Cirrus chutes

[akoch]

From what I see it is marketed as an expensive nice shiny toy to the well off folks. The selling points are they convenience, "simplicity", lifestyle, prestige, "safety" etc.

The company does not seem to have any interest in flying itself, or piloting skills, the fun and challenging part of it. The marketing and airplane specifics follow this vision. I've yet to see many people who enjoyed hand-flying a Cirrus or going out for spins on it.

[Shiny Side Up]

I suppose I just don't get it then. The whole idea of the Cirrus seems to revolve around conveying the illusion that you're sort of an aviation guy, but with no real interest in flying or airplanes for that matter. I find it bizarre someone would pay to be essentially chauffeured around in one, surely if one can afford it, you can ride in a bit more style, unless of course you like to pretend to be a pilot.

the revolutionary Cirrus On Demand program also gives you the option to get your pilot's license. With a highly trained Cirrus flight instructor in the right seat, even a routine business trip becomes a step toward becoming a licensed pilot.

This really reinforces my previous point, and hence why lots of these guys who own these things suck at flying them. People getting into places where they need to pull the chute is precisely what resluts from this convinience oriented scenario based training. I guess as long as you're cool doing it, I just want no part of it.

[Beefitarian]

Should I attempt a CPL and start a babysitting service for pilot/new plane owners? Would I need a CPL, since they could put me down as a passenger in the log book?

I'd just be a consultant. Obviously need to call it something cool, "Safe pilot international." Show pilots how to do their flight log, navigate, tune the radio correctly to contact the right ATC people and build confidence while, "Going where they want to go." PPL holders and higher. I could probably end up with new CPLs once word got out.

Got the license book, afraid to go somewhere with a real plane?
Know how to fly but lack cross country confidence?
I'll show you how to get places with style and grace like an ATPL holder.
20 years+ experience pretending to know what I'm doing and going on fun trips in light singles.


Citizen brand blue angel loaner watch included in certain affordable package deals.

Yes, I'm bored today. I even phoned someone about a real job earlier.

[Rookie50]

From what I see it is marketed as an expensive nice shiny toy to the well off folks. The selling points are they convenience, "simplicity", lifestyle, prestige, "safety" etc.

The company does not seem to have any interest in flying itself, or piloting skills, the fun and challenging part of it. The marketing and airplane specifics follow this vision. I've yet to see many people who enjoyed hand-flying a Cirrus or going out for spins on it.

It's not an enjoyable plane to hand fly, IMO. That is one reason I have little interest in one.

I did'nt become a pilot, to learn how to push buttons well.

[Beefitarian]

It's not an enjoyable plane to hand fly, IMO. That is one reason I have little interest in one.

That side yoke seems sucky. I don't even feel like trying to fly one. Never mind paying to buy it.

[Rookie50]

It's not an enjoyable plane to hand fly, IMO. That is one reason I have little interest in one.

That side yoke seems sucky. I don't even feel like trying to fly one. Never mind paying to buy it.

I could see it being a handful during a turbulent ILS approach if you were hand flying it. Which I suspect rarely happens, which becomes an issue when you need to.

[Beefitarian]

What about a bumpy VFR approach? Maybe get close and pull the handle.

[Shiny Side Up]

I could see it being a handful during a turbulent ILS approach if you were hand flying it. Which I suspect rarely happens, which becomes an issue when you need to.

The sidestick isn't an issue. I suspect its placed there partly to avoid overcontrolling the airplane. To yank back on it hard is sort of an awkward thing to do given how your arm rests. Keeping the airplane within its box is absurdly easy, it flies a stable approach, its got lots of momentum to punch through any turbulence (keep in mind that a Cirrus is heavier than a Cessna 182) pretty much does this feet on the floor. Take off is similarly easy with a minor bit of back pressure on the stick to make it rotate at the appropriate speed. Heavy responses in roll and yaw. Really hard to believe that people can mishandle these things. I would wager if we gave it a yoke that people could get two hands on, we'd see more crashes, as it is since it stays within its box so well, if someone mishandles it out, they probably have no idea to get it back in (keep in mind that the box is +/- 5 degrees on pitch and/or 15 degrees of bank/ rate one whichever is greater.)

Ab initio training on such an aircraft in my opinion would so horribly stunt a pilot's ability that they would be irredeemable from that point forward. They would be ingrained with a fear of bank and pitch (and not know what to do about yaw), but never really would have experienced them to know how they feel, look or how big the envelope really is, or what the edges of it are.

[Beefitarian]

You might not want to do sales for them if it's commission. No wonder people are pulling the handle, it sounds like the only way to have fun in the thing.

[Shiny Side Up]

At the end of the day, its not a machine designed for fun. Its mission is to go places in reasonable comfort. On that note, its also not a machine designed to train on, that's some sales guys hoping to tap another market for it. To paraphrase, learning to fly is difficult, anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something. Do we really think the Cirrus sales staff came up with a "revolutionary" new way to flight train?

[Scout44]

I think a lot of people on here would agree that I wouldn't want to sacrifice the useful load for the chute for all the reasons already mentioned.

Did anyone else notice this in the Cirrus owners blog:

"In the last half of 2011, we saw 11 fatal Cirrus accidents and only one CAPS save. In the last half of 2012, we saw six fatal accidents and four CAPS saves. A year later, that's about half the number of fatal accidents and way more CAPS saves. COPA had something to do with it."

Admittedly, I'm not at all familiar with the US stats, but on face value that seems high for a single type only recently in production, no?

[Colonel Sanders]

There's a web page somewhere - it's been mentioned
here before - which showed that the Cirrus had a fatal
accident rate of three times the C182 (per hours flown),
despite the expensive, heavy parachute on the Cirrus
which was supposed to get rid of fatal accidents. A
little googling should find it.

[Shiny Side Up]

The article is referenced on the Cirrus Wikipedia page from Avweb.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Ci ... 914-1.html

When the Cirrus SR20 and 22 first appeared a dozen years ago, the models' full airframe parachute system and stall/spin resistant wing were expected to set new standards for light aircraft safety. But according to Aviation Consumer's January edition, the Cirrus line has achieved, at best, a middle of the road safety and accident record that makes its fatal accident rate a bit better than Mooney and Piper high-performance models, but a bit worse than the Columbia/Corvalis series and Cessna's venerable 172 and 182. The magazine studied accident records dating back as far as 30 years on 11 popular GA light aircraft. Among its findings are that the Cirrus overall accident rate is 3.25/100,000, placing it closer to the top of the list of airplanes Aviation Consumer considered and about half of the GA average overall accident rate of 6.3/100,000. Only Diamond's DA40 and DA42 had better overall accident rates -- dramatically so in the case of the DA40, whose overall rate is 1.19, a little more than a sixth of the GA average.



Cirrus aircraft finished lower when fatal rate is considered. The Cirrus combined rate (SR20 and SR22) is 1.6, compared to the GA average of 1.2/100,000. Diamond's DA40 has the lowest fatal rate at .35, followed by the Cessna 172 at .45, the Diamond DA42 at .54 and the Cessna 182 at .69. Cessna's Corvalis line, which began life as the Columbia, has a fatal rate of 1.0, a bit less than the GA average of 1.2. The Columbia/Corvalis models are essentially similar in construction and performance to the Cirrus SR22, but without the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS).



The magazine also examined how effective CAPS has been and concludes that when deployed under optimal conditions of speed and altitude, the system has proven effective in saving lives in preventing serious injury. But it's far from perfect. Of 31 CAPS deployments, both intentional and possibly unintentional, 39 of 57 occupants emerged without injury, while seven occupants have been seriously injured by touchdown under CAPS. There have been six fatalities associated with CAPS deployment, several of which occurred either at very low altitude or speeds beyond the system's demonstrated performance envelope. One surprise from the magazine's study is that at least 12 of the aircraft that landed under CAPS were repaired and returned to service.



The Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association has studied Cirrus accidents extensively and concludes that the models would have a much better safety record if some 83 pilots who got into trouble in circumstances where CAPS was well within its envelope had simply used it. COPA is developing new training methods to teach pilots how to include CAPS more effectively in their response to abnormal flight situations.

[desert goat]

We had a Cirrus get broken following a chute pull down here in Australia a couple of months ago, the accident report is here http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... 2-154.aspx
Apparently the PIC had borrowed the aircraft from a friend...don't know if they're still friends or not.

[slam525i]

We had a Cirrus get broken following a chute pull down here in Australia a couple of months ago, the accident report is here http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... 2-154.aspx

Engine failure in what looks like a whole lot of farm land... Why not just deadstick it into the field?

[AirFrame]

Hey, you just described my battered-but-beloved Dog Ship, the slowest bird in The Snowflakes...

Only until you install that Dynon display... Then it'll be a modern bird!

Even if Tweety can still outrun it...

[Shiny Side Up]

Engine failure in what looks like a whole lot of farm land... Why not just deadstick it into the field?

What, and miss a perfectly good chance to pull the chute? I don't think anyone has ever glided a Cirrus anywhere.

[pelmet]

Engine failure in what looks like a whole lot of farm land... Why not just deadstick it into the field?

What, and miss a perfectly good chance to pull the chute? I don't think anyone has ever glided a Cirrus anywhere.

Pulling the chute in a Cirrus(or other aircraft) is not something one should just do and think that it will be an enjoyable ride. The landing might be very hard, hard enough to hurt your back. Cirrus will of course say that your life was saved but maybe your back was hurt. I might consider landing in a nice field if the engine failed but that could result in injuries as well. I wonder if it would be better to glide to an area over trees(if that was an option) versus a field and then pull the chute. Maybe not, but no option is perfect.

"Once the large chute deploys, the descent rate is about 1,700ft per minute (518m) – so the impact you'd expect on the ground is equivalent to “jumping from a 4m tall ledge,” says Travis Klumb, Cessna’s director of flight operations."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2013 ... parachutes

[AirFrame]

:Once the large chute deploys, the descent rate is about 1,700ft per minute (518m) – so the impact you'd expect on the ground is equivalent to “jumping from a 4m tall ledge,” says Travis Klumb, Cessna’s director of flight operations."

The Cirrus also has sacrificial legs that will crush to absorb an impact with ground, so that 4m jump from a ledge would be more like a 4m jump into a big leaf pile, or onto a stack of cardboard boxes, or something like that. It's still going to hurt, but probably not fatally.

[Squaretail]

I wonder if it would be better to glide to an area...

As I recall, Cirrus explicitly recommends to pull the chute early at the first sign of trouble as opposed to as an absolute last resort. The last time I flew with a fellow who was Cirrus trained, pretty much every emergency procedure was the same. All he practiced was this quick-draw motion on reaching for that lever.