My wife and I both subscribe to the romantic (if a bit morbid) notion that when the time has come, we might as well go together…
Going back to the original question, this muscle memory or “Lizard Brain” reversion is as several have mentioned, a common training exercise in many fields.
We are all familiar with touch drills, and in twin training it is common, with 6 levers, to touch the “correct” lever/s when practicing engine out exercises.
In the Cirrus training regime, a lot of thought has been given to this, and the experience of pilots under stress in the full motion simulators has shown that, when disorientated, or in an unusual attitude, or with vestibular illusions or other stressful situations such as a mid-air, it can actually be quite difficult to “know” which way is up, and where to put your hand to reach above your head.
This is hard to envisage unless it has happened to you, but we all simulate such a feeling when recovering from unusual attitudes in instrument training.
So the touch drill has actually been modified and now the recommended procedure is – passing CAPS deployment altitude, to touch your head first then reach up and touch the caps handle.
Touching the head then the handle “calibrates” your muscle memory, and is like resetting your personal gyro.
For those who have never experienced any kind of somatic or spatial disorientation, this will no doubt be just another fun poke at Cirrus pilots, but it comes from empirical experience of actual full motion simulator observations and is well thought out.
I can tell you that having experienced somatic illusion myself underwater actually, ( during a night scuba dive in murky water, which is a good analogue to being in an unusual attitude in clouds with no gyros) I can see how this is a good exercise and can understand how it could help find the CAPS handle in extremis.
Same reason as some SEP drivers call “airspeed alive” or “positive rate gear up”.
The 1st call out is perfectly ok for any aircraft and the 2nd one for any retractable, SEP or MEP.
Peter_Mundy wrote:
Why do Cirrus pilots reach up to the CAPS handle during the climb out and call “CAPS available”? Is it the Cirrus pilot version of a quick prayer, are they seeking reassurance it is still in place?
As others have said, to develop an awareness that it is there, that it can save you. A lot of us are aware that in an emergency situation, you might be overwhelmed with task fixation / lizard brain to such an extent that you forget it’s there, as was the case in the accident of N837CD. This was an SR 22 which was being flown by two pilots who had bought it just 6 days prior. Although they’d both received training on the aircraft, on their first flight together they still managed to put it into a flat spin at 5000 feet and span it into the ground, killing both – even though the Chute handle was right above them….
So, for me, it’s reminder that it’s now available to use. However in my case the call is not just “caps available” but “Caps, maps, flaps” – touch the handle to make me aware that, in the worst case scenario, I have that option, then switch the MFD to maps page, and finally retract the flaps…..
Peter_Mundy wrote:
Why do Cirrus pilots reach up to the CAPS handle during the climb out and call “CAPS available”?
Undoubtedly to ensure the brain’s “state machine” is updated. Touching and verbalising things are a good way of moving the “state machine” along, and making sure that the correct options available are at the top of the mind should an emergency situation present itself.
Steve6443 wrote:
they still managed to put it into a flat spin at 5000 feet and span it into the ground, killing both
Sounds like some mental blockage trying to save the plane (i.e. money)?
The question was: ‘why do Cirrus pilots touch the chute handle’.
The thread is now: the usual ‘why do we need a chute’ garbage.
Semtex. Unfortunately.
Well, garbage to one person is a useful discussion to another. I looked at moving some posts to the original BRS thread but only 3 posts were sufficiently stand-alone. The rest I would need to edit, which is way too much work and anyway editing posts for mod purposes is almost never done here.
As to why Cirrus BRS discussions are explosive… it’s a sad reflection of certain aspects of GA, marketing, etc.
EuroFlyer wrote:
The question was: ‘why do Cirrus pilots touch the chute handle’.
The thread is now: the usual ‘why do we need a chute’ garbage.
Problem is, that these questions seem to be closely connected.
One of the answers to “why we touch the handle” was “because the passengers need to be briefed”.
That is one opinion that would be extremely simple to substantiate by facts (i.e. the number of times where actually a passenger had to pull the chute) but obviously no-one here is able to provide us with that piece of information.
And then as always: If there are no facts discussions start to drift into opinions, emotions, etc.
Well, unless Cirrus removed the chute pull list from their website, it must be on there somewhere, and since we have many SR20/22 pilots on EuroGA, I am sure somebody will post a link to it. I did a search here and found this as a start.
Posts moved to original chute thread
