Cirrus chutes

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Colonel Sanders
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Cirrus chutes

Post by Colonel Sanders »

http://www.cirruspilots.org/blogs/pull_ ... -2013.aspx

How incredibly embarrassing:
Bill Sprague, a COPA member, was flying home with a passenger, planning to stop at Birmingham for fuel. On the approach, in IMC, things didn't feel right. The weather had worsened and the ceiling dropped. As he crossed the outer marker and descended to 2,000 feet, he was still in the clouds.

At this point I felt uncomfortable and declared I was going missed. I was acknowledged by Tower and told to fly the runway heading. I told Tower I was not sure where that was, at this time I was no longer on the approach. Tower told me to turn to a 180-degree heading and climb to 4,000 feet.

When I turned, the plane just whipped to the side. By the time I leveled it out, it felt like it was just falling. I looked at my altimeter, showing 1,700 feet, knowing field was 700 feet, I knew I had 1,000 feet before I hit the ground, so I reached up, and as a last resort, I pulled the chute on that plane.
The future, where everyone flies plastic nosewheel
trainers with an acre of glass, sure looks bright.

Who needs to master basic flying skills when you
can fly a cirrus instead?
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5x5
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by 5x5 »

Safety my butt. All those chutes do is encourage stupid pilots to outfly their abilities because whatever trouble they get into can be solved by pulling the handle.

Even more upsetting is the pressure it puts on other manufacturers to start considering incorporating them since so many people seem to buy the "more safety" crap. And incorporating a chute adds a ton of cost to the original buyer and costly maintenance when the replacement deployment system has to be installed every 10 years.

Completely unnecessary additional cost and weight penalty.
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photofly
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by photofly »

Think of it as a wife-pacifier. I hear they're quite effective at that.
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Cessna driver
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Cessna driver »

If all else fails, pull your chute.
I hate that mentality
You got yourself into the mess, get yourself out.
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Colonel Sanders
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Colonel Sanders »

I'm sure the Cirrus comes with a slick
autopilot. Like JFK, jr this guy didn't seem
to consider the option of turning it on.

What I find mind-blowing in my quaint way
is that they were trumpeting this guy as a
success story - "pull the chute more often!"

These people live in a very different world than I.
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akoch
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by akoch »

what about the rest of us who fly plastic nose-wheel trainers that don't have a chute or even autopilot? Go and make up a will on monday?
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by thatlowtimer »

Learn how to fly?
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by slam525i »

Cessna driver wrote:If all else fails, pull your chute.
I hate that mentality
You got yourself into the mess, get yourself out.
I'm not sure that's smart. In fact, pulling the chute was probably the only smart thing he did that day. Encouraging people to not use what they have available, even though he got himself in that mess to begin with, is a bad idea. (slightly extreme example: Telling a student not to use DF from the tower if he's lost because he should get himself out of it.)
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by slam525i »

Some "gems" from that article:

Title: "COPA Safety: Pull Often!"

"I was just doing what I trained to do." - after failing missing a dead-stick landing with the "airport directly underneath them"

"particularly significant was the similarity of disorientation on approach in IMC with one CAPS save and two fatal Cirrus accidents, all within three weeks"

"Well ... I tell them I did not crash land ... I made a parachute landing."

"he acted on that information and training to avoid an off-airport landing in a field" - wait... why is landing in a field BAD?


You know, I always thought how technologically good the Cirrus was, and how nice it looked compared with clapped-out old airplanes... but after reading the CirrusOPA site and what these guys think is "Good", I've decided I'm never buying a Cirrus, even if I can afford one.
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Shiny Side Up »

Colonel Sanders wrote:I'm sure the Cirrus comes with a slick
autopilot. Like JFK, jr this guy didn't seem
to consider the option of turning it on.
Thats' the big question with this story. Was he using the autopilot to conduct the approach? Why did he get "uncomfortable"? Seems like he went missed, pretty high up. IFR with this sort of equipment is pretty easy - that is if you're practiced and know how to use the stuff. I don't think you can buy a Cirrus without a GPS.
When I turned, the plane just whipped to the side. By the time I leveled it out, it felt like it was just falling.
Sounds like the idjit was hand flying by the seat of his pants - something you don't do in the soup, fly by the seat of your pants that is. Whole point of instrument flying practice, lots of "feeling" acted on, not instrument data. My guess is when he entered the turn, he over banked, disoriented himself, lost a few hundred feet in the turn, panicked and hit the silk.

Not that banking steep is wrong, but its a good way to stir your head up when you're in the soup and you're hand flying. Not reccomended for people who don't do a lot of hard instrument flying, use Otto to help yourself if you got it. All you got to do is turn the heading bug knob.
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Colonel Sanders
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Colonel Sanders »

TURN
ON
THE
AUTOPILOT


I had this argument here - and I guess I lost - with
some kid that did his MIFR renewal in a Redbird and
he hand-flew it :shock:

SPIFR, turn on the autopilot. Too bad JFK, jr didn't.

I guess if JFK, jr had been flying a Cirrus he would
have been the poster child for their kind of aviation.

There is just so much wrong here, I don't know
where to start. These people are from another
planet.
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Post by Beefitarian »

Does the auto pilot have a really big red handle you can pull that lands the airplane for these guys?
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Colonel Sanders
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Colonel Sanders »

Don't laugh - I have heard of the latest brilliant
aviation invention, which is the "Big Blue Button"
which the pilot hits when he is confused, and
the autopilot takes over, uprights the aircraft
and returns it to straight and level.
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Post by Beefitarian »

Makes sense, you don't want to be in an unusual attitude when pulling the big red auto land handle.
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by CpnCrunch »

You can see that "blue button" here (it's actually a Cirrus option):

http://whycirrus.com/advancements/Cirru ... ckpit.aspx

Looks kind of small to me though.

Also there are experimental general aviation "auto land" systems that let you press a button and it finds the nearest airport and lands for you. The idea is that if you have a heart attack your passenger can just push the button and get safely on the ground. I expect it will be a Cirrus option soon.

Anyway, I think it's a good idea. These people are going to be flying some kind of plane, so it's better if they can't do too much harm to themselves or people on the ground.
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Shiny Side Up »

These people are going to be flying some kind of plane,
Unfortunately true. Its too bad the bar for becoming a pilot is increasingly low.
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by photofly »

Colonel Sanders wrote:Don't laugh - I have heard of the latest brilliant
aviation invention, which is the "Big Blue Button"
which the pilot hits when he is confused, and
the autopilot takes over, uprights the aircraft
and returns it to straight and level.
I'm not sure I need one while flying, but sometimes I think something like that would be useful in the rest of my life.
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by photofly »

From "COPA Safety: Pull Often!":
Everyone's first question to me is always how did I do in my crash landing?

Well ... I tell them I did not crash land ... I made a parachute landing.
...

Eventually, the 911 operator on the sat phone connected him with the USAF Rescue Coordination Center. They took his location and told him to turn off his ELT. They also called his cell phone, which rang and rang and rang, helping Bob locate it under the rudder pedals on the co-pilot side.
Next time I can't my cell phone, I'm going to put a call through to the USAF too. Anyone have a 1-800 number?
Do they help with lost keys too?
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Colonel Sanders »

Cirrus pilots are to aviation, what The Onion is to mainstream journalism.
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Re: Cirrus chutes

Post by Rookie50 »

Shiny Side Up wrote:
These people are going to be flying some kind of plane,
Unfortunately true. Its too bad the bar for becoming a pilot is increasingly low.
This is exactly my thought. Hand flying in IMC, appears to not only be discouraged, but beyond the capabilities of many pilots, in my humble op. Can't keep up. It's not a matter of that using the tools like AP or GPS is a bad thing, it's the sheer dependence on them for the continuation of safe flight, IFR and even VFR I suspect, that I have an issue with.

To be a qualified, safe IFR pilot, again in my younger but old school mentality, you should be able to hand fly approaches, without GPS if necessary, without getting behind the airplane, without losing situational awareness in your mind -- not as displayed on a pretty 20 inch screen. PFD and AP Failures happen. I wonder, how many accidents happen because of nothing more than a lack of hand flying proficiency.

On another note, I am not really a supporter of the cirrus product for low time pilots. I think too much dependence on automation is taught. Automation should be a backup for hand control of the airplane, not total dependence. Again, maybe a bit old school. I think, what is lost with all the toys, is developing situational awareness skills. But hey, I have a 10th or less the hours of anyone here. I'm sure I don't know much!
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