situation and to sit in your comfortable chair and criticise is simply purile.

The chances of a satisfactory outcome after pulling the chute? prob99 if over flat land.
The chances of a satisfactory outcome after a forced landing into a field? prob50.

Wake up and smell the coffee people.:ugh:

Of course one can say in retrospect that this was an unnecessary act. But we weren't in the aircraft, don't know how well it is insured and whether the owner of the Cirrus may have enough in his bank account to buy 100 more aircraft. Maybe the pilot panicked, maybe he has no rough field experience - we can't know that. All we know is that he walked away from the aircraft, something one can not say about almost 100 other cirrus pilots who hadn't had the same luck.

Not sure which is the active thread, but anyway, I don't agree, Mr Rudderman.

I still am not sure I'm awake, but the device is bizarre. Used for spinning students, okay, I'd go along with that, but to carry it for the life of the aircraft in normal circumstances is bewildering. And the explosive bits? Oh, my.


Clearly, just having it there has made him think about its use while he might well have been better served by planning an engine-out landing. And that's another thing - just how many dead cuts do we see these days?

Right through my training on Tigers, Austers and Chipmonks, I don't recall a single failure in any of the three clubs I belonged to. And come to think of it, not one since. My Rallye RR engine never missed a beat night or day for months. It will be interesting to see if the oil indication really did preceded an oil pressure failure.

It looks a nice little aircraft, shame to see its demise.

3 AM too tired to look it up, but what are you saying . . . if you have one of these aircraft, you'd better have a chute?

What would he have done in a PA28 in the same situation?

yaaawn !!:ugh::ugh:

And that's relevant how? Once you pull the handle, you relinquish control of the aircraft to chance, meaning you might end up with more than just a written-off airframe. What use would hull insurance be to you if you, for example, find yourself confined to a wheelchair because you sustained a spinal injury upon touch-down?

This has been done to death too but still keeps coming up. The Cirrus cannot be flown without a ballistic recovery system as it is the only certified means of recovering from a spin for this type of aircraft. Hence "BRS INOP" always equals aircraft grounded until maintenance is performed and signed off for.

Ciao,

Dg800