I know pilots who have inadvertently spun the SR20
Then the SR20 can’t be very spin resistant after all.
Come on Roger, we all know that whenever names are withheld, it’s to protect the guilty, not the innocent!
In reply to:
Then the SR20 can’t be very spin resistant after all.
Who knows? That’s the challenge in this game of life!
For the benefit of others enjoying the COPA public forum, let me digress a bit.
Art, fascinating reading in the Federal Register about what the FAA and Cirrus agreed during certification. I’m impressed by the collaborative nature of the interactions as revealed by the narratives accompanying the proposed rules. Pretty neat.
However, I’m fascinated by your logic. Reminds me of arguing with my ex-wife. Got lots of experience with both of you. You are both very bright, very articulate, and very logical, very concise, very needy of being right, but, sorry, you are both also very fallacious.
Seems that an “Equivalent Level of Safety Findings” provision in the type certification process means “only” and “must” to you as a pilot. When, in fact, it applies to Cirrus Design meeting special conditions of experimentation and data gathering for certifying their aircraft. Flying that aircraft is another matter.
The rule as published in the Federal Register and quoted by you states that having a BRS parachute system allows relief from the spin testing usually required. Got a parachute system that meets their special conditions? Then that means you have an equivalent level of safety for certification, therefore, the FAA certifies your plane design. Great! No statement about recovery procedures, no statement about likelihood or resistance of spins, just confidence that the plane design is certified appropriately.
As for what to do when pilot finds such a certified Cirrus plane is in a spin, the POH guidance encourages you to pull the chute. But it doesn’t say so because someone knows that nothing else will work. It says so because the only data supplied for certification qualified for an equivalent level of safety. We know that the parachute system works because Cirrus did a test of the famous 1-spin-and-pull-the-handle test caught on video. (interesting to note that the FAA condition was deployment after a spin with “1 turn or 3-seconds, whichever was first” that seems more about the deployment test than the spin recovery).
Does that make pulling the chute the ONLY recovery from a spin in a Cirrus certified design? Nope. We don’t know.
In fact, the POH has 2 sentences about spin recovery in the section 3, Emergency Procedures, Inadvertent Spin Entry (page 3-19 of SR22 POH):
* The only approved and demonstrated method of spin recovery is
activiation of ... CAPS. Because of this, if the aircraft
"departs controlled flight," the CAPS must be deployed.*
So there is the fallacy. Neither the FAA certification process nor the POH tells us what will happen when conventional spin recovery techniques are used upon inadvertent spin entry. If they work, then you are in controlled flight. If they don’t, or you do nothing for too long, then you are definitely pulling the handle, eh?
Perhaps you consider spin entry as “departs controlled flight” so you pull the handle. That’s fine. But a stall is also a departure from controlled flight, so do you pull the handle then because the POH says you “must.” A logical inconsistency, eh?
If reading the POH and following all the rules is how you fly, then I hope we’ll both be safe.
But my caution to folks reading your interpretations of the rules is to keep reading… Any good teacher knows that words alone are never sufficient to learn something. So regulations and POH procedures are not enough. You need judgement and experience to understand.
Fortunately, the COPA forums are a wonderful source for shared judgement and experience. Thanks for being a part of it, Art.
Cheers
Rick
In Reply To:
Then the SR20 can’t be very spin resistant after all
Ever heard the phrase “making something idiot-proof is the fastest way to demonstrate just how persistant idiots can be”? I’ve never managed to spin my SR20, even though I’ve made some pretty sorry-ass recoveries from power-off and power-on stalls in it. A couple of my earlier ones would have put a Cessna or Piper in a full-fledged spin (I know, I’ve spun both types on purpose!).
Rick
Now that’s what I call a precise analysis. Thank you GODEL. I will look forward to mores such notes.
Salil
Well said Rick! but methinks the dead horse will rise again [:(]
What an excellent post! Thanks, Rick.
Rick,
At the risk of giving you a swelled head, I must compliment you on an excellent post! Now, if I could only convince my students to use some critical thinking…
Cheers,
Roger
Come on Roger, we all know that whenever names are withheld, it’s to protect the guilty, not the innocent!
Clyde,
Now, how would I know anyone who’s guilty?
Cheers,
Roger
