On Saturday, August 11, 2018 at 11:22:47 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:
On Saturday, August 11, 2018 at 9:09:25 PM UTC-7, WB wrote:
On Saturday, August 11, 2018 at 10:29:47 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:
Unless you have an emergency door ejection on your Cessna (I have never seen one with this), you won't be able to get out to use your parachute.

Tom

Why not? I have never had a problem opening a door on a Cessna in flight. In fact, on most old Cessnas, the doors pop open every time they are bumped by a shoulder.

Does anyone remember the Cirrus SR-22 accident of a few years ago where the Cirrus was in a mid-air? The airframe parachute was deployed but the plane was on fire. The two occupants ended up jumping (without chutes, unfortunately) to avoid burning. I'll wear my chute, thank you.

Partially opening a door is one thing, opening so you can exit out of it going well in excess of Vne is another. If you want to be SURE you can get out, it must be jettisoned.

Tom

Well, even if you could jettison the door, it might still be impossible to get out. Not even the most sophisticated ejections seats on 100 million dollar fighters save every pilot that uses them. So if we can't be absolutely 100% percent sure of getting out, then why try at all? Should we just resign ourselves to dying bravely?

There will always be situations where a chute won't help. However, If a wing or tail is off or mangled from a midair, it's unlikely the aircraft is going nose down VNE. If it's on fire, then I'm going to trim to slow and jump.. Lots of situations can be conjectures where a chute would be useful. I can think of no situations where having a chute would be worse than not having one. To each his own.