In July, a Cirrus SR22 sitting on the ramp empty was stuck by lightning at KLYH, Lynchburg Virginia and the chute was deployed.
It would be “fun” if this happened in flight…
Triggered at the perfect time, it would be a great speedbrake for short field landing (as the ones used by some jet fighters).
Looks like he is understandbaly scratching his head. 
Wow, would that rip the airframe apart in flight? Surely not.
No, in the worst case the chute would rip off, but at cruise speeds this is not to be expected. There has been a successful chute deployment at 187 KIAS.
I would not be surprised if a future Cirrus generation comes with an improved wire mesh where the chute rocket is. This is not good and should not have happened.
Did this Cirrus have the old style or new style ignition?
Peter wrote:
It shouldn’t, but you never know.
The SR22 which crashed near the UK into the sea a few years ago had its chute deployed. Search for N147KA e.g. here.
There is good evidence the shoot was not deployed for this reason.
They never salvaged the N147KA wreckage so they can’t tell how it was activated.
The assumption lives on, until something unusual happens and evidence survives which disproves it..
achimha wrote:
Did this Cirrus have the old style or new style ignition?
It had the new style electronic ignition. But apparently, the plane wasn’t directly struck by lightning, there are no ingress or egress marks. But there were thunderstorms nearby.
