Cirrus BRS deployments - Alan Klapmeier's comments on NPR

"ArtP" wrote in message
...

Because of the high repetitive failure rate of the Cirrus vacuum
system, starting in sometime in 2002 all Cirrus planes were all
electric. As far as knowing what happened, we do have the pilot's
statement and without out proof to the contrary, I see no reason to
doubt it.

I thought this particular Cirrus had a vacuum system.. in any event, even
the all-electric Cirrus airplanes have a backup AI and the pilot was talking
to ATC so he did have electrical power remaining. It would thus seem that
an expedited ASR or PAR would have been an option.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...

I don't think that is ever the question. If the pilot in command thinks it
is, then it is. I can't believe you're suggesting the speech at the grave
containing the words "Ah, but he chose the correct option" - which, in
effect, you do.

Where DO you draw the line at pulling the parachute "just to be safe" ?

How about lost com with nav still operational?

How about moderate turbulence?

How about a door that pops open.

Surely you will agree that there is SOME point at which a pilot should be
able to handle a situation without resorting to a parachute. If you do not
agree, then that attitude will push insurance costs on a Cirrus to the point
that the airplane is no longer insurable. If you do agree, then the
question shifts not to "if the PIC thinks it is, then it is" but rather to a
discussion of what specific situations are appropriate to pull the chute and
what situations are not appropriate.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

If there is one thing that galls me it is so-called pilots who think that
every safety improvement is a bad thing.


What pilot posted that every safety improvement is a bad thing? I do not
recall any such post.

The fact is that all airplane modifications have benefits and disadvantages
that need to be weighed against one another. It is not clear yet that the
Cirrus is either safer or more dangerous than traditional steam-gauge,
non-parachute airplanes. There are reasonable arguments on both side.


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"John Galban" wrote in message
om...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
"EDR" wrote in message
...

I have to go out on the limb a little and say that I somewhat agree
with Lee.
I find the instruction in my area (and probably true for most of the
country) to be very lacking in basic aircraft handling.
The best indicator is to watch how a pilot handles the controls on the
ground. When taxiing, does the pilot hold the yoke full aft? When
taxiing around, does the pilot use the propper aileron input?

If that is your measure of good instruction, then you probably could use
some remedial instruction yourself. The elevator should be neutral or
down
when taxiing, depending on wind direction.


That's a little harsh, isn't it? Are you sure that the only
"correct" way to taxi is the method you stated above? When I read
Eric's post I assumed that he was probably based at a soft grass
strip, where taxiing with the yoke full aft is the best way to keep
your prop off the ground.

I assumed he was talking about whenever he saw somebody taxiing. If he meant
some special case he should have said so.

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 05:25:00 GMT, "Richard Kaplan"
wrote:


I thought this particular Cirrus had a vacuum system.. in any event, even
the all-electric Cirrus airplanes have a backup AI and the pilot was talking
to ATC so he did have electrical power remaining. It would thus seem that
an expedited ASR or PAR would have been an option.

That is assuming he had a working attitude instrument.

ArtP,

Because of the high repetitive failure rate of the Cirrus vacuum
system, starting in sometime in 2002 all Cirrus planes were all
electric.


Oh, come on! They went to all electric, because VACUUM SUCKS! t is
stone age technology. Lancair did the same. Yes, we know by now you
didn't like your Cirrus.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Richard,

but rather to a
discussion of what specific situations are appropriate to pull the chute and
what situations are not appropriate.


Yep. IF we can agree that to have the chute as an option is a good thing. THEN
we can start discussing when to pull it. And that will vary from pilot to
pilot. And as for the two accidents - we don't know enough about them to judge
it.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Unfortunately, you are buying into exactly the reasons for the Cirrus' poor
history.

First, the chute is not an option, it is a necessity. When the airplane
reaches a particular state or meets a certain set of parameters, your only
possible course of action is to deploy the BRS. When you reach a particular
state, if you are in an Archer or a 172, you can recover. But if you are in
a Cirrus, you absolutely must deploy the BRS; there is no recovery.

Second, you made the statement: "THEN we can start discussing when to pull
it (the chute)." Unfortunately, it is not a matter that can be discussed.
Again, when the airplane reaches a particular state or meets a certain set
of parameters, your only possible course of action is to deploy the BRS.
There is no room for discussion.

Now let me give you an example that is in no way indicative of the operation
of the Cirrus. You go out to fly a new airplane. On the panel is a placard
reading: "Nose-up angles greater than 30 degrees will render this aircraft
uncontrollable and control cannot be regained. The BRS must be deployed
immediately or it will not be effective". So, you're flying along and exceed
a 30 degree nose-up attitude, and you get a warning horn. A panel scan tells
you that you have exceeded the allowed angle. So what do you do?

Unfortunately, at least half of the pilots will say: "This is bull****! I
can recover from a 30 degree nose up attitude! So they try to recover,
discover that the placard was correct, and deploy the BRS. And they find out
the placard is correct again; they have deployed the BRS too late for it to
be effective, and they end up breaking the airplane.

There's really not a problem with the Cirrus, the problem is with pilots who
either didn't educate themselves about the airplane, or who think they know
more than the people who designed and built the plane.



"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Richard,

but rather to a
discussion of what specific situations are appropriate to pull the chute
and
what situations are not appropriate.


Yep. IF we can agree that to have the chute as an option is a good thing.
THEN
we can start discussing when to pull it. And that will vary from pilot to
pilot. And as for the two accidents - we don't know enough about them to
judge
it.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Does anyone know what kind of training Cirrus pilots get in terms of
when to use the parachute? I'm curious to know how it would compare to
the training military pilots get for using an ejection seat (which I'm
only slightly familiar with). Does either training syllabus deal with
gray areas, or do they both stick to something along the lines of "The
parachute/ejection seat shall be used under the following
circumstances..."

I would think that there is a fairly big psychological hurdle to
overcome for using the parachute or an ejection seat since you are
effectively saying there's nothing more I can do, time to leave it up
to fate. I'm guessing that the military tailors its training to
overcome this hurdle, whereas a company like Cirrus has to avoid
addressing gray areas for liability reasons. But that's just a guess.

(Rick Durden) wrote
It's interesting to read of your anti-safety perspective...

It's interesting how safety has become the new unquestionable watch
word - and how you don't dare be identified as anti-safety. I guess
it's the new political correctness of aviation. Safety above all.

So let's start with this - GA is not about safety above all. GA does
not and never will have the safety record of the airlines - we simply
do not have the equipment, training, experience, or operational
limitations of the airlines. If safety was the most important thing,
we would all ground those dangerous little airplanes and fly the
airlines. So now that we've debunked the safety-above-all-else
nonsense, let's move on.

If you go
back into aviation history writings, much of what you said is straight
out of the arguments of those in the Army and Navy aviation wings that
were against giving pilots parachutes in the late 19 teens and early
'20s. By gawd, that pilot is taught to bring the airplane back, not
jump out of it (same argument initially against giving pilots flying
the mail parachutes).

That's an awfully one-sided and very incomplete view of the past.
Let's fill in some parts you left out. A pilot jumping from an
airplane in those years had essentially two options - a static
line/lanyard that secured the parachute to the airplane, and a
manually deployed (freefall) jump. Both had major problems.

A static line jump from an uncontrolled airplane is unthinkable today,
and this is in the era of airplanes that are dramatically more stable
in hands-off flight than the planes of yesteryear. In fact, today the
minimum crew on board an airplane used for static line jumps is two -
a pilot to control the airplane, and a jumpmaster to control the
static line.

Freefall jumps had their own problems. The techniques that we take
for granted today for controlling the body in freefall were unknown.
Body position on deployment was largely random, and parachutes of the
time lacked such features as freebags to mitigate the consequences of
this.

A parachute jump was quite a hazardous undertaking when necessary to
escape an airplane and performed by an inexperienced jumper. There
was much debate at the time whether the parachute actually made the
pilot safer or merely gave him a false sense of security and
encouraged him to abandon a controllable aircraft when the safer
course was to stay with it.

I know of at least one case in modern times when a pilot elected to
leave an airplane in flight after judging it safer to jump. The plane
eventually landed itself in a field - nearly running over some
children - and was repaired and flown out. The pilot's parachute
malfunctioned and he fell to his death.

(Don't forget that Lindbergh jumped from his
mail plane three times during his air mail career...thank goodness.)

Don't forget that Lindbergh started his aviation career as a
demonstration jumper, and had made many jumps before he ever soloed an
airplane. He was in rather a different risk pool than most other
pilots.

Now technology has progressed to the point that we can have a
whole-airplane parachute. Of course, it brings out the boneheads who
are critical of those who live because they got to the point that they
decided that they could not successfully continue the flight.

Actually, the criticism that comes up is that the airplane was
controllable and should have been landed. No small part of the
criticism also has to do with risk to innocent bystanders on the
ground, since the technology we have available does not allow the
pilot any control whatsoever over the parachute. I find this
interesting, since in the sport parachute world the non-steerable
emergency parachute has faded into history.

As a personal anecdote, I have once had occasion to use a
non-steerable emergency parachute after my main parachute partially
malfunctioned. I walked away from the experience, but in retrospect,
had I known then what I know now, I would have elected to keep the
partially malfunctioned but inherently steerable main parachute as the
better, safer option - and this was an emergency parachute with a
proven record of correctly deploying and saving lives consistently,
not the spotty record the Cirrus parachute has.

Don't forget there is one Cirrus accident in which the aircraft spun
in. It had two pilots aboard and apparently neither activated the
chute. (It appears the rocket cooked off in the post crash fire and
deployed the chute.)

This is only your conjecture. An equally viable conjecture is that an
attempt was made to activate the chute, and the system malfunctioned.
Given that we KNOW this happened in at least one other circumstance, I
say that my conjecture is at least as good as yours.

This brings up an interesting point. First off, in the one case where
we KNOW the pilot tried to use the chute and it failed, the pilot
landed the airplane. Had the chute worked, I'm sure you would now be
claiming that no second-guessing of the pilot's decision to use the
chute is acceptable - but in fact the plane was clearly controllable,
not by some hypothetical proficient pilot but by the very pilot who
made the decision to deploy the chute. Second, the system failed at
least once and maybe twice, and has worked as advertised only three
times. Those are not the kind of numbers that give me confidence in
the system. I consider it not ready for prime time. In sport
parachuting, an emergency parachute with this kind of history would be
going back for a lot more testing on nobody would buy it.

When I teach aerobatics I tell my students that if
the airplane is doing something you don't recognize and you cannot
make it do something you do recognize by the time you get down to the
altitude selected prior to flight, quit screwing around and jump out.

Fair enough - but what would your reaction be to a student who jumped
out thousands of feet above that defined altitude while in a
conventional upright spin? Even discounting the cost of the aircraft
(not insignificant) and the potential hazard to those on the ground,
you do realize that parachutes are not perfect, and the typical
emergency parachutes used for soaring and aerobatics by those with no
parachuting experience are a far sight from perfect?

In sport parachuting, where the use of the emergency parachute is at
least somewhat routine (the numbers I hear are between 1 in 300 and 1
in 600 jumps, but of course nobody has reliable records) there are
generally accepted criteria (with some variations) as to what
constitutes sufficient cause to jettison the main parachute and deploy
the emergency. These criteria are not the province of the highly
experienced jumper - they are part of the first jump course! And they
are not "get rid of anything less than a perfect parachute."

At some point, it will be necessary to define what constitutes an
emergency that justifies deploying the chute. I think the reason this
issue is coming up now is worth considering as well. Airframe
parachutes have been available for ultralights and very light aircraft
for many years, and have saved many lives, generally as a response to
structural failure. There is really no question that some of those
structural failures were the result of pilot error - performing
maneuvers beyond the skill of the pilot and/or the capability of the
aircraft. Nobody (AFAIK) questions the decision those pilots made to
use the parachute rather than die like a man, though of course what
they did to get themselves into that situation is (and should be)
questioned.

Only a few of the ultralight/light aircraft parachute deployments fall
into what I would call the "questionable" category - where it appears
that the pilot unnecessarily deployed the parachute when the aircraft
was still controllable and landable. Not saying it NEVER happens, but
it's not the norm. For that reason, airframe parachutes on
ultralights and very light aircraft are not controversial by any
means. Neither are personal parachutes in gliders and aerobatic
aircraft or emergency backup parachutes for skydivers controversial.

What makes the Cirrus special is that ALL the parachute deployments
seem to be questionable. That, coupled with the off-the-charts loss
rate of an aircraft supposedly designed for safety, means that
questions should be asked. Is there something wrong with the
aircraft? Does it attract the wrong kind of pilot?

Anti-lock brakes on cars were at first seen as a clear safety
advantage. In a move to encourage their use, insurance companies
would give discounted rates to those who purchased the feature. This
is no longer the case. Statistics conclusively show that ABS does not
reduce accident rates. The why and wherefore is open to debate, but
generally the assumption is that having the safety feature encourages
more agressive driving, and the net increase in safety is nil. Not
every apparrent safety improvement winds up improving safety - some
add cost, weight, and complexity and turn out to have no benefit. You
should at least be prepared to consider the possibility that CAPS
falls into that category on the Cirrus, despite the fact that it's a
proven benefit on ultralights and some very light aircraft.

I find it highly counterproductive than when someone starts asking the
hard questions, he is immediately labeled as anti-safety. I think
these questions need to be asked.

Michael