Well the positive rate works without the call-out too. While there is a reason for a call-out in a two person crew where one looks outside and one looks inside, not quite sure what the reason is when you’re on your own. It’s your eyes that do the checking.
T28 wrote:
not quite sure what the reason is when you’re on your own
The reason is it makes you more likely to actually do the check properly. It’s related to pointing and calling in railway operations which studies have shown greatly reduces mistakes.
T28 wrote:
It’s your eyes that do the checking.
It’s like the good habit during approach briefing to actually point your finger to the instruments where a certain frequency, course, etc. should be dialed in. It is obviously the eyes that do the checking but pointing at it just increases the odds that you actually see a deviation.
In addition for the chute the touching of the handle creates kind of muscle memory that increases odds to find the handle in an actual emergency.
Finally: Those Cirrus Owners have paid hundreds of thousands of Euros to get a plane with a chute – give them the right to at least once in each flight show off to their passengers ;-)
Malibuflyer wrote:
give them the right to at least once in each flight show off to their passengers ;-)
Actually, passengers need to be briefed on the handle and what to do if e.g. the pilot becomes incapacitated. That is one of the big advantages with the shute, that pax in such a case need to know what to do.
Same goes for the autoland system on the Vision Jet and the Malibus which have them. If the pax are not briefed, then they loose a lot of usefulness.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Actually, passengers need to be briefed on the handle and what to do if e.g. the pilot becomes incapacitated.
We could start a long and philosophic discussion about the practical use of such systems – which have been done at many places and never get to a conclusion.
Luckily on this specific question we don’t need to, because the Cirrus community is extremely active in documenting CPAS deployment.
Therefore one simple question to people more closely to the Cirrus community: In the 20 years where we have data on, in how many cases globally has the CAPS been deployed by a non pilot passenger after pilot incapacitation?
Malibuflyer wrote:
Therefore one simple question to people more closely to the Cirrus community: In the 20 years where we have data on, in how many cases globally has the CAPS been deployed by a non pilot passenger after pilot incapacitation?
I think it’s NONE but the “sales argument” is bloody powerful to pilots (those who fill unwell) and passengers (who like to control their game)
The same fantasy happens in commercial airlines, having some random pax pulling out something to save the day, it makes some nice news headlines or film scripts but the chances in real life are nil (well there was the DC10 with one pax being the only test pilot who practiced flying DC10 on differential engines in the simulator, the actual crew was somehow in incapacitation by the loss of wheel & rudder hydraulics after the tail engine blow up 
)
In an airliner, of course there is a second crew member and hence, at worst, a type rated rookie who will have little issue landing the aircraft as long as there is no additional complication at the same time.
But single pilot, it does happen on occasion…
Malibuflyer wrote:
In the 20 years where we have data on, in how many cases globally has the CAPS been deployed by a non pilot passenger after pilot incapacitation?
I did not find conclusive data but am told that there have been incidents when the CAPS has been deployed due to pilot incapacitation. I do not have access to COPA, so I do not know how many (other than that it has happened) have been initiated by a pax.
What we do know is that single and multi crew airplanes have come to grief due to incapacitation of the flight crew. Many of those could have been saved had there been a provision for either a BRS or autoland system. And in every such case, those systems will be much more likely to save an incapacitation case if the passengers who can reach it are told what to do. Actually, there are passenger safety cards, like the airliners have them, to explain what to do.
Nonwithstanding, the fact of the matter is that the very availability has gotten many critically minded passengers to be much more at ease with flying in those airplanes, up to the point that I have encountered several prospective owner’s partners who, when confronted with the idea of buying a plane, made it brutally clear they would not fly in a plane without a shute. As we have said over and over again, people are bad at estimating risks, which is why we have a thriving insurance business. Well, a shute is exactly that, a pretty expensive insurance against a substantiated or non substantiated concern. The same goes for the autoland system, which I find a much larger breakthrough actually.
I have in the past compared the “wife effect” of the Cirrus parashute and it’s marketing (there are a lot of other planes with shutes, mostly UL’s, but they are not known for them to that extent) is comparable with the first sugar free chewing gum commercial in the 1970ties. A kid running a self made race car in a race is asked by a reporter about the chewing gum he is chewing while winning his race, his response is, he is chewing a Trident because it was the only one his mum allowed. Well, quite a lot of Cirrus owners would tell you the same story were they honest with themselfs. They wanted to buy an airplane but the wife insisted on one with a shute. Some also will make the clear statement that it is them who feel better that way, particularly if they fly IMC or Night.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
They wanted to buy an airplane but the wife insisted on one with a shute. Some also will make the clear statement that it is them who feel better that way, particularly if they fly IMC or Night.
Depends on the wife? mine felt that it was calm, safe and romantic to fly above cloud overcasts by night with full moon, while all I was thinking about was Cirrus or twins rather than old Mooneys (single engine old dials and no auto-pilot), it felt lonely and my hands did shake once or twice, probably due to cold
Other than that flight, I never felt the chute was necessary !
