CAPS question

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners would have pulled the chute under the following scenario?
From AOPA

Heart Attack Blamed In Pilot’s Death

An autopsy of Kristopher Pearce revealed that the 36-year-old pilot died of a heart attack brought on by coronary artery atherosclerosis. As AVweb briefly report Monday, Pearce was flying his Piper Turbo Saratoga

Saturday when he collapsed at the controls as the single-engine plane neared its destination. A non-pilot passenger, Henry Anhalt, whom Pearce was flying back from the Bahamas with Anhalt’s three sons and his wife, was forced to take over the controls. Anhalt made a successful landing at the Winter Haven (Fla.) Airport after being talked down by controllers and a flight instructor in a chase plane. Anhalt did a credible job in the landing – the Saratoga was only slightly damaged – and he and his family emerged without injury.

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners would have pulled the chute under the following scenario?

Speaking for myself (potential rather than actual owner):

  1. Question’s not relevant. The Sr20 OWNER isn’t the one who’d be thinking about the parachute. It would be the owner’s spouse, children, guests, or other NONPILOT occupants of the plane.

  2. Bet if you asked the guy who was sitting there when the pilot dropped dead if he would have liked the OPTION of pulling the chute, he would have said WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING OF COURSE I WOULD.

  3. This episode turned out OK, with congrats to all involved (and obviously some damage to the plane). But I bet too that if you asked ATC or the person in the chase plane whether they too would have liked the additional OPTION of pulling the chute if things got dicey, they too would say: of course every additional option is a plus.

But again, the question from this scenario isn’t for SR20 owners/pilots: it’s for their riders who have no experience controlling a plane.

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners would have pulled the chute under the following scenario?

No question - I wouldn’t - cause I’d be dead - but there is absolutely no doubt that it would be better for the passenger to pull the chute rather than attempt to land the plane, with or without being talked down. The risk (of death or serious injury) involved in attempting a landing is quite high, whereas the risk involved in pulling the parachute is quite low.

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners would have pulled the chute under the following scenario?
From AOPA

Heart Attack Blamed In Pilot’s Death

And the moral from this story is: Use of chute needs to be a serious part during passenger briefing.

Timm

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners would have pulled the chute under the following scenario?
From AOPA

Heart Attack Blamed In Pilot’s Death

An autopsy of Kristopher Pearce revealed that the 36-year-old pilot died of a heart attack brought on by coronary artery atherosclerosis. As AVweb briefly report Monday, Pearce was flying his Piper Turbo Saratoga

Saturday when he collapsed at the controls as the single-engine plane neared its destination. A non-pilot passenger, Henry Anhalt, whom Pearce was flying back from the Bahamas with Anhalt’s three sons and his wife, was forced to take over the controls. Anhalt made a successful landing at the Winter Haven (Fla.) Airport after being talked down by controllers and a flight instructor in a chase plane. Anhalt did a credible job in the landing – the Saratoga was only slightly damaged – and he and his family emerged without injury.
I think Jim hit the nail on the head. The concept is to have the OPTION of pulling the chute if needed. This CLEARLY adds a margin of safety. In this case if it appeared that the non-pilot passenger was incapable of handling the plane or did not respond to AVAILABLE help, then the chute would save their lives. I am told that the impact from a chute landing is equivalent to dropping the airplane from 10 feet above the ground; enough to damage the plane but NOT to seriously injure passengers. Clearly the chute is a nice option to have for ANY emergency but likely not the FIRST option to exercise.

Brian

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners…<

  1. The Yahoo membership directory contains no one with user ID “Samannon” or “Samannom,” the two different email addresses that “Sam” has provided for his messages. A message sent to either account will be bounced back with “user unknown.” [See below]

  2. The three discussions here on the theme of “why would anyone want a parachute???” have been launched by:

    • someone who didn’t provide his real name but turned out to be logging on from Bend, Oregon;

    • someone who did use his real name, which turned out to be the same as that of a Lancair test pilot;

    • someone using a fake email ID.

Reasonable people can disagree about parachutes. If a purchaser thinks the tradeoffs involved in getting a built-in parachute are not worthwhile – too expensive, too heavy, too much doubt about how much good it would do – then it’s easy enough to choose some other plane, including a Lancair. I’ve made clear all along my admiration for Lancair products, and my belief that a strong Lancair AND a strong Cirrus (and a strong Eclipse, and a strong Safire, and a strong Garmin, and a strong Avidyne, and a strong ARNAV…) would be best for the future of flying. But I would hope the other companies would follow Cirrus in at least this regard: talk up your products by talking up YOUR products, not by fake-name, dirty-tricks derogation of someone else.

Thought experiment: suppose Lancair had this kind of discussion board. And suppose people kept logging on with fake names or first-names-only, saying “Hey, I hear the company can’t deliver any planes!” “Hey, I hear there are more problems with the Malaysian financiers.” “Hey IÂ’ve heard this or that bad news.” And suppose people doing this turned out to be using Duluth-based internet providers, or to have the same name as Cirrus staffers. How would that make you think about Cirrus as a company, as distinct from what you think about its products?

Proposal: if you’ve got derogatory information information or impressions to offer, as indeed I am doing in this very message, then let people know who you actually are.


NOTE

If I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions about “Sam” deliberately using fake IDs, I apologize. But here is what I found with messages to his address:

  1. Re “Samannom”

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

----- Transcript of session follows -----

… while talking to mx1.mail.yahoo.com.:

DATA

<<< 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account (samannom@yahoo.com) - mta139.mail.yahoo.com

554 …

  1. Re “Samannon”

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

----- Transcript of session follows -----

… while talking to mx1.mail.yahoo.com.:

DATA

<<< 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account (samannon@yahoo.com) - mta214.mail.yahoo.com

554 .

Didn’t mean to get ya’ll so riled up. Sorry!

Sorry about the annonomout thing too. Sorry!

Wont do it anymore after this.
I’m not from either company and think that both are great and I’m not trying to cut anybody down. I’m just really really interested in the CAPS and I debate with my self about it. I like to get other input and wasn’t trying to cut anything down. I think that It’s great for GA. Anything to make the public have a better appreciation for what we are doing up here.
Really I was just trying to see if people would opt for the chute. My question did stir up some responses and debate which is good. It has saved many lives in ultralights and I hope, especially for PR sake, that it saves more.

Over and out.

I’m not really a bad guy. Well that is what my mother tells me anyway.

But again, the question from this scenario isn’t for SR20 owners/pilots: it’s for their riders who have no experience controlling a plane.

The wife says there is no talking her down! She will pull the chute. (From a pilot/husbands view there was no hesitation in this answer.)I as a position holder hope it is a fatal condition when she pulls the chute, I could not wiat for another sr20, that would kill me! So either way its a lose/lose for me…ed

The question of a passenger deploying the chute after the pilot becomes incapacitated is one thing.

But, as a serious SR20 potential customer, I was less than reassured to have the CAPS rep at Oshkosh tell me that nobody really knows if or how badly you’d be injured upon impact after the shut has been deployed since no tests have been done to impact. Still, I’m sure it’s better than an uncontrolled descent without it.

But, as a serious SR20 potential customer, I was less than reassured to have the CAPS rep at Oshkosh tell me that nobody really knows if or how badly you’d be injured upon impact after the shut has been deployed since no tests have been done to impact.

I heard the Cirrus/BRS presentation at Oshkosh, and what I understood them to say was a little different. What I understood them to say was: they had never tested an actual SR20 all the way to impact, because that is something you can do only once to each airplane. Boeing may have enough spare planes for full destructive testing of a real production airframe, but Cirrus (certainly at pre-certification time) did not. So to that extent the real-world effect on real human bodies is not known – and won’t be until a real event occurs (and please let that be many years away).

BUT I believe they then said they’d calculated all the velocities and loads for various worst-case descent scenarios – and then had done extensive crash-test-dummy testing, on high-speed impact sleds and so on, to measure the stresses on various parts of the human body. And the results of those tests are what made them say the impact would be survivable. Is that different from what they told you? Jim Fallows

I was less than reassured to have the CAPS rep at Oshkosh tell me that nobody really knows if or how badly you’d be injured upon impact after the shut has been deployed since no tests have been done to impact
While this is literally true, Cirrus did run a drop test of a fuselage, weighted to simulate a complete airframe, and dropped from a height that produced an impact equivalent to a parachute descent (the descent rate was established in the quite extensive deployment tests).

This was required by the FAA for certification. The results are obviously indicative only, but my understanding is that the passengers would walk away and the aircraft would be damaged, but not necessarily be written off. Cirrus, for liability reasons, do not guarantee either absence of injuries or survival of the airframe.

In the drop test, the undercarriage, which did not break, apparently absorbed most of the impact.

Hello Jim,

I agree with you 101%.

There is enough business for “ALL” companies to prosper.

I used to have a Lancair for over 4 years, the company was nice but they enjoyed to talk bad about Glasairs. There was no need, they had a good product. We all have different taste, some may like Cirrus some may not, I think this is great. This is what makes the world go around. So let’s all be happy without having to hide behind a fake name. If you can’t use your real name and be able to attempt to prove your point don’t say lies and use a bogus name. In the mean time have a great Cirrus day…

Woor

pilot4hire@bigfoot.com

I was just wondering if you SR 20 owners…<

  1. The Yahoo membership directory contains no one with user ID “Samannon” or “Samannom,” the two different email addresses that “Sam” has provided for his messages. A message sent to either account will be bounced back with “user unknown.” [See below]
  1. The three discussions here on the theme of “why would anyone want a parachute???” have been launched by:
  • someone who didn’t provide his real name but turned out to be logging on from Bend, Oregon;
  • someone who did use his real name, which turned out to be the same as that of a Lancair test pilot;
  • someone using a fake email ID.

Reasonable people can disagree about parachutes. If a purchaser thinks the tradeoffs involved in getting a built-in parachute are not worthwhile – too expensive, too heavy, too much doubt about how much good it would do – then it’s easy enough to choose some other plane, including a Lancair. I’ve made clear all along my admiration for Lancair products, and my belief that a strong Lancair AND a strong Cirrus (and a strong Eclipse, and a strong Safire, and a strong Garmin, and a strong Avidyne, and a strong ARNAV…) would be best for the future of flying. But I would hope the other companies would follow Cirrus in at least this regard: talk up your products by talking up YOUR products, not by fake-name, dirty-tricks derogation of someone else.

Thought experiment: suppose Lancair had this kind of discussion board. And suppose people kept logging on with fake names or first-names-only, saying “Hey, I hear the company can’t deliver any planes!” “Hey, I hear there are more problems with the Malaysian financiers.” “Hey IÂ’ve heard this or that bad news.” And suppose people doing this turned out to be using Duluth-based internet providers, or to have the same name as Cirrus staffers. How would that make you think about Cirrus as a company, as distinct from what you think about its products?

Proposal: if you’ve got derogatory information information or impressions to offer, as indeed I am doing in this very message, then let people know who you actually are.


NOTE

If I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions about “Sam” deliberately using fake IDs, I apologize. But here is what I found with messages to his address:

  1. Re “Samannom”

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

----- Transcript of session follows -----

… while talking to mx1.mail.yahoo.com.:

DATA

<<< 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account (samannom@yahoo.com) - mta139.mail.yahoo.com

554 …

  1. Re “Samannon”

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

----- Transcript of session follows -----

… while talking to mx1.mail.yahoo.com.:

DATA

<<< 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account (samannon@yahoo.com) - mta214.mail.yahoo.com

554 .

The person who posted the message under the name “Sam” appears to be the same one who has regularly posted before under the name “Guy”. From the message contents, I don’t think he’s a a competitor’s plant, but anything’s possible. He’s been using an account at Fujitsu in San Francisco.