Cirrus BRS deployments - Alan Klapmeier's comments on NPR

Answer to question 1 is one. A CAPS-like system would not have
helped. He had an engine failure at relatively low altitude and
turned back to the airport, hit a utility pole and ultimately died
from horrific burns.

Pilot error.

Ron Lee



(Dean Wilkinson) wrote:

Hi Ron,

A question for you:

How many pilots that you knew well on a personal level have died in
general aviation accidents?

A second question:

If your answer is other than zero, what did you say to other people
afterwards about the circumstances of their accident? Did you assign
any blame to them? Might a CAPS system saved their lives?

Your attitude on this subject indicates to me that your answer to
question number 1 will be zero, but if not, I would be interested in
hearing your answer to question number 2.

Dean

(Ron Lee) wrote in message ...
(Rick Durden) wrote:

Ron,

It's interesting to read of your anti-safety perspective...the
approach that if a pilot errs, he is sentenced to death.

Rick, you completely missed my point. I am hardly "anti-safety." I
am opposed to potential crutches that allow poor flight decisions to
be rectified by "pulling the handle."

To suggest that any error means death is unsupportable and a gross
mischaracterization of reality. We don't know that either of these
two events would have been fatal and certainly we do not know that a
series of mistakes led to "pulling the handle." Better to concentrate
on better decision skills than equipping all GA aircraft with a
parachute.

I will be the first to admit that I am not the best pilot. But I will
compare my decision making with any other pilot and come out quite
well.

Ron Lee

Ron Lee wrote:
If the ultimate facts in these two
events lead to pilot error as a primary factor, you need to address
that instead of relying on crutches.

Sorry, I'm with Durden on this one. To insist some pilots pulled their chutes
for reasons that were maybe, possibly, seems like, could-have-been not good
enough is your own point of view. You weren't there and don't know what the
situation was. To use your opinion to argue they shouldn't have had the chute
option is a cruel and inflexible point of view.

Some people like to go farther out on a limb than others, some feel perfectly
safe with few emergency options, and others go over their checklist three
times, always use that damn shoulder belt, and would pull the chute if they
feel like they're losing it.
The pilots in a couple Cirrus planes used a safety measure and survived the
situation. It may turn out, or we may never know, that they might not have died
without the option of using it.

Some people die of bad judgement. More all the time don't. Get right to work
on making us a goof-proof species if you can, but don't try to claim that
forgoing safety options on other people's behalf will make them safer.

"Rick Durden" wrote in message
m...
Ron,

It's interesting to read of your anti-safety perspective...the
approach that if a pilot errs, he is sentenced to death. 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).

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

If these guys had their way, cars would instead of airbags have a sharp
spear embedded in the steering column which would impale any driver who was
so careless as to get into an accident.

Their attitude seems to be that a small bomb should be installed in every
airplane so that anyone who is so thoughtless as to crash is guaranteed to
be scattered in small pieces over a wide area.

"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

Careful CJ, you are reacting to Durden's incorrect assessment of posts
that I made. Sounds like a Democrat

Ron Lee

"C J Campbell" wrote:


"Rick Durden" wrote in message
om...
Ron,

It's interesting to read of your anti-safety perspective...the
approach that if a pilot errs, he is sentenced to death. 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).

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

If these guys had their way, cars would instead of airbags have a sharp
spear embedded in the steering column which would impale any driver who was
so careless as to get into an accident.

Their attitude seems to be that a small bomb should be installed in every
airplane so that anyone who is so thoughtless as to crash is guaranteed to
be scattered in small pieces over a wide area.

Howdy!

In article ,
Ron Lee wrote:
Careful CJ, you are reacting to Durden's incorrect assessment of posts
that I made. Sounds like a Democrat

What is incorrect about Rick Durden's assessment of your posts? You harp
on how CAPS is a "crutch". Right up front, you said:

I know at least one person here is a fan of the CAPS. I wonder if it
is a last resort for pilot incompetence?

You immediately question the competence of the pilots. You insist that
the pilots need better training to avoid getting into situation where they
might be tempted (my word) to pull the handle instead of flying out of
trouble like a manly man (my words again). Rick calls you on it citing
historical reactions to the introduction of last-ditch safety equipment
whose use is the ultimate in giving-up without conceding death. You
call it a crutch.

You sound sad.

yours,
Michael



--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/

(Michael Houghton) wrote:

Howdy!

In article ,
Ron Lee wrote:
Careful CJ, you are reacting to Durden's incorrect assessment of posts
that I made. Sounds like a Democrat

What is incorrect about Rick Durden's assessment of your posts? You harp
on how CAPS is a "crutch". Right up front, you said:

I know at least one person here is a fan of the CAPS. I wonder if it
is a last resort for pilot incompetence?

You immediately question the competence of the pilots. You insist that
the pilots need better training to avoid getting into situation where they
might be tempted (my word) to pull the handle instead of flying out of
trouble like a manly man (my words again). Rick calls you on it citing
historical reactions to the introduction of last-ditch safety equipment
whose use is the ultimate in giving-up without conceding death. You
call it a crutch.

MIchael, I said "I wonder". That is not a definitive statement. It
raises an issue that is worth discussing about what really led to the
deployment of the parachute. See how you are misreading my posts.
That is what is sad.

You sound sad.

Actually I am quite happy and well adjusted.. Do some of you folks
always react this way with points of view that are different than your
own?

Ron Lee

yours,
Michael



--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/

(Ron Lee) writes:

(Michael Houghton) wrote:

Howdy!

In article ,
Ron Lee wrote:
Careful CJ, you are reacting to Durden's incorrect assessment of posts
that I made. Sounds like a Democrat

What is incorrect about Rick Durden's assessment of your posts? You harp
on how CAPS is a "crutch". Right up front, you said:

I know at least one person here is a fan of the CAPS. I wonder if it
is a last resort for pilot incompetence?

You immediately question the competence of the pilots. You insist that
the pilots need better training to avoid getting into situation where they
might be tempted (my word) to pull the handle instead of flying out of
trouble like a manly man (my words again). Rick calls you on it citing
historical reactions to the introduction of last-ditch safety equipment
whose use is the ultimate in giving-up without conceding death. You
call it a crutch.

MIchael, I said "I wonder". That is not a definitive statement. It
raises an issue that is worth discussing about what really led to the
deployment of the parachute. See how you are misreading my posts.
That is what is sad.

So, if I say "I wonder if Ron is a pedophile", that's okay, because I
said "I wonder"? Sorry, but publicly saying you wonder about
something is a public accusation, and shouldn't be made casually.
Public wondering must be reserved for situations where you have some
legitemate *cause* to wonder.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Photos: dd-b.lighthunters.net Snapshots: www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

Howdy!

In article ,
Ron Lee wrote:
(Michael Houghton) wrote:

Howdy!

In article ,
Ron Lee wrote:
Careful CJ, you are reacting to Durden's incorrect assessment of posts
that I made. Sounds like a Democrat

What is incorrect about Rick Durden's assessment of your posts? You harp
on how CAPS is a "crutch". Right up front, you said:

I know at least one person here is a fan of the CAPS. I wonder if it
is a last resort for pilot incompetence?

You immediately question the competence of the pilots. You insist that
the pilots need better training to avoid getting into situation where they
might be tempted (my word) to pull the handle instead of flying out of
trouble like a manly man (my words again). Rick calls you on it citing
historical reactions to the introduction of last-ditch safety equipment
whose use is the ultimate in giving-up without conceding death. You
call it a crutch.

MIchael, I said "I wonder". That is not a definitive statement. It
raises an issue that is worth discussing about what really led to the
deployment of the parachute. See how you are misreading my posts.
That is what is sad.

"incompetence" is a pretty strong word to use. By inserting it into the
discourse as early as you did, you suggest to a reasonable reader that
you think it might somehow apply. Being a bit eager to pull the chute
does not, by any stretch of the imagination, automatically rise to the
level of incompetence. You follow up by characterizing the mere presence
of the BRS as a crutch. Taken as a whole, your remarks convey a meaning
that you claim is a misreading.

You sound sad.

Actually I am quite happy and well adjusted.. Do some of you folks
always react this way with points of view that are different than your
own?

I react this way to people who make statements and implications and then
deny that they meant what we are inferring. I also don't react favorably
to logical fallacies when they get trotted out.

yours,
Michael


--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/

(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