lionel wrote:
In aviation insurance, this is called “betterment”. I’m not sure if it is offered on a whole-plane basis, since I never insured a (near-)new plane.
There’s one key difference between aviation and motor insurance:
In a plane it is comparatively simple and low risk to cause an economic total loss. In most retractables it is “enough” to do an gear up landing at some engine power (“when I realized that the gear is up I tried to go around and therefore added power but it was too late…”) to damage them beyond repair – and the risk of hurting oneself while doing that is minimal.
And before people start to scream: If the difference between the current market value and the insured new value is several 100k, there absolutely are people who would consider that option…
In cars it’s much more difficult to damage them beyond repair w/o leaving traces (e.g. setting them on fire) or putting substantial risk onto oneself.
Therefore aviation insurances beyond actual current value are extremely expensive up to impossible to get.
As the airplane will be out of control following the deployment of the parachute, is a HASEL check a part of the pre deployment decision making according to Cirrus procedures?
Just one question that comes to my mind: Does anyone know of an independent source of statistics/information on chute safety?
Only two sources I know are Cirrus itself and COPA. Both have an economic interest to let the chute shine as bright as possible (Cirrus because they want to sell planes and COPA because their member want high values of their planes).
I’m really not implying anything – but I always have some mixed feeling if the only one who provides data on something has an economic interest in one particular outcome…
Therefore aviation insurances beyond actual current value are extremely expensive up to impossible to get.
In the UK, insuring for “agreed value” is quite common. The downside of this is that the insurer has an incentive to always repair the plane almost no matter how badly damaged, so you can be grounded for a long time.
I have in the meantime heard from a Cirrus owner and asked an insurance savvy person about the statement made to the OP and got the expected answer that it is totally ludicrous.
Yes; the insurer will pay out on an SR22 on a forced landing which went badly. However, if you are just after the max payout, pulling the chute is better because you are likely to total it (write it off, in non US speak) so no question of how much to pay out.
Only two sources I know are Cirrus itself and COPA. Both have an economic interest to let the chute shine as bright as possible (Cirrus because they want to sell planes and COPA because their member want high values of their planes).
The Cirrus stats are dodgy because in most of the cases the plane could have been landed, yet Cirrus call each one a “save” i.e. x lives saved. This implies that all Cirrus pilots cannot do a forced landing, ever. But this is the same old discussion 
As regard the original Q:
On an engine failure:
Above low cloud or forest, I would glide away from towns etc and pull the chute at the min activation height.
Above water, I would glide towards a coast and pull the chute at the min activation height.
Above mountains, I would glide to a suitably flat area and pull the chute at the min activation height.
Otherwise, with a suitable landing site (a reasonable field, a road, etc) I would land it.
Structural failures etc are a different thing; you need to activate the chute before the speed gets too great.
Peter wrote:
The Cirrus stats are dodgy because in most of the cases the plane could have been landed, yet Cirrus call each one a “save” i.e. x lives saved. This implies that all Cirrus pilots cannot do a forced landing, ever. But this is the same old discussion
True but at the same time, the inference could be read that:
1) Non cirrus Pilots are always capable of doing an off field landing and that
2) therefore Cirrus Pilots are total (insert your choice of adjectives and nouns here).
This is typically the reason for the rejection of the chute, that and a sort of jealousy of not having such a neat, sleek sporting and comfortable aircraft. For those who’ve never sat in one, flown in one, they are worlds apart from your typical spam can; personally speaking, a lot of the animosity aimed at Cirrus pilots is because other pilots would love to fly them, just can’t afford it hence they pass off the little green monster of envy as being disdain because
’it’s got a ’chute you know, that means the pilot is probably a total (again, insert your choice of adjectives and nouns here.)….
However, going back to the topic: The reality is that 1) is not true; often enough we read of forced landings going horribly wrong – with the loss of life to accompany it. Therefore although you can argue about the use of the words ‘lives saved’, I can see why they choose it because, without the Chute, there is no 100% certainty that the PIC and passengers would have survived.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Therefore if terrain is suitable why not just land it in case of engine failure?!?
Sorry, but that does not make any logical sense, in no situation. It is risky enough to land an fixed gear airplane on a field with unknown condition, at least until just before tourchdown. It can contain ditches, holes, rugged plants or roots, wires, and other stuff, and all of them can cause the nose gear to break and the plane to tilt over, with huge negative acceleration and high risk of smashing the people inside. Many people have died doing that, not only in Cirrus’s. And the Cirrus, from what I heard, is reportedly not at all easy to control in slow flight – maybe someone like Bosco can comment. So, you essentially know you’re gonna damage the plane anyway, and most likely yourself. Which is bad enough in a fixed gear plane without a chute (people with retractable gear keep it up and land on the belly. At least I would do it that way)
But flying a Cirrus, you’re sitting in the only GA plane WITH a chute, but no, you still want to risk your life ?
Why ? That’s totally beyond me.
Steve6443 wrote:
often enough we read of forced landings going horribly wrong
Can you quote one actual example in Europe in the last 20 years for that “often enough”? I.e. a forced landing after an engine failure in an altitude that would have been high enough for a chute (i.e. no MEP single engine go around crash) and that lead to a casualty?
This is typically the reason for the rejection of the chute, that and a sort of jealousy of not having such a neat, sleek sporting and comfortable aircraft.
Sorry, but that is the cheap “Whoever has arguments against something is only jealous about those who have it”-argument that is also not helpful if applied for GA as a whole. You can have doubts about the actual safety impact of the chute even w/o being jealous about it. I’ve heard there are even pilots who flew Cirruses for some time but then switched to a plane that fit their needs even better…
Peter wrote:
In the UK, insuring for “agreed value” is quite common
Same in Germany – but at least here the insurer will have a look that this “agreed value” is not substantially higher than current market value. I doubt that it is easy in UK to insure a plane with market value of let’s say 50k with an agreed value of 400k – even if theoretically such an agreed value would be possible…
I think that neither “side” can really assert lives saved or lost, there are too many variables. I read the Cirrus material, and was only partly in acceptance of the logic. Steve6443 wrote:
they are worlds apart from your typical spam can; personally speaking, a lot of the animosity aimed at Cirrus pilots is because other pilots would love to fly them, just can’t afford it
Well, that’s not the way I feel about the situation, though others might. I have been invited to fly a Cirrus, and maybe one day will, it just does not interest me that much. If pilots would like to purchase an airplane with extra safety features, by all means! Just use those features effectively, and without putting other people in peril.
If a pilot would rather a simple plane, that’s fine too! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to fly a plane which is not equipped with a parachute, as there’s nothing wrong with driving a car with a manual transmission, and manual brakes, as long as the car is driven with regard to the rest of society. I sometime detect a tone of “this is good because I have one” with owners of vehicles with elaborate features. I’m not so easily sold.
Bottom line for me, after more than 8000 hours of flying in 270 aircraft of 85 types, including four actual forced landings, two landing gear failures, three flight control failures, hundreds of hours of light testing, and being the passenger for one accident, it has never occurred to me that I wished I had had a parachute available. So, it is very unlikely that I will seek out that capability in an aircraft I choose to fly. It’s not a jealousy thing, it’s just my very experienced opinion that it’s not something I need for the cost and complexity. Thus, if I don’t think I need it, I’m less inclined to consider using it. Others feel differently, which is entirely their right! But, the availability of a novel safety feature should not be an excuse for not maintaining the basic piloting skills and judgement either!
The likelihood of severe injuries or death for the pilot is much, much higher in an off field landing, especially in a Cirrus, which has a high speed wing and does not fly slow very well. Compared to that, pulling the chute has a very high likelihood for the pilot to not only survive the crash, but walk away unharrmed.
The Airplane will be damaged in both cases.
This is the mother of all reasons, the DNA of CAPS.
From a risk/reward point of view, this decision is very, very easy.
