Ballistic chute saves 4 souls

osite (RobertR237) wrote in
:


Same argument the Americans, French, Italians, and British (but not
the Germans...) used during WWI, relative to letting pilots wear
parachutes. Can't let those cowards run off and save their worthless
lives, can we?

Go down to the driver's license office, and grab the first proud
16-year-old kid you see with a brand-spanking-new driver's license.
Take him to a field an introduce him to a basic 1918 automobile. Odds
are, he can't drive it. Spark advance? Gears? Clutch? Hand brake?
*Mechanical* brakes? Non-powered steering? Starting on hills? Huh?

But take a kid who just soloed an airplane for the first time and plop
him in a basic 1918 aeroplane, and he can probably take a pretty good
stab at it...especially if he learned to fly on a taildragger like an
Aviat Husky. Which, of course, is currently in production.

Everyone bitches about how we're still flying 1930s engines...well,
guess what, folks, General Aviation is still flying 1920s airplanes,
which, for the most part, require 1920s skills. We measure our speeds
with a mechanical pressure gauge, we change our attitude with levers
attached to cables that run over pulleys and move control surfaces,
whose relative positions have to be coordinated and change with the
application of power, amount of fuel burned, etc.

I'm not personally complaining, mind you...I fly for the fun and the
challenge. But if someone has the attitude that flying is *supposed*
to be difficult; is *supposed* to take 1920s skills, and if you don't
measure up, you are expected to buck up and die like an aviator...
well, I hope those who hold that attitude don't own tricycle-geared
airplanes. People complained about THAT newfangled invention, too.

The Cirrus represents the first true innovation in General Aviation in
about 50 years. We homebuilders should be proud. We proved the
viability of composite structures for everyday aircraft, and
full-aircraft ballistic recovery parachutes proved themselves in the
ultralight/homebuilt world. Other innovations, like electronic
ignition, got their start in homebuilding as well.

Sure, there are going to be cases where guys use the CAPS where a
skilled pilot could have recovered the aircraft without damage. But
the point of the CAPS is to save lives, not nurse egos. I'm content
to leave that particular controversy to the insurance companies and
courts to decide.

Ron Wanttaja




Thank you Ron for a very good perspective on the BRS debate. I think
that you could have save a lot of time and typing by just cutting to
the chase with the one and most important statement:

"But the point of CAPS is to save lives, not nurse egos."

What we have been hearing here is a lot of egos say "I could have done
better....blah, blah, blah". The fact is that not a one of them was
in the air with the pilot at the time and not a single one knows for
certain that they could have done better or would have done anything
different. The true benefit to CAPS is that it gives the pilot
another option to save their lives.



Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)



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