Iced up Cirrus descends by BRS

Darkwing wrote:

"Scott Skylane" wrote in message
...

Ron Lee wrote:


And the reports seem to glorify the BRS yet nothing is mentioned of
why the pilot entered icing conditions and if that should have been
anticipated. Ron Lee


Another point to consider, weather conditions on the ground at that time
were quite good. Birmingham reported about 4300 Broken, temp +9C.
Montgomery had 3500 Scattered, +14C. Odds are, he could have just
descended into warmer, clearer air, shed the ice, and flew on, a bit wiser
and scareder(sp?). We'll never know, of course, and you can't argue with
"success", but I have to wonder about this "pull the chute if anything is
amiss, and let the chips fall where they may(so to speak)" mentality that
the BRS types advocate. Someday, someone's going to get hurt, when they
didn't have to.

Happy Flying!
Scott Skylane



That's true in any situation and our Armchair Quarterbacking will always
make sense after the fact. But if the thing truly did go out of control I
don't think I would "hope" that a warmer lower level would shed the ice and
allow me to regain control, assuming of course the wings stayed attached. I
think I'd rather read that the chute "saved" the lives of 3 GA pilots and
passengers instead of another GA plane crash in bad weather that caused the
plane to "stall". The chute, whatever your opinion as a pilot, is a good PR
story for GA.

Baloney. They may be good PR for Cirrus, and I've long suspected this
was the only motivation behind including them, but they are lousy PR for
GA overall.


Matt

Matt,

Baloney. They may be good PR for Cirrus, and I've long suspected this
was the only motivation behind including them, but they are lousy PR for
GA overall.


Yep, 3 dead would have been much better PR for GA. And the plane would
probably have shedded the ice while spinning through 5000, too. Great!

What's wrong with you guys?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Death is good PR?????

Darthpup,

Death is good PR?????


I was being ironic in response to the OP, who posted:

plane to "stall". The chute, whatever your opinion as a pilot, is a
good PR
story for GA.

Baloney. They may be good PR for Cirrus, and I've long suspected this
was the only motivation behind including them, but they are lousy PR
for GA overall.


--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert wrote:

Baloney. They may be good PR for Cirrus, and I've long suspected this
was the only motivation behind including them, but they are lousy PR for
GA overall.

Yep, 3 dead would have been much better PR for GA. And the plane would
probably have shedded the ice while spinning through 5000, too. Great!

What's wrong with you guys?

Thomas Borchert (EDDH)


Nothing Thomas. Some of use sense an issue that cannot be resolved by
the BRS crutch. What led that pilot to take off into icing conditions
that the plane could not handle? Since only a very small percentage
of aircraft have BRS-like systems, if hundreds more pilots did what
that pilot did then planes would be impacting ground with deadly
consequences. Since I know of no issues with the Cirrus aircraft when
flown in non-icing conditions, we have to evaluate if the pilot made a
potentially deadly error in flying that day. Prevent that sort of
error and we won't have to ask whether planes descending under a
parachute (possibly on top of someone eventually) is good or bad PR.

Ron Lee

Ron,

Stupid pilot tricks have nothing to do at all with the chute. In fact,
GA pilots have managed to get themselves killed in a wide range of
stupid tricks since 1905 or so, thank you very much. Blaming the chute
in any way is a red herring.

Compare the accident stats of new Cessna 182 (and only the new ones)
with those of the Cirrus, like some publicatin recently did. They are
very similar. That possibly tells us something about what kind of pilot
can afford a new plane. It also tells us there is not really an issue
with the Cirrus, apart from pilot factors.

Oh, and the reaction to the Cirrus and their accidents here tells us a
lot about how pilots react to innovation. It tells a sad story, IMHO.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Here are some stats for the US (from the NTSB database):

New Cessna 182: Fatal accidents 11 (18 fatalities)
Cirrus: Fatal accidents 15 (32 fatalities)

For this to be meaningful one had to know the number of airplanes in
the US (I believe there are similar numbers for new C182 and Cirrus),
or the numbers of hours flown or anything else to make the two groups
comparable. Just from the above numbers, though, Cirri crashed 27%
more with fatal results than new Cessna 182S/T, and 44% more people got
killed.

I do not quite understand why people always compare Cirrus with C182.
The Cirrus is quite a bit more expensive, has a lot more horsepower,
and has a much sleeker wing which much higher wing loading. A more
suitable comparison IMHO to all the above parameters would be Mooneys
or Lancair/Columbias.

Gerd

Gwengler,

Just from the above numbers,


They are meaningless, as you well know. The least you'd have to factor
in is fleet size. You would probably want to come up with a reasonable
estimate of hours flown, as is done regularly by aviation publication
safety reviews, and as was done in this case.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

as is done regularly by aviation publication safety reviews, and as was done in this case

Can you please quote the aviation publication safety review in "this
case"?

Gerd

Thomas Borchert wrote:

Ron,

Stupid pilot tricks have nothing to do at all with the chute. In fact,
GA pilots have managed to get themselves killed in a wide range of
stupid tricks since 1905 or so, thank you very much. Blaming the chute
in any way is a red herring.

Compare the accident stats of new Cessna 182 (and only the new ones)
with those of the Cirrus, like some publicatin recently did. They are
very similar. That possibly tells us something about what kind of pilot
can afford a new plane. It also tells us there is not really an issue
with the Cirrus, apart from pilot factors.

It also tells you that the chute is providing no benefit with respect to
the accident rate.

Matt