Jacko wrote:
A 40 kt CFIT in an aircraft built to FAR 23 is close to 100% survivable
How do you make such conclusions? A spin, a midair, hitting a tree, a house, power lines, an irrigation ditch, large rock, a car, a cow, a water landing, even an off runway excursion at 40kts is plenty of speed to destroy the plane and kill you and whoever you hit.
USFlyer wrote:
An aircraft with a half-million dollar commercial-grade Pratt-Whitney turbine engine
And it still needs a chute? Commercial flying is done with only one turbine, with equal accident rate as twin turbines (close to none). Chute is a double edged sword because it allows you to do things you wouldn’t do without a chute. That is not a bad thing, but it’s something to think about when seeing the Cirrus statistics, (60-70% did not pull due to engine failure). It’s also suspiciously many “engine failures”, way above the statistics for other planes. None of the Lancairs are survivable with an engine out on a general basis, they are too fast. The only thing that would make them survivable is a chute (or a turbine that statistically would make the probability of engine failure so small it’s purely academic, from a technical point of view at least).
Chute is a good thing in my opinion, it’s the only thing that will save you from the main risks of flying GA, and that is pilot error. The main fault is that it is too easy to pull.
Jacko wrote:
As for fixed wing, it clearly depends on speed, or rather, the square thereof. A 40 kt CFIT in an aircraft built to FAR 23 is close to 100% survivable. At 90 knots it is probably close to zero.
A few years ago when I was fixated with the LongEZ design I ran through the whole NTSB database. I don’t recall the exact figures, but your chances of surviving an off-airport landing were <50%. For Piper Cubs they were close to 100% provided you didn’t spin in.
LeSving wrote:
Chute is a good thing in my opinion, it’s the only thing that will save you from the main risks of flying GA, and that is pilot error. The main fault is that it is too easy to pull.
There is no fault to increasing safety. The parachute is an ‘on purpose’ tool and can only be used by first removing the safety pin and then pulling with force. Even if a pilot pulls the chute by mistake it still results in a non-fatal outcome.
Reasons to have a chute versus not have one?
1) Mid-air collision (or collision with birds or drones)
2) Single engine power loss over hostile terrain, water, or dense populated areas with no assurance of a safe outcome
3) Single engine power loss during night flight
4) Loss of control (due to non-correctable icing or linkage failure)
5) Low altitude stall-spin
6) Major structural failure
7) Component failure resulting in an unflyable or non-controllable aircraft (aileron/rudder)
8) Pilot incapacitation (heart attack) – brief passenger
9) Impossible turn. The system can function at altitudes under 300 AGL for the Cessna 150 (the altitude to which FAA certified the system), and as low as 100 feet for ultralights. The Flight Design pull is 400 AGL, the Cirrus a bit higher than that.
A 40 kt CFIT in an aircraft built to FAR 23 is close to 100% survivable.
I don’t think so. If you drive a car (no airbags etc, and crappy seat belts) into a concrete wall at 46mph, you will get well smashed up, or worse. And GA planes are built to a far lower standard than even a Vauxhall Viva. The build quality of most GA types is roughly one of a cheap caravan.
So it really does depend on what you hit and at what angle.
For Piper Cubs they were close to 100% provided you didn’t spin in.
That’s probably because
OK, Peter, I’ll bite. The acceptance of risk increases with the quality of the systems you are managing. Nothing to do with aviation, this is a general observation. Therefore yes, IMHO you will take somewhat more risk in a BRS-equipped airplane than in a ‘classic’.
Yes – I think that’s what I said. But what I am getting at is that the risk perceived by the pilot (and which led him to buy a plane with a chute, perhaps) is not what is actually involved in accidents. To rephrase it yet again, most pilots I know regard the biggest risk which the chute protects them from as that of an engine failure. They are clearly wrong, because engine failures feature rarely in crashes.
more experienced pilots than you have lost control of their airplane due to vertigo.
Sure, but are you saying there are pilots out there who buy a $800k plane with a chute because they intend to fly it in IMC but they believe they might lose control in IMC? I doubt I would advertise that “risk assessment” too widely if that was me 
And you never know when it will happen.
Really? You mean you are flying along and suddenly your head starts to spin round, and you are completely helpless, so you pull the chute? And you bought this $800k plane because you never know when this will happen?
Incidentally, nearly everybody uses an autopilot in IMC, and an even higher % of pilots of modern types use an autopilot in IMC, or even 99% of the time in VMC.
There gave been SEVERAL airline accidents due to spatial disorientation.
You mean airliners have been crashed because the pilot was hand flying in IMC and lost control of it, and the co-pilot just sat there and watched?
Peter, inform yourself about vertigo! No, it will not happen when you’re “cruising along”, but it can happen in IMC, and it has happened to pilots of 200 million dollar airplanes – and was the reason for many accidents.
It also has nothing to do with “advertising” or the price of the airplane.
You can only use autopilots as long as they work, and sometimes they don’t, as you should know.
I did not write that “pilots buy Cirrus aircraft, because they think they might lose control”. You made that up :-)
USFlyer wrote:
There is no fault to increasing safety.
I agree that there is no fault in increasing safety. Chutes are here to stay, pioneered and used by tens of thousands of microlights in Europe. I still think there is something fundamentally wrong engineering/design vise with an aircraft that requires a chute to make an off airfield landing survivable, like the Cirrus and Lancairs (even though they don’t have a chute). A chute should be a last resort rescue system, not a pillow for otherwise faulty and dangerous design and operations. In a microlight a chute increases safety, in a Cirrus it is a poor replacement for a second engine (at least advertised as that), and a necessity due to dangerous/fatal spin characteristics.
A comparison of accidents between DA42s (or even DA40s) and Cirruses would be a more proper comparison than Cirruses vs old classics.
A Cirrus lands between 77 and 80 knots, and while i land in grass strips all the time it is simply safer to use the chute in case of EF.
The good news: Any pilot is free to do try an off airport landing if he prefers that. I prefer the safer method.
Flyer59 wrote:
The good news:
And the bad news: 
Looked at the “Aviation Safety Network” at aviation-safety.net I have no idea how accurate it is, but it looks fairly OK? Anyway, the numbers speak for themselves. Since 2005 about 800 DA42 has been sold and about 4500 SR20/22. About 5500 SR20/22 has been made since they started production, so I am going to reduce the Cirrus statistics by 4500/5500.
DA42:
Number of reported accidents: 34
Number of fatal accidents: 10
Accidents per aircraft : 4.3%
Fatal accidents per aircraft: 1.3%
Fatal accidents per accidents: 29%
SR20/22
Number of reported accidents: 243
Number of fatal accidents: 106
Accidents per aircraft : 4.4%
Fatal accidents per aircraft: 1.9%
Fatal accidents per accidents (no fudge factor here): 44%
The number of accidents per aircraft is about the same (even when using the fudge factor of 4500/5500 for the Cirrus). Yet the number of fatal accidents are much higher for the Cirrus. Why is that when it has a chute? A chute should theoretically reduce the number of fatal accidents to almost zero. In addition the DA42 is a much more complex aircraft, twin and retractable.
Looked at the DA40 as well. 1300 sold since 2005, 1741 in total since production started:
DA40
Number of reported accidents: 64
Number of fatal accidents: 19
Accidents per aircraft : 3.7%
Fatal accidents per aircraft: 1.1%
Fatal accidents per accidents (no fudge factor here): 30%
No matter what the reason is (mission, pilot, aircraft systems) you are more likely to survive an accident in both the DA40 and the DA42 than in a Cirrus. To me this shows the difference between theory and the real world.
Interesting numbers.
In addition the DA42 is a much more complex aircraft, twin and retractable.
I don’t think “retractable” is complex – unless one regards not ending up all over youtube doing a gear up landing at Meribel as a complex task A plane with the gear up flies so “wrong” that to do a gear up landing you either have to be a complete muppet or have got yourself under a lot of stress and confused by various holes in the cheese lining up.
Yet the number of fatal accidents are much higher for the Cirrus. Why is that when it has a chute? A chute should theoretically reduce the number of fatal accidents to almost zero. In addition the DA42 is a much more complex aircraft, twin and retractable.
IMHO because the very specific targeted marketing which Cirrus does has attracted a lot more people with inadequate type specific training. Otherwise, the avionics in the two are fairly similar. Obviously Cirrus are targeting this issue with type specific training but there will always be loads who don’t do that, and in the US insurance is optional. Plus you don’t need recurrent training, even if you had to do some to get insured in the first place. Plus most DA42s have been sold in Europe (AFAIK) and the mission profile here of a DA42 is different to the SR22 mission profile in the USA. Also a lot of DA42s (most?) are doing FTO “burger runs” which are very undemanding.
However, I think this is not related to how a pilot assesses risk. It is sure related to how a pilot should assess risk, but (as I wrote before) I don’t for a moment believe that the risks which the average pilot is concerned with are representative of the real (statistical) risks.
