Cirrus down.. all is good.

Seggy said:
Interesting article that helps support block30 theory moreso...

http://www.avweb.com/blogs/insider/AVWebInsider_CirrusSafety_206016-1.html

My question for the Cirrus drivers on here is how much instruction are you given with each airplane from the factory? Also what are usual insurance requirements?

Mine was about 5 hours ground and just over 10 in the plane. It was by the CSIP instructor. I was over 10 as i wanted true IFR so we had to go south for it as it didn't have ice protection. I was over 250 TT so that was all needed for insurance. At that time I had no glass time. Funny was same insurance for a 182 G1000 was fly the MEM and pick it up. No insurance training needed. I only has 17 hours 182 at the time. I trip to MS.

I opted for annual CSIP training (3-5hrs) usually after I got the plane back from annual. Not a requirement, just something I did.
 

Excellent article.

Something not addressed in the article is the evolution of training and pilot attitudes over the years. One must remember the SR22 has only been in production for 12 years. That's not very long in the whole scheme of things. Consequently, I think the pilots who bought in early oftentimes came in to the cockpit with an "I'm not gonna pull the chute unless a wing falls off," attitude. They were too hesitant to deploy because they had an old school mentality. There was also more of a stigma among pilots, which thankfully is fading away, that someone is somehow a lesser pilot if they pull the big red handle. Nobody had ever flown with an airframe parachute before and they didn't know what to make of it. I read an account from one Cirrus pilot who successfully made a dead stick landing and literally forgot he even *had* a parachute on the plane until after getting on the ground.

To make matters worse, average instructors did not know the quirks of the plane or how to teach effectively in the plane. Remember, this was a clean sheet design and doesn't quite match up with the performance characteristics of Bonanzas, Mooneys, and so on. One of the fatal accidents was a stall/spin in the traffic patten by a pilot undergoing a flight review from an instructor with little to no time in Cirrus aircraft. Thankfully the pool of experienced Cirrus instructors has steadily increased over time and pilots now have more access to instructors who can give better transition and recurrent training.

Additionally, the Cirrus factory training department did not emphasize the chute the same way in the early years as they do today. It's always been an important part of training, but I'm pretty sure they've become more and more liberal with deployment scenarios over time. It's now to the point where they basically say, if you're not going to be landing on a runway, deploy the chute. There has been a big push to get pilots deploying the system under a broader range of scenarios. I completely agree with this philosophy.

As a result of these shifts, I think we'll see significantly better statistics in the next ten years compared to the previous ten years.

I don't think it's unlike the early jet age. There was a spike in accidents in what should have been, and ultimately proved to be, safer airplanes. It took time for pilot attitudes and training departments to catch up.

My question for the Cirrus drivers on here is how much instruction are you given with each airplane from the factory? Also what are usual insurance requirements?

I was given one full day of ground training, a little over an hour in their sim (extremely realistic, BTW), and about 3 hours of flying to become a CSIP. I already had about 100 hours in SR22s, and 1000+ in G1000 cockpits, so most of the training was in depth systems knowledge, how to teach emergency/abnormal scenarios, and general standardization training, like what airspeeds and power settings they recommend for various situations.

Insurance requirements vary greatly based on the pilot and underwriters.
 
Anyone know why the flap appears to be dangling from the right wing?

My guess is because it hit the ground with a great enough vertical speed to break the rod between the flap and the actuator. The hinges held...so the flap dangled. That's my guess...worth what you paid to read it

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Anyone know why the flap appears to be dangling from the right wing?

I was at the airport today, shootin' the breeze with another Cirrus owner. We got to talking about this incident. Apparently, the pilot was turning base to final and lowered the flap and there was some sort of mechanical malfunction (something did not get put back together WRT circuitry) - which caused the right flap to do what it did - that caused the pilot to lose control and come crashing down. He pulled the chute and walked away....
 
I was at the airport today, shootin' the breeze with another Cirrus owner. We got to talking about this incident. Apparently, the pilot was turning base to final and lowered the flap and there was some sort of mechanical malfunction (something did not get put back together WRT circuitry) - which caused the right flap to do what it did - that caused the pilot to lose control and come crashing down. He pulled the chute and walked away....
Yipe! That's only a little frightening.
 
All is good? Well, all is better, anyway. How many of those damned things does that leave?

Yup, all is good. The man walked away with his life. Better too - when compared to the other private pilot a few miles up the road, who flew his 150 into IMC and got himself killed.
 
Yipe! That's only a little frightening.

While on pattern downwind to AXN, the pilot reported a loud noise during flap extension, followed by a roll of the airplane to the right. The pilot countered this roll with aileron inputs and initiated a climb. He then attempted to reduce the airplane’s rolling tendency by adjusting flap position. As his control of the airplane worsened, the pilot pulled the ballistic recovery system handle. The parachute deployed and the airplane descended onto a frozen lake.

During initial examination, the right flap rod end was found disconnected from the right flap actuation fitting. The right flap rod end mounting bolt and washer were found laying on the snow under the airplane. No safety wire was noted on the mounting bolt or on the right flap actuation fitting.

^ Above from NTSB - http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20130329X73643&key=1
 
What would people's mentality be if pulling the chute was guaranteed NOT to total the aircraft?

I personally feel like that is the main deal breaker for a lot of people say they wouldn't pull the chute unless the plane was already going to be totalled or some other extreme situation besides just gliding over a seemingly suitable landing area.
 
What would people's mentality be if pulling the chute was guaranteed NOT to total the aircraft?

I personally feel like that is the main deal breaker for a lot of people say they wouldn't pull the chute unless the plane was already going to be totalled or some other extreme situation besides just gliding over a seemingly suitable landing area.

I don't know. But if I ever encounter a pilot with this mentality, I reiterate this is why we pay our insurance premiums. Who cares if the plane is totaled? It doesn't matter. As soon as something goes wrong, the insurance company just bought the plane, now it's the pilot's job to live to cash the check. Thinking about money has no place in an emergency situation.

As a side note, some insurance underwriters have begun cutting the deductible to $0 in the event of a CAPS deployment, simply to encourage pilots to use the system. It's a lot cheaper to pay for a crashed airplane than a dead person.
 
As a side note, some insurance underwriters have begun cutting the deductible to $0 in the event of a CAPS deployment, simply to encourage pilots to use the system. It's a lot cheaper to pay for a crashed airplane than a dead person.

I'm going to have to ask my insurance agent that one!
 
What would people's mentality be if pulling the chute was guaranteed NOT to total the aircraft?

I personally feel like that is the main deal breaker for a lot of people say they wouldn't pull the chute unless the plane was already going to be totalled or some other extreme situation besides just gliding over a seemingly suitable landing area.

My reluctance to pull the chute has nothing to do with insurance. It's about giving up control of the airplane and becoming a passenger.

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