Recovery parachutes again!

Ray wrote:


Pasted below is a post from rec.aviation.ifr by Michael182 that includes a
full description by Ilan Reich about what happened and why he decided to
pull the chute.

Thanks for the huge outpouring of support, good wishes and prayers from
my friends. (snippage galore)

Many lessons can be learned from my experience of surviving an airplane
crash, including:

Don't trust anything the news media publishes.


Thanks, Ray. As Harry Truman said, there's no substitute for facts.
A rather amusing account of the recovery of the plane seems to get a
limited summary of the facts fairly correct.

http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pb...507030343/1017

Glad Ilan made it out alright and shared the story. Hope all goes well.

William,

I ask how many of these were unnecessary deployments, or events where the
pilot should have been able to land the airplane safely?


Unnecessary as measured by what and whom? Guys, this is
Mondey-Morning-Quarterbacking of the worst kind. "Ah, had the pilot been as
good as I am, he should have landed the plane safely. What a sissy to pull
the chute!" Yeah right! It's this attitude that makes "pilot error" the
prime cause of accidents. Heck, we regularly cause a ton of accidents by
totally stupid things like running out of fuel! And now you're talking about
how someone after a LOC should fly on as if nothing happened even if his
plane has an option exactly for this case? I don't get it.

It's us causing all those accidents in the statistics, not "them". And these
posts show me why.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Cub,

Sorry, Dan, but in this case you're smart-assing in the worst way. As
you may read in another thread here, the guy had a previously
undiscovered brain tumor. He did EVERYTHING exactly right.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Peter,

Frankly, it's this kind of second-guessing of pilots who use the BRS that
really irks me.


Exactly right! This machismo stuff really gets on my nerves.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Dave wrote:

My instructor told me ...

"Never try to save an airplane that is trying to kill
you......"

However, also "never kill an airplane that is trying to save you!"

Matt

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Peter,

Frankly, it's this kind of second-guessing of pilots who use the BRS that
really irks me.


Exactly right! This machismo stuff really gets on my nerves.

This "second-guessing" and "machismo" are relevant because there is a
very real and honest debate about whether Cirrus's most distinctive
feature actually increases safety in a meaningful manner.

Ilan stated in his account, "Don't fly a single engine plane that isn't
equipped with a parachute."

From my comfortable, stress-free, stationary seat, what saved Ilan was,
first, dumb luck (regaining consciousness before things got really bad)
and second, his own good piloting to get the aircraft back under
control.

Now, having the option to hit the silk at that point, I suspect most of
us, myself included, would be inclined to take it. However, it remains
a fact (by Ilan's account) that he remained fairly lucid throughout the
remainder of the "flight," and if he were in a Diamond Star or even
182, it's not beggaring belief that he would have managed to land, or
crack it up in a dignified and survivable manner.

I cannot shake the sense that the number of cases in which the 'chute
is really the best option are really quite small. Meanwhile, Diamond is
stacking up a remarkable record with the Katana series which have
protected their occupants in all manner of seemingly hopeless (and more
common) screw-ups, and the use of belt-mount airbags, which are easily
fittable to the SR series, promise to prevent not only death but many
kinds of serious and common injuries.

All of this is relevant because the safety provided by the 'chute is a
cornerstone of Cirrus's marketing. Let me be clear: I like the SR
series and I think if Cirrus failed as a business it would be a major
loss for GA. Still, that doesn't mean I should ignore my nose, which
tells me that some non-trivial proportion of pilots would be safer
buying parachute-free Skylanes than SR-22s.

Best,
-cwk.