Another Cirrus 'chute deployment

The FAA report gives the position of his last radio contact as 2 miles east
of Manteca. This is right in the middle of the California Central Valley -
flat farm land, about 50' MSL that stretches uninterrupted north to south
for more than 350 miles. It is probably the longest emergency landing strip
west of the Rockies. There is no shortage of real airports either.

I would assume that either the spin was not recoverable, or the pilot simply
followed the instructions to use the BSR in the event of a spin. The real
question is how you could get into a spin from turbulence in cruise flight
in the first place. However, there were some mean thunderstorms in the area
at the time (2" of rain fell in Sacramento earlier in the day and the
weather was heading SW towards the accident area). Basically it was a mean
cold front that swept through the area about the time of the accident- and
it certainly wasn't forecast to be as wild as it turned out (wild by CA
standards that is). I would think he more than likely got caught up in some
of that convective activity.

Peter R. wrote:

Glad the chute worked, but what would cause an airplane to stall at 16,000
feet, then encounter turbulence that would send it into a spin at 15,000
feet?

My take on the article, based on past news media aviation ignorance, is
that the engine most likely quit at 16,000.

Ah! And the engine out caused the plane to fall out of the sky...

Stefan

Anyone know what the service ceiling of the aircraft is?

"Cockpit Colin" wrote in message
...
Anyone know what the service ceiling of the aircraft is?



A spec sheet on Avweb in 2002 says 17K, so he was pushing the limit.

The Cirrus site seems to hide such info very well.

There's a William K. Graham listed as a certified training instructor
on the Cirrus Design web site. He's from San Diego. Anyone want to bet
that is the same guy in the article? If so, Mr. Graham is a CFI and is
instrument rated, which makes the description of the incident all that
more puzzling.

("Ace Pilot" wrote)
There's a William K. Graham listed as a certified training instructor
on the Cirrus Design web site. He's from San Diego. Anyone want to bet
that is the same guy in the article? If so, Mr. Graham is a CFI and is
instrument rated, which makes the description of the incident all that
more puzzling.


From the Duluth News Tribune story - reporting on the Sept 10th Park
Falls, Wisconsin crash.

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du...or/9723097.htm

Byron "Buzz" Oyster, a flight instructor from Duluth who was also in the
plane, sustained critical injuries and remains hospitalized at St.
Joseph Hospital in Marshfield, Wis. His condition was listed as "fair"
Tuesday.


Flight instructor from Duluth? Wonder if this fellow is connected with
the factory?


Montblack

"Ace Pilot" wrote in message
om...
There's a William K. Graham listed as a certified training instructor
on the Cirrus Design web site. He's from San Diego. Anyone want to bet
that is the same guy in the article? If so, Mr. Graham is a CFI and is
instrument rated, which makes the description of the incident all that
more puzzling.

Not really. He did exactly what I would expect a flight instructor to do.
When he got into an emergency, he followed the manual, not the theories of a
bunch of armchair pilots on Usenet who think they know better than the
aircraft designer on what to do when a Cirrus spins.

The only real question is why he was flying there in the first place, which
has nothing to do with whether he was flying a Cirrus -- a point that is
lost on some around here.

"Michael 182" wrote in message
newsw24d.81563$MQ5.65618@attbi_s52...
Glad the chute worked, but what would cause an airplane to stall at 16,000
feet, then encounter turbulence that would send it into a spin at 15,000
feet? At that height it would seem a stall should be pretty simple to
recover from, although, once again, I can't imagine what would make the
plane stall in the first place during cruise.


The airplane was near the service ceiling and may already have been at a
high angle of attack. Flying slowly because of the turbulence may have
increased the angle of attack still further. If the turbulence is severe the
airplane could exceed the critical angle of attack. Picture the airplane in
a straight and level attitude but descending straight down and you get the
idea -- very high angle of attack. This would especially be true if the
airplane was in a rapid descent because of the turbulence and the pilot was
trying to maintain altitude or even a straight and level attitude. If the
airplane is uncoordinated then the stall could turn into a spin. Picture
again the airplane moving straight down in a level attitude, but now one
wing is moving backward relative to the other. That wing will have a higher
angle of attack than the other; it will stall without warning and the
airplane will immediately begin to roll into a spin, possibly even inverted.
Of course, the turbulence would have to be pretty bad to cause this, but in
the Central Valley in the vicinity of thunderstorms, I can believe it. The
stall resistant Cirrus might hold out longer than other airplanes, but it is
not invulnerable.

Cirrus deliberately limited rudder and elevator travel to prevent stalls and
spins. This has the effect, however, of making it more difficult or even
impossible to recover once a spin develops. There is not enough rudder
authority to recover. The Cirrus has never demonstrated a spin recovery,
though it has been tried. The only way the airplane could receive
certification was to require deployment of the parachute in the event of a
spin.

There seems to be a pattern of Cirrus aircraft entering stalls and spins in
turbulence at high altitudes. It may be a training problem -- pilots taking
Cirrus airplanes into conditions that they would not try in other airplanes.
For now, I think that if you take a Cirrus into turbulence at high altitude
there is a certain risk that the airplane will be lost. That risk may be
more or less than other types, but it is there.

C J Campbell wrote:

impossible to recover once a spin develops. There is not enough rudder
authority to recover. The Cirrus has never demonstrated a spin recovery,
though it has been tried. The only way the airplane could receive
certification was to require deployment of the parachute in the event of a
spin.

I didn't know this. Personally, I don't like the idea at all wouldn't
buy a plane that can't be recovered by the standard procedure. But then,
I'm maybe just old fashioned.

Stefan

Stefan,

I didn't know this.


Because it is not true.

Cirrus chose to comply with the spin certification by installing the
parachute. This was NOT done after spin recovery in the traditional way
had been tried unsuccesfully, as CJ implies. It was done in order to
save money by not doing traditional spin recovery testing at all.

Thus, the official spin recovery testing requried for certification
wasn't done. This says nothing about whether the aircraft is
recoverable from a spin by traditional methods. It was NOT tried, at
least not to the extent necessary for certification. Instead, the
parachute was installed and accepted by the FAA (and EASA) as a
certifiable means of dealing with spins.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)