LeSving wrote:
Cirrus appear to have made a religion out of it.
The results show that they may well have a point.
Fact is that the huge majority of events of a CAPS deployment resulted in those involved surviving the accident. Yes, there were pulls below 1000 ft which ended fatal and there were events when the shute departed the airplane at too high speed. However, the usual result was that people survived.
However, in the beginning, people did not pull enough. Consequently, there were quite a few fatal accidents involving Cirrus airplanes which to 100% would have resulted in a hull loss but survivable for those on board, had CAPS been pulled. One of those happened right in front of our observation post at ZRH where 4 people died due to a pilot loosing the plot after loosing a generator. He lost orientation, lost situational awareness and then started to maneuver low and slow and crashed into the approach lights of runway 14 while overbanking and stalling. He could have easily pulled his CAPS during the approach where he went in and out of IMC and got lost and even later. I recall other accidents in IMC as well, where people tried to fly to the airport rather than admit defeat and pull, one being a Polish SR22 which crashed at Katowitze at CAT III conditions while trying to land from a VFR flight.
True, the reason why CAPS gets deployed often results from massive pilots mistakes. But so do a lot of other accidents, which don’t have that option. CAPS deployment definitly has saved a lot of people who might well have died as a result of the situation they were in.
The answer to why survivability is so high depends on several factors. Injuries and death have a lot to do with the deceleration forces an accident produces and the eventual break up of the airplane. With CAPS impact is pretty much a known survivable quantity, as the aircraft comes down at a given vertical rate which is cushioned by the landing gear and very few forward speed, depending on wind. In any rate, forward speed will be massively smaller in most cases than in a conventional emergency landing.
In water, airplanes with fixed gear have a tendency to flip over if landed normally, also deceleration is considerable. A water landing under the shute does away with most of the lateral deceleration, the risk being the plane being flipped over by the shute itself. However, the initial impact will be with considerably less forward speed and therefore less deceleration, also the flip would be much less violent as it would happen once the plane has already touched down.
Even in mountains and forests, CAPS so far has done pretty well.
I know serveral Cirrus drivers in my immediate circle, all of them state the same thing (and no, they are not fanboys but rather experienced airline pilots who fly other GA planes as well). The shute makes the difference in
- IMC to the ground or low altitude as in case of engine failure you have a good chance of survival while conventional emergency landings are very hazardous.
- Night as while you may well come down on some obstacles, it again happens much less violently than trying to deadstick into a dark hole on the ground which you have no idea what it is.
- In case of collision or airframe break up.
So basically concerning survivability of an engine failure, CAPS pretty often replaces the 2nd engine. While a twin most of the time will land and there will be no accident at all, CAPS will in most cases save people’s life but ruin the airplane. Airplanes can be replaced, while people can not.
Obviously i fly something else and don’t have the luxury of a BRS if things go sour. I compensate that mostly for avoiding conditions where I’d need it. But I can very much see the point of having CAPS or a similar system.
Nicely articulated.
I will never get my head around anyone who is negative about BRS. But then I can’t my head around 99% of the human race.
Oh, and yes, I would absolutely pull it. Unless I’m landing on a runway and I have it all going for me, the big red handle gets a workout
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The results show that they may well have a point.
That wasn’t what I meant. According to BRS, the manufacturer of the Cirrus version, CAPS, they have “saved” 480 lives. Only 240 of those “lives” were in a Cirrus, the rest a whole bunch of other aircraft, ULs mostly. Galaxy GRS, the producer of chutes for Pipistrel among others, have saved 127 “lives”. And there are several other producers.
Cirrus cannot account for more than max 1/3 of the “lives” saved, but they sure do make a whole lot of fuzz about it. This is a bit odd. All the others have a much more down to earth approach. The chute is there, in case you need it for some reason. Those reasons are all sudden and unsolvable happenings that will result in certain death, more or less, without that chute.
The approach from Cirrus, is it is a hallelujah Jesus like miracle invention. You don’t have to be a genius to see that they squeeze every little drop of PR out of it. BRS has certified versions also for C-172 and C-182, but have anyone seen a C-172 with a chute? Does anyone flying a Cessna feel any need for a chute? I guess not 
Why is that?
I’m all for a chute. It’s a technology that will save your ass when you cannot. But it’s not magic, and it’s not religion, and it’s 90% psychology.
Pig wrote:
I will never get my head around anyone who is negative about BRS. But then I can’t my head around 99% of the human race.
You’d love some of the characters on another particular UK GA forum; one of them is so vehemently against BRS, he calls the red Cirrus CAPS lever: ’the chicken lever". Interestingwas, when a pilot bailed out of his stricken Extra, leaving it to crash into some newly built houses (fortunately empty at the time), this same was commending the pilot for his decision to bail out yet when another Cirrus pilot lost his propeller, he immediately demanded from the pilot to know why said Cirrus pilot had pulled caps…..
the fact that the plane had lost a good 18 odd kilos from the front of plane leading it to have a CG to the rear and effectively being in test pilot regime was considered irrelevant, with the statement being made that SkyGods crash and burn in their planes and only chickens in Cirri let it crash down onto unsuspecting non aviators….
When he was made aware about his duplicity of his comments with regards the pilot of the Extra bailing out, leaving his stricken plane to its own devices, he conveniently refused to provide any responses. Unfortunately, certain people have an innate disagreement with BRS and you won’t get through to them with facts…..
LeSving wrote:
BRS has certified versions also for C-172 and C-182, but have anyone seen a C-172 with a chute? Does anyone flying a Cessna feel any need for a chute? I guess not Why is that?I’m all for a chute. It’s a technology that will save your ass when you cannot. But it’s not magic, and it’s not religion, and it’s 90% psychology.
Weight and balance play a big part. Let’s say you have a C172S with 380kg useful load, the chute will take 50kg of that and then the space. Would you do that? Or accept the loss of utility?
We’ve done this before (of course) but the Cirrus US claim of x lives saved directly implies that a Cirrus pilot cannot ever carry out a forced landing without killing everybody in the plane.
If I was flying a Cirrus I would not be too happy about that suggestion 
But they know how to do marketing to their audience…
Steve6443 wrote:
Weight and balance play a big part. Let’s say you have a C172S with 380kg useful load, the chute will take 50kg of that and then the space. Would you do that? Or accept the loss of utility?
According to Cirrus logic you are jeopardizing the lives of 3-4 persons for 50 kg of luggage Why would a responsible adult male do such a thing to his family?
Or they made a choice. I’m not sure there is a true distinction to be made on audience – every aircraft has its acolytes. It’s just that Cirrus is the best selling GA airframe on the planet; it would be hard to argue there’s not a good reason for this, and it’s obviously not price.
I love my newly renamed chicken lever.
directly implies that a Cirrus pilot cannot ever carry out a forced landing without killing everybody in the plane.
IMO that’s not implied at all. Rather the message is
“better be safe than sorry” using a superior solution in the form of BRS.
Plenty of deadstick landings end fatally. Just because there is no BRS installed doesn’t result in automatically higher deadstick landing skills, and vice versa. It is very much luck. Terrain, timing etc…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McSpadden
