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Why has the SR22 been such a success?

I have started this thread because we are getting posts all over the place debating how much pilots’ wives dictate the purchase of the plane because it has the parachute, etc. So this will be the place to have that debate
I moved what recent posts I could find in here

the speed will not be a limitation (fastest successful CAPS deployment to date was close to 200 KIAS)

Do you mean the fastest successful one?

The chute on N147KA was missing, and the hull was well smashed, even though the lines were ripped out of the gelcoat.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Nobody really knows what happened to N147KA, so i can’t say anything about it. It is very likely though that the rocket was activated by the crash.

(Didn’t I write “successful”?)

Yes, sorry, you did!

Should the rocket be activated by the water impact (that’s rather poor pyrotechnics!) and would it be powerful enough to rip the chute right off and fly off with it so it isn’t found?

Report here

There was another SR22 chute pull where it didn’t deploy. But it didn’t fly off.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

THAT incident was acually the only one where the parachute didn’t work as described, and AFAIK (have to find it) it was a mistake made by the service center that installed the parachute.

All the SR2xs until the G5 version came out had a “mechanical” ignition of the Rocket. With the G5 a new system was introduced which works completely different. This new version is beeing retrofitted to all older planes when the chute change is due (mine in 2016 …).

It has happened a couple of times that the system ignited in a crash. N147KA: really, nobody knows what happened there. Could have been a suicide too.

From the report:

The two larger pieces of rear fuselage contained part of the channel that enclosed the aircraft parachute straps. The cover panels were also found and appeared to have detached from the forward end rearwards, suggesting they were detached by disruption due to the impact rather than by deployment of the emergency parachute.

Josh wrote:

Given that EFATOs will happen, I’m not sure how effective the “sell it to your wife” campaign will be.

Seeing that it was effective enough so far for one company to basically finish off the whole competition, I have no doubt it will work here as well. There have been enough fatal accidents with Cirrus airplanes but that did not soften the “wife” effect.

Cirrus has won the small airplane market without alternative for many clients whose wifes reluctantly agree to an airplane in the family, JUST because of that shute. Most people are scared of flying in a small airplane and the shute is the answer to that.

I would not be surprised in the end if a shute becomes a requirement for new single engine airplanes eventually, out of pressure by insurances and wifes, who will simply refuse to fly in or insure airframes which do not have it. In which case, it will mean a lot of redesign for companies choosing to stay in the business or most of them simply leaving the business and folding. In which case the marketing of Cirrus will have achieved a monopoly, which de facto they already do have for anyone who needs that shute.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 12 Oct 06:56
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Seeing that it was effective enough so far for one company to basically finish off the whole competition, I have no doubt it will work here as well.

But don’t forget that even that “one company” would long have disappeared if it hadn’t been saved by Chinese investors. And how long their supply of money will last nobody knows. Personally, I simply don’t see enough market potential for a single engine jet to become an economic success. Even less than for the Eclipse which might have been successful if their original sales price of 800.000$ wouldn’t have been the fairy-tale fantasy that it turned out to be.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I don’t doubt the success of the Cirrus at all – most of my SEP time these days is sat in the right seat of them.

Cirrus’s success is also in part down to their simplicity and “flyability”- fixed gear, single power lever, advanced avionics to lower the workload. I do rather doubt that they will be able to translate that success to the jet.

London area

Cirrus has won the small airplane market without alternative for many clients whose wifes reluctantly agree to an airplane in the family, JUST because of that shute.

Do you have to ask your wife if you buy an airplane? :-)

You would be surprised for how many of those who do and those who finish by not doing it that was the single most important factor. I’ve had quite a few people who were very interested and got me to research a lot of things for them to only finally back out once they had talked to their families about it.

Since quite a while it is one of the first things I tell people who are either interested in getting a PPL or even more so an airplane and who ask me for advice: Before you even start to contemplate either, get your family on board or forget it.

Way too many people get into flying with loads of enthusiasm and are deviastated to learn their families won’t have it once they finish.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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