Another Cirrus BRS deployment:

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

Are these things finally starting to pay off?

Well, perhaps they are paying off with no injuries, but keep in mind that
hull insurance is much more expensive than liability insurance and keep in
mind that chute deployments seem to virtually assure totalled Cirrus
airframes.

What volume of chute deployments will turn the Cirrus into the safest GA
airplane but ironically economically non-viable to insure?


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

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote:
What volume of chute deployments will turn the Cirrus into
the safest GA airplane but ironically economically
non-viable to insure?

That depends on how many pilots get trigger happy about pulling the
'chute in otherwise recoverable situations. If the sum of 'chute and
non-'chute accidents produces a total loss rate higher than for similar
aircraft, that would certainly cause high insurance rates.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)

That depends on how many pilots get trigger happy about pulling the
'chute in otherwise recoverable situations.

This will certainly happen. (And in fact would probably be the right
decision: why risk a dead-stick landing in a field that may be full of
rocks or gopher holes or worse, when you can float down instead?)

The criminal justice system has found that "electronic handcuffs",
which confine an individual to house arrest, and which were supposed
to cut down on the prison population, did no such thing. Instead,
judges began sentencing folks to house arrest instead of putting them
on probation.

That's the problem with softer alternatives: they're apt to increase
the wrong side of the equation. In this case, increasing cracked-up
planes rather than decreasing fatal crashes.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...
What volume of chute deployments will turn the Cirrus into the safest GA
airplane but ironically economically non-viable to insure?

As Dan says, it depends on the nature of why the BRS is deployed. However,
the system is sold as a "the airframe is already a total loss anyway"
recovery item, so one would hope that a pilot would NOT use it when the
airframe wouldn't have been a total loss. Generally, when the BRS is
deployed, the net loss to an insurance company should be LESS, not more,
than it otherwise would have been, even with a destroyed airframe (since
there will be recoverable parts of the airframe, engine, and avionics, to
offset the payout).

Add to that the savings in medical expenses or death liability, and I can't
imagine that having a BRS installed would ever wind up creating an airplane
that's not a viable insurance risk.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

airframe wouldn't have been a total loss. Generally, when the BRS is
deployed, the net loss to an insurance company should be LESS, not more,

It depends how it is deployed. Suppose a Cirrus pilot panicks in VFR on top
of an overcast an pulls the chute when he could have done a successful ASR
approach or VFR weather were within range?

Add to that the savings in medical expenses or death liability, and I
can't
imagine that having a BRS installed would ever wind up creating an
airplane
that's not a viable insurance risk.

Hull insurance is more expensive than liability insurance for a Cirrus (and
just about all airplanes worth $150K+), so I do not think the medical
expenses or death liability are much of a factor.

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

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...
It depends how it is deployed. Suppose a Cirrus pilot panicks in VFR on
top
of an overcast an pulls the chute when he could have done a successful ASR
approach or VFR weather were within range?

What's that got to do with anything? Until you demonstrate that a
significant number of deployments will fall into that category, it's
irrelevant. A simple possibility is insufficient.

Furthermore, your example is pretty odd too. A pilot who is qualified to
fly an ASR approach is unlikely to use the parachute, and one who is
unqualified to is better off using the parachute. Similarly, if VFR weather
is within range, and the pilot knows about it, I can't imagine he'd use the
parachute; conversely, if he doesn't know about it, it doesn't matter WHERE
the VFR weather is.

The presence or absence of a parachute is completely irrelevant to your
examples, even if one acknowledges a pilot might use the BRS in a situation
where damage to the airframe could have been avoided.

Hull insurance is more expensive than liability insurance for a Cirrus
(and
just about all airplanes worth $150K+), so I do not think the medical
expenses or death liability are much of a factor.

Again, you are ignoring statistics, and looking only at single incidents.
The reason that liability insurance is less expensive is not that the
payouts are smaller. It's that they are less frequent. More importantly,
the BRS is likely to only be used when medical or death payouts are nearly
guaranteed, and in those situations, I assure the insurance company would
rather pay for the airframe.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

Furthermore, your example is pretty odd too. A pilot who is qualified to
fly an ASR approach is unlikely to use the parachute, and one who is
unqualified to is better off using the parachute. Similarly, if VFR
weather
is within range, and the pilot knows about it, I can't imagine he'd use
the
parachute; conversely, if he doesn't know about it, it doesn't matter
WHERE
the VFR weather is.

I think we probably agree on when the parachute SHOULD be used. It is
indeed unknown if that is when it WILL generally be used in practice. It is
possible -- though by no means a fact -- that the Cirrus could attract a
certain demographic of pilot experience and mission profile which will lead
to "false" deployments of the chute in a situation which could be handled
conventionally.

It will be interesting to see the details as information on these accidents
become clear. Purely on a statistical basis, the odds seem likely to me
that 2 airplanes out of a fleet of 1,000 could develop unsolvable doomsday
scenarios requiring chute deployment on the same weekend -- but I cannot say
there is any real basis to that than gut feeling. We need to wait for the
details.

payouts are smaller. It's that they are less frequent. More importantly,
the BRS is likely to only be used when medical or death payouts are nearly
guaranteed, and in those situations, I assure the insurance company would
rather pay for the airframe.

You are correct that the parachute SHOULD only be used in those situations;
whether that turns out to be so in practice is unknown at present.


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

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" writes:

I think we probably agree on when the parachute SHOULD be used. It is
indeed unknown if that is when it WILL generally be used in practice. It is
possible -- though by no means a fact -- that the Cirrus could attract a
certain demographic of pilot experience and mission profile which will lead
to "false" deployments of the chute in a situation which could be handled
conventionally.

As far as we can tell, this has not been the case thusfar. With 1000+
planes in the air and several hundred thousand hours of time on the
fleet, there's no sign of this theoretical demographic. I suppose
something could shift radically such that this demographic suddenly
appears, and in sufficient numbers to skew the statistics, but at this
point experience has not borne out these fears.


It will be interesting to see the details as information on these accidents
become clear. Purely on a statistical basis, the odds seem likely to me
that 2 airplanes out of a fleet of 1,000 could develop unsolvable doomsday
scenarios requiring chute deployment on the same weekend -- but I cannot say
there is any real basis to that than gut feeling. We need to wait for the
details.

I'm guessing that you really meant that the odds seem *unlikely.*

Keep in mind that one person's situation that can be "handled
conventionally" can well be another person's "unsolvable doomsday
scenario." There was much armchair test pilot chatter about Lionel
Morrison's deployment following an aileron coming partway off; "*I*
would have tried to land it" and all that rot. Maybe someone could
have; maybe at landing speeds it would become uncontrollable and it
would have ended up in a smoking crater. Seems like he did the right
thing.

The Canadian pilot said that he got into a spin and couldn't recover.
The POH says to pull the handle. Perhaps a high-time pilot trained in
spins could have recovered conventionally, but it sounds like he did
not fit that profile. Seems like he did the right thing.

The Kentucky pilot that attempted to pull the chute (which didn't
deploy, resulting in an AD that appears to have had the desired
effect) got into unusual attitudes in IMC after an apparent gyro
failure with the autopilot engaged. Normally the NTSB reports in such
cases end with "witnesses observed the aircraft emerge from the clouds
in a steep nose-down attitude." I don't think there's too much
argument that pulling the handle is the wrong thing to do in such a
case, though he did manage to recover and put it down in a field (and
he was very lucky that there was enough VMC to get right side up again
and suitable terrain to land.)

The details of the Florida case are yet to be revealed, though another
high-time Cirrus pilot who talked to the high-time Cirrus pilot that
pulled the handle felt that there was "no doubt in his mind" that he
had "done the right thing at the right time."


Bottom line is that you don't get to back up in life and try another
choice and compare how things come out. You make your choice and stuff
happens. Making a choice that results in your walking away uninjured
is pretty hard to argue with when the alternative must remain unknown.

Certainly there is ample evidence that there are a lot of pilots out
there with lousy judgement; IMHO the consequential damage of a poorly
chosen parachute pull is likely to be a lot lower than a lot of other
bad choices.

"Dave Katz" wrote in message
...
As far as we can tell, this has not been the case thusfar. With 1000+
planes in the air and several hundred thousand hours of time on the
fleet, there's no sign of this theoretical demographic. I suppose

Well, we do know that SOMETHING seems amiss in the accident statistics of
the Cirrus. There was a recent article in Aviation Safety which made this
clear by comparing accident rates of various airplanes.

The Kentucky pilot that attempted to pull the chute (which didn't
deploy, resulting in an AD that appears to have had the desired
effect) got into unusual attitudes in IMC after an apparent gyro
failure with the autopilot engaged. Normally the NTSB reports in such

Do you not think unusual attitude recovery ought to be within the capability
of an instrument pilot?
If we recommend that Cirrus pilots pull the chute whenever a gyro fails in
IMC, there will be an awful lot more parachute pulls as their vacuum systems
start aging. Perhaps a backup electric AI would be helpful on the original
steam-gauge Cirrus models.

The details of the Florida case are yet to be revealed, though another
high-time Cirrus pilot who talked to the high-time Cirrus pilot that

I agree it will be very interesting to see the details.

Bottom line is that you don't get to back up in life and try another
choice and compare how things come out. You make your choice and stuff
happens. Making a choice that results in your walking away uninjured
is pretty hard to argue with when the alternative must remain unknown.

I agree here. In fact, purely from the perspective of minimizing injuries
the chute should probably be pulled if the thought comes to the pilots mind
and he starts to debate himself. I agree that approach would make the
Cirrus quite safe -- the economics of insuring such an airplane are the
question though, and I guess we just have to wait to see how the statistics
work out. So far insuring a Cirrus seems to be a good bit more expensive
than one might have initially thought for an airplane designed with safety
first.



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

www.flyimc.com

"Dave Katz" wrote:
....With 1000+
planes in the air and several hundred thousand hours of time on the
fleet, there's no sign of this theoretical demographic. I suppose
something could shift radically such that this demographic suddenly
appears, and in sufficient numbers to skew the statistics,
....

From what do you get demographic? Anyway, my crude method: FAA
registration records indicate the vast majority of the approx. 1,000
are corporate-owned, and many names suggest more than just holding
companies. That suggests significant % are business use, and many of
those owned by holding co's may be substantially biz too. The latest
Nall Report cites biz use as about 4 times safer than GA as a whole,
which tends to suggest the accident rate may be on the high side. The
average age of the fleet is about 2 yrs, so several hundred thousand
hours could be a bit high, and with 18 U.S. accidents, the rate thus
appears typical only for GA as a whole.

Fred F.