Peter wrote:
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.
I think ‘Build Quality’ is the 21st century, ISO9000, car salesman’s way of glossing over a wide range of technical attributes without conveying any understanding. Perhaps not the best phrase for a technical discussion. Aircraft structures are designed and built to a much higher technical level than car structures, for instance rows of rivets laboriously installed at close pitch achieve very high joint efficiencies, and thin skins can carry high loads due to carefully designed and located stiffeners. Or in composite aircraft bonded joints and honeycomb to achieve the same end.
Car structures typically have very low structural efficiency, they are at Neanderthal level when compared with aircraft structures, but there is a fairly strong correlation between low structural efficiency and ability to absorb energy due to deformation (as the structure is being destroyed). Aircraft have to approach crashes in a more intelligent way if they are light enough to fly – more akin to protecting people being carried around in an egg shell.
Of course i believe the DA40/42 have a lower fatality rate than the Cirrus. But look at the missions typical for the type and the picture is clearer. No surprise to me.
USFlyer wrote:
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.
One of the elements of my assessing risk would be to consider the likelihood, and seriousness of the points presented above, in relation to each flight I make. I do this in the context of my personal experience, the experience of my peers, and the information I gather from other authoritative sources (primarily accident reports). I include my understanding as probable outcome from each event. In some cases, I avoid circumstances for which the risk exceeds the benefit, for example, I avoid flight over built up areas, within which a public risk free forced landing could not be made.
I understand my aircraft systems and condition, and the risks of a mechanical or structural failure which would render the aircraft uncontrollable, which are infinitesimally low for well maintained certified aircraft. I do not continue flight in icing conditions in non icing certified aircraft. I avoid handling errors while flying, which jeopardize controlled flight.
From the list above, that leaves pilot incapacitation, which has been known to happen. For that, I put my faith in the medical examinations I receive as required, and understanding that in most cases, a person is aware of impending incapcitation – as long as they are not in denial!
With my constant assessment of risk, I can say that not once during 7000 hours as pilot, and many more as passenger, have I ever desired an airframe parachute system in the aircraft in which I was flying. I wore a parachute for years while flying jumpers, because regulation required that I do. I agree that Cirrus BRS have resulted in injury free arrivals to earth, though they were uncontrolled, involved other serious risks to the occpants and the public, and were very expensive. I am also aware of a number of Cirrus accidents which were fatal, and of more common circumstances, for which the presence of a BRS system was of zero benefit.
I believe that the presence of the BRS in the Cirrus was at least in some part inspired by the need for a work around for spin recovery characteristics which were not adequate for certification. Every other certified single meets those requirements, why should the Cirrus not also comply? Other manufacturers (Icon) [reportedly] go to immense effort to assure a spin compliant is not resistant design. I would not be afraid to fly a Cirrus, as I would not spin it, nor loose control, and I would not need the BRS, as don’t thousands of other pilots who fly them well. My risk assessment for flying does not include the need for a parachute, other than that required operationally by regulation for special purpose flights. I sure would not bear the cost and penalties of such a system. Other pilots/owners do, and I respect the difference in their risk assessment from mine.
I have landed aircraft following in flight failures of engines, flight control systems, electrical systems, and airframe ice accumulation which exceeded the aircraft capacity to maintain level flight. These events have all been immediately included in my risk assessment “toolbox” and served me well for next time. But equally memorable have been those occasions when I have chosen not to fly at all under the circumstances or aircraft condition, or deviated from the original plan during a flight to avoid conditions I considered less safe based upon new information. A few times people have told me I was lucky. I think they were right – I was lucky to have the skill to avoid and or manage abnormal circumstances, and return to earth safely.
There’s no fault to increasing safety, and you can’t argue against safety, but free thinking people are also entitled to inform themselves such that once compliant with regulation, they thereafter do not need to expend great cost nor operational penalty for disproportioned effort or technology to offset a risk shown by massive experience to be small. Sales people will always tell you that you need to purchase more safety – because they have it, and want to sell it – but do you need it? Not always. Automotive antilock braking systems improve safety. They were available for decades before they were common – did we drive safely during that period? Generally yes, and improved driver skill could completely replace the need for an antilock braking system in a car. But, the price of such systems came down, salesmanship went up, and drivers seemed to surrender to the ease of a system which would introduce safety when needed, so they did not need to maintain their own skill for appropriate braking technique. Now I have a car in which I cannot do a parking brake turn, unless I turn systems off – oh well, I nearly never need to do parking brake turns now that I’m nearly mature….
Many good points, but on the CAPS system i do not agree, because i know the facts:
- Alan Klapmeier wanted the BRS from the start, because he had survived a midair
- The FAA did not insist on the full spin program because of the chute, not the other way around, which saved some money and time. Also there were 60 spin tests done for EASA certification
The Piper Super Cub stall speed with flaps, one g, forward CG and MAUM is 37 knots, however please recall the quote on this simple, slow and safe type….
The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; …it can just barely kill you. (Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot)
List by number of accidents/fatalities in 2010: http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/04/18/dangerous-planes.html#slide13
Boeing 737 159
Piper PA28 73
Cessna 170 52
Cessna 180 53
Cessna 150 47
Piper PA32 23
Mooney M20 21
Cirrus SR22 18
Piper PA16 17
Cessna 310 15
Piper PA24 9
Beech Baron 7
And the Cirrus CAPS system will always be appreciated and “required” to complete the risk assessment for some owners and pilots, and that is fair enough, as long as those owners and pilots eagerly maintain skills where the CAPS cannot help them, and also accept the costs and penalties associated with it. For myself, I would not choose those costs and penalties, but that’s just me.
Flyer59 wrote:
The FAA did not insist on the full spin program because of the chute, not the other way around, which saved some money and time.
This I do not agree with. For a certified aircraft, it is certified because it met all of the certification requirements, and the pilot can be thus confident. I know little about Cirrus, but were I to be flying one, and somehow spun it through my carelessness, I would be very unhappy to think that I would now have to incur a large cost in damaged airframe as my only “certified” option to assure a recovery of the spin. Cirrus would love it, as they can point to a pilot who carelessly spun the plane, and their ‘chute saved that day, and they get to sell another plane. But that is a very costly solution where a competent pilot, and spin compliant aircraft would be brought back to earth with no cost, other than new underwear. For all aircraft, there will be a spin entry envelope from which recovery is not possible, and I opine it is more or less the same whether you have BRS or not – if you get in there, you’re not getting out alive, and a ‘chute won’t help. Other than that, why not recover the spin with flight control, because you can, and have no cost?
I could save my clients a lot of money and time by not fulfilling aircraft certification requirements, but I never have, we do the testing, and demonstrate compliance – and the pilots flying later, know that they have a plane which will be flyable (and recoverable) as they expect.
Risk assessment is personal and based upon skill and experience of the pilot. There is no right answer, and I certainly tell pilots not to attempt things they have just seen me do, but their seeing me do something as [my] low risk, which is unacceptable risk for them, helps them to allow their risk threshold to slowly grow as it should.
In the mean time, the like/dislike Cirrus CAPS has no “right” answer – it is a preference. But I remain very well informed on the “no thank you” side, and encourage people considering purchase of that system to be very informed and objective before deciding. It does not represent any improvement to many of the most common risks to GA flying. Pre and in flight risk assessment and applied skill are still the best safety tools.
Just did a check on 2010 all accidents for the Cessna 180 in the NTSB database, and came up with 22, not 53. Not sure how US Flyers source of 53 was established. Of the 22 there was one fatal, the rest were no injury or minor injury accidents. I suspect drilling down most were of the minor ground loop variety.
Am sure other facts would come up differently when checked with the authoritative source, ie the NTSB.
Pilot_DAR wrote:
This I do not agree with.
Whether you agree or not It’s a documented fact. http://whycirrus.com/engineering/stall-spin.aspx
Flyer59 is correct. The FAA did not require full spin testing due to the NASA split wing (the FAA suggested it) and the CAPS. It is also a fact that the plane was spin tested by Cirrus for European certification and found to be resistant to spin-entry and once in a spin able to recover readily.
The Cirrus is not the only aircraft to have the airframe parachute. Flight Design, ICON, Pipistrel, Lancair Evolution, Aeropro Eurofox, over 300 ultralights, and Cessna http://cessna.txtav.com/citation-service/featured-parts/brs-parachute
Eventually the parachute will be as common as seat belts and redundant avionics in an aircraft.
The only experimental aircraft with a chute is the Lancair Evolution (Pratt Turbine)…the option is too new to assess the impact yet.
The Cirrus is not the only aircraft to have the airframe parachute. Flight Design, ICON, Pipistrel, Lancair Evolution, Aeropro Eurofox, over 300 ultralights, and Cessna http://cessna.txtav.com/citation-service/featured-parts/brs-parachute
Credibility = 0, USflyer…
