Robert
I think we will have to agree to disagree, while I am sure that prevention is better than cure, I can’t send a pilot into the air without the knowledge to recover from the worst situation the aircraft is likely to put him in.
While this might marginally increase the risk to the student he knows the risk of the training, when he gets his PPL his passengers are innocent bystanders in the risk business and I also have a duty care to them.
when he gets his PPL his passengers are innocent bystanders in the risk business and I also have a duty care to them.
So, in your opinion, where does your duty of care then stop? With all due respect, your job is to train a pilot, you are not the chaperone of someone.
I think I’m with what next on this one. Current training is all about avoiding a spin situation, using 1. the stall horn, 2. low speed buffeting, and 3. wing/nose drop (initial indication).
There’s a fourth indicator and that is the position of the stick/yoke.
Most, if not all “modern” aircraft are very benign. The problem is that they’re benign up to a point and then may become rather violent. Examples are the Tecnam P2002 and Diamond DA40 while the Cirrus SR20/22 may not be stalled at all! How about that!? 40 years of experience with the C172 and someone “improves” on aerodynamics by designing an aircraft that requires a parachute to recover from a stall condition… My my.
Regarding the DA40 and P2002, both these types are very easy to fly, safe and all that, but once you reach the stall they will depart happily and violently in any direction much to the surprise of the student, and perhaps the instructor. The DA40 gives plenty of warning so one shouldn’t end up in that situation, if applying the current training techniques and if everything works, while the P2002 actually caught me off guard! On the other hand, I know it enters and exits spins nicely after trying it out with the factory test pilot…
My point is, modern aircraft are not necessarily as benign as the previous generation. How do you guys cope with that?
the Cirrus SR20/22 may not be stalled at all!
Wow! Does that mean that all the stalls I did in mine during my conversion training, IR training and check ride and all the BRFs and other training I have done since broke the rules?
The reality is that stalls are perfectly permissible. The aircraft is actually quite difficult to stall and is very benign in recovery.
And by the way, as EASA proved when they certified the SRXX, it recovers from spins as well although it is not certified to do them deliberately.
Exactly.
Normal stalls in a SR22 are NON EVENTS. You fly circles with it in the stall, no problem, even without using any rudder it will fly almost coordinated. YOu’d have to push a pedal pretty hard to get in trouble and – by the way – for the European certification it was spun 60 times without any problems.
My bad,
What I meant was that the aircraft (SR20/22) should be recovered using the parachute if it departs controlled flight. Presumably this is if and when a wing drops as a result of loss of lift, i.e., “loss of control”. Every other aircraft (bar the Columbia and Ercoupe perhaps) that I know of certified under FAR/CS-23 should be recoverable from at least one turn. The Cirrus, to my knowledge, was never tested to demonstrate this capability and although it may be fine there are at least a few accidents that suggest otherwise. Not in itself a unique aspect of the SR series. Stall/spin accidents happen in all kinds of makes and models.
So, to those of you who apparently don’t use the chute each time you do your BFRs or PCs, how would you compare the behavior of the SR vs a taper wing PA28 for example?
Krister
I’m sorry to spoil you argument by resorting to something as mundane as the documented facts but it irritates me to see these old wives tales about the Cirrus quoted as true without any reference to certification reports that are available in the public domain.
For clarity: AIUI, Cirrus demonstrated CAPS as an EQUIVALENT to spin recovery in order to make the original FAA certification easier. Ever since then the myth that the Cirrus is irrecoverable from a spin has been peddled by salesmen of competing brands and quoted as true on endless Internet forums.
To make things clear: here is a link to the EASA spin recovery testing that I quoted in my earlier post:
If you can’t open it, please let me know and I’ll email you a copy.
As Alex said in his post immediately before yours: as part of the certification for EASA, the aircraft was spun SIXTY times, recovering each time, and certified by EASA as a result.
I hope that makes the situation clear.
The only part you’re spoiling is the reference to the SR20/22 and perhaps you missed my point entirely. Stall characteristics are very different and even in modern designs they are sometimes more aggressive than one might expect. How do we best teach our students about stall/spin avoidance in these types? By not demonstrating what happens, or by doing exactly that?
Reading the report reveals to me that the SR20/22 is not tested to the full and you don’t know if it will recover from a spin. It did so in the 60 tests that CIRRUS performed as part of the limited testing that was done, and to which FAA and EASA agreed that it met the basic stall requirements of FAR/CS-23 based on the use of the chute as the only spin recovery method.
The more important information is that the aircraft has improved handling close to and in the stall, which should help pilots avoid stall/spin accidents altogether. I don’t know if statistics show this to be the case in real life. Comments I’ve seen suggest that accident rates are not so much better for the Cirri than other types, but I don’t know what percentage are inadvertent spins.
I’d still like to know how the stall characteristics of the SR20/22 compares to a C172 or PA28 in your experience.
Krister, that’s really wrong, see Jonzarno’s post also… I wrote this belwo before reading his
The SR20/22 was tested 60 times IN the spin and recovered from the spin without any problem.
Also the stall characteristics of the SR20/22 are not aggressive at all. The “spin recovery by chute only” is an old myth distributed MAINLY by Cessna and Lancair sales personal, and believe me that I know that because I know the people who once brought it up – out of frustration that the SR2x outsold the Columbia by such a huge margin …
Cirrus just SHORTENED the certification process by putting that line into the POH, that’s all.
The “accident rates” of the Cirri is a very complicated matter, see other thread!
The Cirrus has, due to its “cuffed” wing (wing a different airfoil on the outboard sections of the wings), very docile stall qualities. You can really pull the yoke all the way back, and unlike a Mooney (or similar) it will not drop a wing but stay completely controllable. And this is very impressive since you must take into account that we are talking about the single engine aircraft with the HIGHEST wing loading of all (SR22)
What the Cirrus (and any other high performance plane of the same caliber) will not accept is a high-g stall scanario, like in a rapid pull-up in a turn close to the ground, and once you manage to stall in this situation you have no goo chance to survive if you’re .. See here:
But let me add: Try that same thing with a Mooney, Corvalis, any Lancair, Glasair or other plane with a fast wing with high wing loading and it will kill you even quicker. But you can also run a Porsche 911 against a bridge on the autobahn and complain that “it’s not safe”.
