"I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s 90+ % due to the chute in particular for folks that are buying a plane for the first time, it’s gotta be closer to 95%. "
David,
I am making that decision now. The discussions my wife and I are having is, do we want a chute or do we want better short field performance and maybe have to fly a 206 into some pine trees someday. Living in the SW, we’d love to have the short/hot/high performance. But I think the chute is ultimately going to win.
Derrick
It’s a no brainer. You should be flying any piston with the altitude that this is going to fail. That’s how I fly every time I get in. I’m waiting for it and I know how the pull procedure will play out and my COPA post to describe it is already written out.
“This failed.
I pulled.
Everyone fine.
Onto the next one”.
Life goes on.
Without a chute, flying at night in a high performance piston with tiny landing wheels in my personal view should not be legal or encouraged.
Buy the Cirrus. You would be silly not to. A fat prop and some landing clinics will get you into fields less than 1500ft.
I fall into that category. I bought a cirrus 2.5 years ago. I was flying my young family around in the pla e I had for 10 years. Loved the plane…no chute.
After the birth of my son, everytime I flew, all I could think of was my odds of hurting my family when this engine stops. Will it warn me before it gives up the ghost. Will I even recognize the signs if it does?
I flew obsessed and scared for three more years…then bought the cirrus purely for the extra layer of insurance…the chute. Going fast comfortably with nice avionics were just a huge bonus. With my budget securely in the piston market and my new family, it became a stop flying or get a chute decision.
From my perspective, David is right. I think the more recent your purchase…the more like likely the chute was a significant factor. It’s also interesting to note how many on this thread bought without the chute considered but now consider it a must have.
“This poll is very skewed. Looked at whom is posting in it”
I don’t think it is a poll at all. It is informational, reflective only of the posters willing to comment.
Without a doubt the percentage is very high, possibly 90% - who knows? Even though I said it did not affect me then, I also acknowledged that I changed my mind since then. It was not until many crashes and a concerted attempt to increase its use that the chute started to make a statistical difference.
Cessna and its predecessor sold something like 10% of Cirrus sales (and could have sold more) to people who valued TTx attributes. And we know some Cirrus owners don’t like the chute, despite liking the plane.
Rick can chime in here but several crashes involved people who were committed chute haters. I can cite one that said he would never use a chute. He didn’t. He also did not survive the event.
If it weren’t for the chute, I’d have bought a Mooney.
Purely educational, I do not manufacture airplanes. [:D]
Actually I am pro chute 100%.
I watched a great video in YouTube of a Cessna TTx (Columbia 400) vs am SR22T flown by two employees of the same company for the purpose of comparing. They did a great job.
Bottom line for me was the chute made it a no contest.
The Cessna has speed brakes, bigger screens, was marketed as faster (although none of that speed is real life) and was backed by Cessna. It was a slightly better plane from my POV. The Cirrus was roomier which is a big deal that I don’t feel is played up enough.
If you fly a high performance piston,
It must have a chute
Or give it the boot
Oh god…
NO.
Not at all. I would have been in something with 6 seats. More than likely a pressurized single.
A bit off topic, but I flew an Icon A5 today which also has a chute. While flying level at about 2k over a suburban area, I asked the demo pilot, if he lost the engine right now, what would he do. First thing that struck me was he said I was the first demo ride to ever ask him that question. Next he said he would aim for a small field off to the east, and if he couldn’t make that, a road. Not even a thought of using the chute. Seems it was incorporated as a selling point for nervous spouses.DC8E6DC6-A2D9-4661-A913-59242732E18C.MOV (16.7 MB)
Strongly agree with you David. Hopefully soon I’ll buy my first Cirrus. I am not considering anything else because of the chute. I really like some aspects of the TTX and the Piper Matrix but both are not an option. I don’t want to add any additional risks for my family and myself.
Thomas, I picked the G2 over the Columbia back in 2004 mainly for the parachute. Later I owned a Columbia 350 for a short while. Back then, I would have definitely bought the Columbia over the G2. I felt it was built better and flew better, but the parachute was the winner. The best product rarely wins. It’s the best marketing that usually wins.
Matthew;
Fascinating! I believe this was the thought process in most of us back in 2000-2002. The first successful chute pull was in 2003 and the “puller” got a new plane from Cirrus as a result as it proved to actually work. But factory training, just like you are seeing with the Icon, did not emphasize the utility of the chute at the time and, since it was a new concept, nobody ever thought a whole lot about it except if the plane was “unflyable” due to a mid air collision as Alan K was involved in.
But at least a few of us starting seriously rehearsing when we would use the chute after that Lionel Morrison incident where his aileron fell off after maintenance. By 2005 I had a good idea in my head when I would and would not use the chute. But training continued to ignore its utility even at the Cirrus factory level. Then fatal accidents began to accumulate.
I am not surprised, therefore, to see your experience with Icon. It is a new company and, given the majority of the pilots flying that plane will have never had a plane with a parachute, the idea that it has real utility will be ignore. In the case of Cirrus, the fatal accident rate was a driving force in changing that emphasis. The big change started in 2009 and the results are very positive now ten years later. No one gets out of the factory without training on the use of the chute and all CSIPs teach the chute. The chute works.
Now, hopefully, an additional bit of attention will be devoted to how we can prevent ourselves from being in the predicament where the chute is the only option to save our lives. We need more emphasis off engine management and troubleshooting to perhaps avoid the need for certain chute pulls. Sure the chute works but so does that mixture control!
An accurate summary. The chute took awhile to enter pilot thinking. And many pilots, even Cirrus pilots, had a strong mindset o self reliance, which is excellent, but could get in the way of permitting the chute to take over for you.
Icon 5 May have a hard time- they fly low and in a bank, and around water, which seems forgiving, as they have landed on it many times.
It is interesting to see the advertising and developmental problems of a new company. The growing pains of Cirrus were similar.
I hope Icon 5 will have enough time to outgrow them.
Thomas,
Gentle correction…the Columbia 400 with G1000 came out in 2006, and it was the first G1000 installation in any piston airplane to have the keypad controller. Prior to that, all the aircraft had Avidyne, so all 350’s and 400’s with G1000 have the keypad.
You may recall that due to FAA delays with G1000 certification Columbia had something like 75 350’s and 400’s sitting on the ramp in Bend [the hangers were already full], waiting for certification so they could be delivered, when the Great Hail Storm of 2006 came along and played Pachinko with the fleet, a financial disaster for the company which, when coupled with the impending recession, pushed Columbia down the proverbial slippery slope. Fortunately for me, my plane hadn’t been built yet [Airworthiness 12/2006].
Technically, the 400 remained in production until 2013 when it was superseded by the TTX, although the last 400 was built I believe in late 2008.
I dearly wish that Cessna had taken advantage of the purchase and development of the TTX to incorporate BRS, there were a fair number of rumors flying around at the time that it would be a component of the airframe, but not to be…
Aw, gee, Richard, you’ve got me getting all choked up…and all this time I thought I was simply a Voice Crying in the 100LL Wilderness, tying to vainly uphold the Honor of the C400/TTX, and Claremont McKenna College, against all enemies, domestic and South of 6th Street [You Know Who You Are].
BRS and positive marketing would have made a tremendous difference…even at the low production numbers of the last few years the TTX was reportedly profitable, but Textron seems to be focusing on turboprops and jets. Not to mention their acquisition of the Arctic Cat snowmobile line.
But there is at least one metric in which Cessna has Cirrus beat handily!
Discontinued airplanes.
Discounting things like the Cessna 140, let’s look at what they have started and stopped since Cirrus came on the scene:
Next Generation Piston [NGP]. Did a flyby at Oshkosh, never landed.
Skycatcher.
JET-A 182
Jet-A 172
TTX. This, despite Ann and me’s determined effort to keep the production line open…[:)]
Citation Mustang.
7.???
To Cessna’s credit, product support remains extremely strong and extremely responsive. Maybe they should put the parts guys in charge of sales?
Ofcourse! There aren’t many other logical reasons for spending upwards of 900K for a PISTON single!! [:O]
Ha, LOL. It supports our habit.
Drug users have to have their fix ya know. And we will pay anything to get it.
My SR22 has a lot of benefits which are not related to the parachute. But without a parachute I would be in a DA42 for my type of flying. No other SEP.
Bernd
Count me in as I would have gotten a Cirrus without it first one 2001, but am dam glad it is there now, Don