View Single Post
  #1  
Old February 7th 10, 09:06 AM posted to alt.games.microsoft.flight-sim,rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.student
Mxsmanic
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,169
Default Cirrus crash midair

Dallas writes:

Don't know about low time... but, yeah... his fault.

Sec. 91.113 Right-of-way rules:
However, an aircraft towing or refueling other aircraft has the
right-of-way over all other engine-driven aircraft.

There is no chance the accident is not the fault of the Cirrus pilot. The
NTSB report will read: Failure to give right of way and failure to see and
avoid.


Yup. And the incredible thing is that the same thing has happened before, also
with a Cirrus pilot clipping the tow line of a tow plane. In the previous
case, the pilot pulled the parachute (I guess it didn't occur to him to fly
the plane, although I'm not sure how much damage was done), and floated safely
to earth. Obviously it was the Cirrus pilot's fault in that incident as well.

Cirrus has a poor accident record. There's nothing wrong with the aircraft,
but the company markets its aircraft very aggressively to very naïve, low-time
pilots, emphasizing characteristics other than safety (e.g. prestige, comfort)
and deliberately presenting certain things in a way that is clearly intended
to inspire a false sense of security. This means that a lot of inexperienced
and/or careless pilots buy Cirrus aircraft.

For example, if you look at their marketing, they now talk about icing
protection without mentioning the "entry into known" part, thus creating the
impression that their icing protection allows you to fly through icing
conditions with impunity, which is not at all what FIKI certification is all
about. And they talk about their parachutes as if these can solve any problem
and compensate for any lack of skill on the part of the pilot--without
mentioning that they originally used the parachutes just to get the aircraft
certified (rather than spin testing, if I recall correctly).

There are some Cirrus pilots who are now dead who regularly reassured their
entourage that flying the aircraft was safe because it had a parachute. Either
those pilots were lying, or they had been seriously misled by someone.

Cirrus is the "fork-tailed doctor killer" of our era. The old V-tailed
Bonanzas tended to attract low-time, low-competence, high-income pilots, and
Cirrus aircraft are doing the same thing. I don't know if Beechcraft ever
deliberately tried to target that market as Cirrus is doing, though.