Iced up Cirrus crashes

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
Richard Collins wrote about this type of things 10 years ago. He looked
at why us Mooney owners pay more in insurance than Arrow pilots and why
Mooneys have more wx accidents. His opinion was that the Mooney was
made to be a traveling machine, just like the Cirrus. When you have a
fast traveling machine you go places. When you go places you encounter
more weather. 172's don't encouter as many wx related accidents because
if your mission is to cross the Sierras 10 times per year, you don't
buy a 172.
Perhaps the Cirrus appeals to less experienced pilots as well.

I wonder if new(er) pilots see it as a fixed gear single and automatically
equate it to a 172 or a 182 at most. The analogy is only remotely linked.

Just wondering.


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

Matt Barrow wrote:
(( snip ))


Think of it as analogous to the people that buy a 4WD / SUV then go
racing
down an icy road and end up in a ditch.


--
Matt

i like that analogy. i'm sorta suprised noone has gotten on the cirrus
guys' comment that they have a really excellent icing system...the
saying it's only good for an hour or so to find somewhere to land.
huh?? do you suspect they might phrase that a little different in the
sales talk?? i would be interested in knowing how many times that pilot
had made that trip in those "approximate" conditions, relied on that
"excellent" icing system and did just fine.

baron driver i know suggested his excellent icing system was very
valuable in that it gave you something to fiddle with while killing
time waiting for the impact.

dan

I'm not convinced there is anything wrong with the aircraft per se.

Having flown one, I am absolutely convinced there is nothing wrong with
it - assuming you have the right pilot in the seat. Actually, I rather
like the aircraft. It's roomy and comfortable, the visibility is
excellent, the panel (meaning the new glass panel) spectacular in both
functionality and redundancy, and the side-yoke is a damn good idea. I
find it slightly less demanding to fly in IMC than a V-tail Bonanza,
but the difference comes entirely from improved
ergonomics/instrumentation. The airframe itself, despite being fixed
gear, is just as slippery and pitch-sensitive as a Bonanza with the
gear up, and maybe more so. On top of that, you can't slow down by
dropping the gear.

I've often said that an Arrow is not really a complex airplane - it's
just a Cherokee with a couple of extra levers. The same principle
applies to the Cirrus - it's not really a simple airplane, it's a
Bonanza with a couple of levers missing. Further, adding the parachute
makes the decisionmaking AND the flying of the emergency procedure more
complex AND more demanding than in a Bonanza - it's part of the way to
being a light twin. Here we have an accident where the pilot didn't
keep his airspeed under control - and so of course the parachute did
him no good. Conceptually, that's no different than a twin accident
where the pilot fails to control airspeed in the single engine
configuration.

their marketing is still touting the product as providing quantum
improvements in safety, which it manifestly does not.

Actually, I suspect it does provide some improvement. I suspect that
if the same pilots with the same level of training were flying around
in traditional heavy singles and light twins, the carnage would be
worse. But the Cirrus business plan has always been to dramatically
increase the number of pilots who fly for transportation, not simply
take market share away from Beech or Mooney. I didn't think it was
viable then, and I don't think it's viable now.

Is Cirrus is selling a disproportionate number of airplanes to
inexperienced pilots?

That's certainly the impression I'm getting - the pilots either have
low total time or low time in a similar class of airplane (and by
similar class of airplane, I mean Bonanza, Viking, late model Mooney,
etc.). I'm not seeing any accidents in the Cirrus being caused by
pilots with hundreds of hours in a Bonanza or a Viking.

It's not that a low time pilot CAN'T safely fly one. With the right
instruction and the right attitude, it's very doable. However, the
typical buyer of a Cirrus (near as I can tell) is a self-made man in
late middle age. He is very likely to be a business owner (as this one
was). Such people generally didn't get to where they are today by
listening to all the people telling them what they couldn't do. Such
people are also not going to hang around the airport absorbing
knowledge. They're not going to meet the kind of instructor who can
really teach them to get utility from that airplane without becoming
statistics, and they're not going to rearrange their schedules and put
up with his quirks to fly with him. And so we're goign to keep seeing
accidents like this.

Michael

Michael 182 wrote:
"... is there any difference between how composites react to icing
versus aluminum?

Michael

Michael, I am training in a Diamond DA-20 C1, incidentally, the only
composite airplane on my flight schools ramp. I am flying in upstate
SC. This morning, at 8:15 the top surfaces of the wings on the C1 were
iced significantly, as was the nose and fuselage (tail boom). Outside
air temp was 41*F/Overnight low was 40*F. Plane is tied-down, morning
sun was directly on wing surfaces, no intervening shadows. My lesson
was delayed, of course.

Curious, I checked the other planes on the ramp-all of which are
aluminum. NONE had icing on any surface. Through a very unscientific
"hand touch" test I determined the composite surfaces "felt" much
colder than the aluminum surfaces.

I would be very interested in learning more about the heat/cold
transfer dynamics of aluminum versus composites. Pure speculatin'
though, I would bet from my limited experience that the composite will
ice faster or retain ice longer than similarly exposed aluminum. But,
there's always someone who knows more about it than me-so maybe they
will chime in.

Pete

Dan Luke wrote:

To be fair, one must consider that this snazzy new design may be
attracting a lot of new flyers. Is Cirrus is selling a disproportionate
number of airplanes to inexperienced pilots?

That doesn't appear to be the case. The latest AOPA Pilot "Safetypilot" article
reported comparison studies of so-called "Technologically Advanced Aircraft."
These are aircraft with at least a GPS navigator, a multifunction display, and
an autopilot. Cirrus made 1,171 of these during the study period. Eight of them
had crashed by press time. The other manufacturer made 1,003 of the other
aircraft during that period. Eight of them had crashed by press time.

The other aircraft? The Cessna 182.

The only issue seems to be that every Cirrus crash gets an inordinate amount of
attention in these groups.

George Patterson
He who would distinguish what is true from what is false must have an
adequate understanding of truth and falsehood.

greenwavepilot wrote:

Pure speculatin'
though, I would bet from my limited experience that the composite will
ice faster or retain ice longer than similarly exposed aluminum.

I would bet that the composite will ice more slowly and retain the ice longer.
It will lose or gain heat more slowly than aluminum.

George Patterson
He who would distinguish what is true from what is false must have an
adequate understanding of truth and falsehood.

George,

What is their definition of "crash"? Maybe a lot of the 182 "crashes" have
been
hard landings and such, versus a lot of these Cirrus crashes that seem to be
more along the enroute phase and are fatal?

Pete


"George Patterson" wrote in message
...


Dan Luke wrote:

To be fair, one must consider that this snazzy new design may be
attracting a lot of new flyers. Is Cirrus is selling a disproportionate
number of airplanes to inexperienced pilots?

That doesn't appear to be the case. The latest AOPA Pilot "Safetypilot"
article
reported comparison studies of so-called "Technologically Advanced
Aircraft."
These are aircraft with at least a GPS navigator, a multifunction display,
and
an autopilot. Cirrus made 1,171 of these during the study period. Eight of
them
had crashed by press time. The other manufacturer made 1,003 of the other
aircraft during that period. Eight of them had crashed by press time.

The other aircraft? The Cessna 182.

The only issue seems to be that every Cirrus crash gets an inordinate
amount of
attention in these groups.

George Patterson
He who would distinguish what is true from what is false must have an
adequate understanding of truth and falsehood.

"houstondan" wrote in message
oups.com...

i like that analogy. i'm sorta suprised noone has gotten on the cirrus
guys' comment that they have a really excellent icing system...the
saying it's only good for an hour or so to find somewhere to land.
huh?? do you suspect they might phrase that a little different in the
sales talk?? i would be interested in knowing how many times that pilot
had made that trip in those "approximate" conditions, relied on that
"excellent" icing system and did just fine.


Night, mountains, ice, inexperienced pilot? Could be just simple task
saturation followed by panic followed by disorientation with 'chute
deployment too late to make a difference. It's awful soon to speculate the
deicing system is bum.

-cwk.

George, I did some research and found the following thermal
conductivity values (Note these figures are for a standard temperature
of 25*C):

Aluminum,
Pure=237 watts/meter*Kelvin

Fiberglass,
Paper Faced=.046 watts/meter*Kelvin

So, what I should have inferred from my non-aviation experience with
these materials is confirmed by the above thermal conductivity values.
That is, aluminum is a good heat conductor-it can either gain or lose
heat very quickly. Fiberglass on the other hand is a good insulator.
It does not lose or gain heat very rapidly. Thus once "set" at a
temperature, it will tend to remain there longer than aluminum.

Therefore I would agree that versus fiberglass the aluminum surfaces
will cool to icing temperatures faster, and conversely will heat to
non-icing temperatures faster. The composite will cool more slowly,
but once cooled, will retain that temperature much longer, meaning like
I discovered this morning, my composite plane will/may be iced when the
Cessnas, Pipers and Mooneys won't.

During the preflight "Hand Checking Of All Surfaces" has added meaning
for a composite driver.

Pete

greenwavepilot wrote:

The composite will cool more slowly,
but once cooled, will retain that temperature much longer,

If you fly high and descend fast on a reasonably humid day, you'll see
condensation on the wings after the flight.

Stefan