Aircraft lands in Cheltenham garden

[sdbeach]

Originally Posted by maxred

Rick, during that beer, I watched the animation I believe you have just posted regarding the Cirrus aerobatic event. That is quite shocking, and disturbing.

For certain, this accident upset a lot of people in the Cirrus community also. Amazing progression of three rolls, one at 1700 feet, another at 600 feet and the fatal one at 220 feet. What is not reported in the investigation files are the activities of the two other acrobatic airplanes flying in some kind of formation. Were they doing rolls at low level also? Was there peer pressure? Clearly the aircraft is placarded as not authorized for acrobatic maneuvers.

It's us, the pilots. Not the plane.

Cheers
Rick

[On Track]

cats_five, my definition of GA also includes:

flying training
sightseeing flights
search and rescue
medical flights (flying doctor, aerial ambulance)
agricultural operations (mustering, crop dusting)
charter flights (passengers and/or freight)
mail deliveries
traffic reporting
sharkspotting
coastal surveillance
minerals exploration
inspection of power lines
bushfire detection and firefighting
transport to onshore and offshore mining facilities
aerial photography and newsgathering by media companies...

just to name a few. Most of those are commercial operations and they are all GA.

[maxred]

The bigotry is what is shocking and disturbing

I do not quite understand that comment.

On watching the animation, what was, to quote, shocking and disturbing, was the animated presentation that it was not a one off botched roll. It was all planned, it was all flown, it was a third roll, plus some pretty low level flying.

These guys were flying the thing, with no understanding, nor appreciation of the operating parameters of the vehicle. To watch it in animation, was to confirm the absurdity of the manoeuvres, which in a sense, confirmed my view that it is not the aeroplanes that we have to change, it is pilot mindsets, or lack of, that need to change.

[Pace]

But out of that 115 how many of them wouldn't have been in the air anyway if it wasn't for the magical chute in the back

MJ

Personally I do not think nearly enough credence is given to this and I tend to agree a lot of the chute pulls are because these pilots are in places or situations that they are ill equipt to deal with and have been lured there by the comfort zone of the chute.
Take a car and fit high explosives to each corner. Get someone to drive that car through busy streets and they would be ultra cautious knowing that one slip or mistake would cost them their lives.
Remove the explosives and they would drive around the busy streets with gay abandon.
There is nothing wrong with the Cirrus it is a high performance touring aircraft with very modern and complex nav and safety features.
It has a lively roll rate (I timed it as near a Firefly aerobatic machine in its roll rate which means its easy to overcontrol in cloud.
That also means you have to be current and on top of the game to fly IFR in IMC.
Sadly many are not Even more sad is the comments made
There is nothing wrong with the BRS potentially one of the biggest advancements in small plane safety.
I do not like single engine at night any distance from an airport but I know I would fly far more at night with a Cirrus because of the chute which would give me the confidence to fly at night while a conventional single piston aircraft would not!
There was an accident where a pilot pushed on in icing conditions iced up and had to pull the chute.
Would he have been so gung ho in a non shuted aircraft? I doubt it!
Many of the Cirrus pilots come from flying simple aircraft like the 172.
Usually monied businessmen low hours and low experience and treat the chute as a get out of jail for free if it all goes wrong,
There is nothing wrong with that but as with a twin the chute or other engine in a twin will give you that extra confidence which will lure you into a trap

Pace

[Big Pistons Forever]

[QUOTE=Pace;7886856]

There was an accident where a pilot pushed on in icing conditions iced up and had to pull the chute.
Would he have been so gung ho in a non shuted aircraft? I doubt it!


Pace[/QUOTE

How do you explain the many, many examples of pilots pushing on in icing conditions they could not handle and then crashing, in comparable to Cirrus aircraft with no chute ?

All I see is emotion in this argument with little factual data to back it up. There is one indeniable fact however. There are people who are not dead because of the chute. Unless you believe that every chute pull was the reckless result of a pilot pushing his limits solely because he knew he had the chute then there is a more people alive than if the Cirrus did not have a chute.

I have no problem with that.

[sdbeach]

Originally Posted by Pace

Originally Posted by mad_jock

But out of that 115 how many of them wouldn't have been in the air anyway if it wasn't for the magical chute in the back

Personally I do not think nearly enough credence is given to this and I tend to agree a lot of the chute pulls are because these pilots are in places or situations that they are ill equipt to deal with and have been lured there by the comfort zone of the chute.
...
Many of the Cirrus pilots come from flying simple aircraft like the 172.
Usually monied businessmen low hours and low experience and treat the chute as a get out of jail for free if it all goes wrong,
There is nothing wrong with that but as with a twin the chute or other engine in a twin will give you that extra confidence which will lure you into a trap

You agree with MJ that the parachute lures pilots into a trap. Got any facts for your opinions?

This is the nub of the debate. You make claims that I believe are based on personal interpretations rather than any examination of the real situations, buoyed by speculative judgments rather than factual investigations, and confirmation bias rather than impartial examination.

Have you interviewed any of the pilots who pulled the parachute?

Have you determined which accidents or parachute pulls were in your category of "lured there by the comfort zone of the chute"?

Pace, MJ, for reference, I have studied every fatal and parachute investigation report for Cirrus aircraft. That's a bunch. Way too many people have killed a perfectly good and safe airplane.

Furthermore, I have personally interviewed 14 of the 34 pilots involved in survivable parachute events. I've been looking for evidence of the lure you claim is there, looking for lack of training or lack of proficiency. Hard to find.

The lure you denigrate was not a primary factor in the accident chains of their situations. Lots of other factors come into play, including unforecast weather, mechanical or avionics surprises, disorientation, and pilot incapacitation.

I cannot and will not argue that the lure is not there. I know of Cirrus pilots who act recklessly and dangerously. Apparently, that is not unique to Cirrus pilots.

However, I will challenge you and other skeptics to come up with some evidence that the lure of the parachute is there.

Cheers
Rick

[sdbeach]

Originally Posted by Big Pistons Forever

Originally Posted by Pace

There was an accident where a pilot pushed on in icing conditions iced up and had to pull the chute.
Would he have been so gung ho in a non shuted aircraft? I doubt it!

How do you explain the many, many examples of pilots pushing on in icing conditions they could not handle and then crashing, in comparable to Cirrus aircraft with no chute ?

BPF, by coincidence, I am now based at the same airport where that accident pilot was based. I've talked with his instructor who runs the Cirrus Training Center. So, I have gained some further insight into this accident at Norden, CA (assuming that Pace was referring to this icing accident).

The circumstances were a delayed night departure over the Sierra Mountains from Reno to the San Francisco Bay Area. (Delayed was important because another Cirrus pilot flew the same route an hour earlier and did so in visual daylight conditions avoiding buildups.) The weather briefer did not describe icing conditions and the investigators faulted the weather service for not providing better icing forecast products that are now in routine use in the US.

The pilot flew a Cirrus with both a parachute and the TKS weeping wing ice protection system. The instructor believes that the pilot was prudent in his pre-flight planning to treat those both as tools for escapes.

Except for one big difference. This pilot had an irrational belief that to exit icing conditions one must climb. The instructor despaired at trying to change that belief and encouraged descent to warmer air or turn 180 degrees back to non-icing conditions. Didn't take. And in the accident, the pilot was given higher for traffic, encountered icing, asked for and was given higher, and never got on top, iced up, descended at over 300 KIAS and the parachute was deployed and ripped off the airframe. That's an airspeed over twice the demonstrated deployment speed.

Was this pilot lured into conditions beyond his abilities? Absolutely, YES!

Was the parachute and the weeping wing features contributory? Possibly but not definitely, according to his instructor's assessment.

Did the pilot have other outs and make a poor aeronautical decision? Tragically, YES!


Cheers
Rick

[007helicopter]

Take a car and fit high explosives to each corner. Get someone to drive that car through busy streets and they would be ultra cautious knowing that one slip or mistake would cost them their lives.

Pace equally take a car - fit air bags, ABS breaks, Hi encap rating etc, does it mean we go off tearing around the streets like a nutter, I don't think so, reckless drivers drive any vehicle like that.


Also plenty of non chute aircraft seem to perish in ice including highly capable aircraft with presumably highly trained pilots such as TBM's etc.

[Pace]

007

When I fly I never do anything where I do not have an OUT ! To fly where your options are closed is playing Russian Roulette!

Flying on a black night in a single, flying over fog banks in a single!
Engine failure ? And you are in deep trouble !

In both situations the BRS would give me that OUT or option I would want to make the flight which I would be very wary of doing in a non chuted aircraft

So in those situations the chute would lure me into flying in conditions I would be wary of in a non chuted aircraft!

I am a current and experienced instrument pilot ! There are those who are not ! Surely it is not rocket science to realize that in the same way the chute will give them an OUT for flying in conditions they are not totally happy with?

I am sure without doubt that the comfort factor plays a part how big is the question?
That does not detract from the chute offering the biggest advance in safety but with every advance come negatives too !

As with flying twin engine aircraft the extra engine brings more options ! With more options more choices! With more choices the option to make the wrong choice IMO the chuted Cirrus which is a great plane fits the above too

Rick

For those who take the view that you should pull for everything including a bad case of wind you have failed to discuss that concern or the effects of winds on descending aircraft under a chute.

You presume in the case of an engine failure that the aircraft will descend vertically at 25 mph ( I use mph to compare car speeds) you presume a still Day !

Take a windy day say 40 mph winds does your advice hold true to pull the chute in the event of engine failure?

You will now descend at 25 mph but travel horizontally at speed slamming into hard objects at speeds which in a car could kill you and under no control from you the pilot. You would experience not just a descent impact but a forward impact too.
I know which option I would take on a windy day with half decent landing sites.

With a conventional forced landing you would use those winds to your advantage for low ground speed landings into wind and have control over not hitting hard stuff on the ground ! So on windy days do you still promote the idea of pulling the chute ?

Frankly with statistics you can use them to promote whatever you want but I still feel a lot more thought needs to go into training over the chute and its use.
You and others here write as if we are two camps the for the chute and the against the chute. I am totally for the chute but not blindly used

Pace

[pulse1]

Pace equally take a car - fit air bags, ABS breaks, Hi encap rating etc, does it mean we go off tearing around the streets like a nutter, I don't think so, reckless drivers drive any vehicle like that.

When it became compulsory to wear seat belts in cars it was shown that the average driver actually drove at higher speed and that accidents to pedestrians became worse. Everyone has a comfortable risk factor and will automatically compensate their actions accordingly. I believe that Pace has it about right.

[thborchert]

When it became compulsory to wear seat belts in cars it was shown that the average driver actually drove at higher speed and that accidents to pedestrians became worse

Could you kindly provide the source for that? Thanks.

Also, are we really claiming now that seatbelts in cars are a bad thing? Wow!

[Aphrican]

The whole question boils down to one of risk homeostasis.

It is up to individual pilots to fly a SR2x BRS in the same manner as they would fly a comparable high performance single without a BRS. If they do so, they will be safer in SR2xs than in other high performance singles.

From Wikipedia : 'Booth's rule #2', often attributed to skydiving pioneer Bill Booth, states that "The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant".

As Rick says, it is the pilots and not the airplanes.

[Pace]

Also, are we really claiming now that seatbelts in cars are a bad thing? Wow!

He did not say that! Or that injuries to belted drivers increased He said speeds increased as did accidents to PEDESTRIANS (Pedestrians do not wear seatbelts )which I also read some time back and can well believe

Pace

[Aphrican]

The various studies referred to here : Risk compensation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know that it is only Wikipedia but some of the links can be followed to the source material.

[mad_jock]

Have you interviewed any of the pilots who pulled the parachute?

Commercially we have pretty much given up interviewing pilots there version of events very rarely match whats on the CVR and FDR/QDR.

They also have a habit of telling lies so they don't appear to be as stupid and as incompetent as the flight data proves. And to interview someone properly post incident there is a special course you need to go on which basically means you have to go round in circles and jump backwards and forwards to see where the holes are. I haven't done it BTW just been on the receiving end of it.

There as many references you like on the end of this article.

Risk compensation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Who's going to add a bit onto that article about cirrus pilots

I remember getting lectures on it in my engineering degree.

It follows across a broad spectrum of activity's skiing, driving.

There are actually loads of papers on it but you won't be able to access them unless you can get into a uni library which has the academic journals back catalogue on microfiche or DVD.

Its not the case that we are claiming that seat belts are bad just that they didn't actually have the safety effect that was envisaged by quite a wide margin. This also had the knock on effect that another group of people were put into more danger than before the introduction.

The same with cyclists they hit pedestrians hard and now they have a helmet this causes more damage than pre helmet to the pedestrian so add in the higher risk taken by some cyclists and the higher impact speeds more pedestrians get hurt.

They have just gone through the circle in Rugby they started going down the armour route and the injury's increased and also the severity of the injury's. They have now got rid of the amour and things have gone back to as before.

Must admit I was chatting about this with the FO this morning. And he has just sent me this.

Cirrus Chute Deployment Fails Over Texas, Pilot Still Makes Safe Landing | Aero-News Network

Bit of a bastard but at least he got down safe. Bet he won't go near a thundercell again. To add I have never had a problem with steam instruments near cells. I have had EFIS give me black screens and standby instruments 4 times. I have 4 times as many hours on steam as I do on EFIS.

[englishal]

Flying on a black night in a single flying over fog banks in a single!
Engine failure ? And you are in deep trouble !
In both situations the BRS would give me that OUT or option I would want to make the flight which I would be very wary of doing in a non chuted aircraft
So in those situations the chute would lure me into flying in conditions I would be wary of in a non chutesd aircraft!

Pace, that is because you are older and wiser, and dare I say it, a Multi Engine pilot! When I first started flying, I didn't think twice about flying at night over the California mountains. I did a lot of it, and it never concerned me even in an old PA28 with no moving map GPS or any gizmos.

Now, older and wiser, my flying style has changed. I tend to rent ME aeroplanes over California, and I tend to rent newer aeroplanes. I am more wary about where I fly too.

If I had crashed the PA28 into the mountains, I'd have just been another statistic, but had I had a Cirrus and parachute, and pulled the chute, everyone here would be discussing my piloting skills and ADM.

I would probably take a Cirrus over these same mountains as the parachute would add that extra layer of safety so in this respect perhaps the parachute does lure people into flying in more hostile environments. But with a proper risk assessment I don't see anything wrong with this. The plane is a means of transport and there is an element of risk or we'd all hang up our headsets and take EasyJet instead.

Having said that, I'd probably make the journey anyway, except the buttocks might be a bit more clenched. It did occur to me as I flew with my buddy down the Colorado river in shorts and T shirt, in a DA40, in the middle of absolutely nowhere on a very hot day (41C at Calexico) that if we crashed we might be in deep doo doo as we only had half a bottle of gatorade onboard. We still made the flight though and thoroughly enjoyable it was too.

[mad_jock]

But with a proper risk assessment I don't see anything wrong with this.

The fact that you include having the chute onboard and alter your profile from what you would do with out one is proof of point of what we are saying.

Cirrus pilots do fly in a risker manner than they would in a different type of aircraft.

[Cessnafly]

Cirrus Chute Deployment Fails Over Texas, Pilot Still Makes Safe Landing | Aero-News Network



Whoopsy daisy!

[Lone_Ranger]

I think most of us here are saying the same thing......Risk compensation exists and any safety device will be factored in by the pilot, its a pretty much undeniable fact unless you are selling a BRS' system, when it seems you must endlessly argue against any possible downside to the system.

CIRRUS OWNERS PLEASE NOTE: nowhere does the above state that BRS' does'nt save lives

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I think people are talking about good risk taking (insurance against engine failure whilst flying over mountains) vs. bad risk taking (deliberately flying into forecast bad weather relying on knowing you've got an out if it goes pear-shaped), a bit like the difference between "deserving" and "undeserving" poor?