Cirrus Death Trap?

Denny,

Cirrus has a flawed record when
it comes to the control systems...


How so?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On 13 Oct 2006 04:02:59 -0700, "Denny" wrote:

Garry, the real question is what actually happened?
Was that an intentional turn or a control failure with the pilots
desperately trying to regain control? Cirrus has a flawed record when
it comes to the control systems...
Was the turn back deliberate and due to engine failure? There are
ground witnesses unreliable, but a datum point who said the engine
was loud i.e. running, even if running rough

Yes, he was a low time pilot, but he had reached the point to start his
instrument training so he wasn't completely green, he had flown the
airplane cross country (coast to coast as I read it) at some point...
USAF pilots are turned loose in supersonic fighters with less time than
he had...

The bad part of such a devastating crash is the airplane being totally
mangled to the point that we will never be able to answer the basic
questions - i.e. control failure, fuel contamination, etc...

OTOH, it has been 51 years since the previous accidental impact of an

That one was a lot bigger too!
Admittedly he only had one more engine even if it was a tad larger.

airplane against a tall building in NYC... By the time the next one
comes around, you and I won't care...

denny
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2006-10-13, Mxsmanic wrote:
Also, it seems like the aircraft is actively marketed to precisely
this type of buyer, which makes things even worse. It looks like Carl
Lidle fell for it (in more ways than one).

The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.


How do you know the aircraft is irrelevant? Please post your source.

--
Mike

On 2006-10-13, Mike wrote:
The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.


How do you know the aircraft is irrelevant? Please post your source.

F=ma (force = mass x acceleration). Or in this case, deceleration.

A 100kg human in an ultralight travelling at 25 metres/sec hitting a
building and decelerating to zero in 0.5 sec (entirely plausable) will
experience a force of 100 * 50 newtons (5,000 newtons) in the initial
impact. Not to mention the bits of the building which are likely to
shatter and pierce the body. But a force of 5,000 newtons against a
human body is usually enough to kill. So it's pretty irrelevant whether
a plane is a slow one or a fast one like a Cirrus - slamming (to use
Lune's favorite word) into the side of a building is usually not going
to be survivable.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2006-10-13, Mike wrote:
The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.


How do you know the aircraft is irrelevant? Please post your source.

F=ma (force = mass x acceleration). Or in this case, deceleration.

A 100kg human in an ultralight travelling at 25 metres/sec hitting a
building and decelerating to zero in 0.5 sec (entirely plausable) will
experience a force of 100 * 50 newtons (5,000 newtons) in the initial
impact. Not to mention the bits of the building which are likely to
shatter and pierce the body. But a force of 5,000 newtons against a
human body is usually enough to kill. So it's pretty irrelevant whether
a plane is a slow one or a fast one like a Cirrus - slamming (to use
Lune's favorite word) into the side of a building is usually not going
to be survivable.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de


You've only argued that the type of aircraft was irrelevant at the
point of impact. I think we can all agree on that! But that dismisses
the possibility that this accident might not have happened if the
aircraft had been slower - like a C150. (more time to react and less
radius to turn, etc...). I don't believe this was a case of a pilot
blindly flying into an object that was not easily visible from the
cockpit (like hitting a mountain at night or in the fog). It seems
more likely that either they were incapable of making the required
tight turn (poor planning, staying ahead of the aircraft) and hit the
building while trying to turn, or they lost control for some unknown
reason (stall, aircraft malfunction, etc) and the building simply got
in the way of the uncontroled flight/fall to earth. In either of those
scenerios, aircraft type could very well be relevant.

Dylan Smith wrote:

On 2006-10-13, Mike wrote:

The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.


How do you know the aircraft is irrelevant? Please post your source.


F=ma (force = mass x acceleration). Or in this case, deceleration.

A 100kg human in an ultralight travelling at 25 metres/sec hitting a
building and decelerating to zero in 0.5 sec (entirely plausable) will
experience a force of 100 * 50 newtons (5,000 newtons) in the initial
impact. Not to mention the bits of the building which are likely to
shatter and pierce the body. But a force of 5,000 newtons against a
human body is usually enough to kill. So it's pretty irrelevant whether
a plane is a slow one or a fast one like a Cirrus - slamming (to use
Lune's favorite word) into the side of a building is usually not going
to be survivable.


You are making the flawed assumption that the type of airplane has no
bearing on whether the crash occurred. A slower airplane may well have
avoided the crash and thus your analysis above is irrelevant.


Matt

Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2006-10-13, Mike wrote:
The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.

How do you know the aircraft is irrelevant? Please post your source.

F=ma (force = mass x acceleration). Or in this case, deceleration.

A 100kg human in an ultralight travelling at 25 metres/sec hitting a
building and decelerating to zero in 0.5 sec (entirely plausable) will
experience a force of 100 * 50 newtons (5,000 newtons) in the initial
impact. Not to mention the bits of the building which are likely to
shatter and pierce the body. But a force of 5,000 newtons against a
human body is usually enough to kill. So it's pretty irrelevant whether
a plane is a slow one or a fast one like a Cirrus - slamming (to use
Lune's favorite word) into the side of a building is usually not going
to be survivable.


I was asking how the aircraft is unrelated to the accident, not how the
physics of the collision proves fatal for a particular set of conditions.

--
Mike

Dylan Smith writes:

The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.

But a Cessna 150 has no parachute to give inexperienced pilots the
impression that they are less likely to die in an accident.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Dylan Smith writes:

The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.

But a Cessna 150 has no parachute to give inexperienced pilots the
impression that they are less likely to die in an accident.

Or experienced ones. And, it's irrelevant.

moo

Dylan Smith wrote:

On 2006-10-13, Mxsmanic wrote:

Also, it seems like the aircraft is actively marketed to precisely
this type of buyer, which makes things even worse. It looks like Carl
Lidle fell for it (in more ways than one).


The type of aircraft he was in was utterly irrelevant. Smashing into a
building in a Cessna 150 is just as fatal as hitting a building in a
Cirrus, or a Learjet, or an ultralight.


It is completely relevant. A Cessna 150 could make the turn much
tighter than could a Cirrus. They may well have missed the building
easily had they been in a slower airplane.


Matt