For those wondering at the context, this is a company that builds well-liked small aircraft with the unique feature of having a last-resort emergency parachute for the entire plane built into the fuselage.
Some more context - this the first deployment of the BRS system in their flagship; the Vision Jet.
The Vision Jet is also the only turbine (jet) engine powered aircraft with such a system.
It also boasts the Garmin Safe Return system; where the autopilot lands the aircraft in case of Pilot incapacitation - doing everything from radio calls, selecting the appropriate airport and runway, flying the approach and landing to a stop.
Has Safe Return yet been used in an emergency? I've seen the demo videos, but haven't seen any news reports of it being used for real.
It's not wasted hardware even if not used. The aircraft already has a flight control system capable of flying from waypoint to waypoint and landing. Safe Return adds a layer of software able to compute and enter a course, while squawking Mayday and playing canned emergency messages on the guard frequency. New hardware is just a radio altimeter for use in landing, and the ability to lower the landing gear under computer control.
Didn't this have to add a lot more automation that goes beyond what a typical Cirrus with Perspective/Perspective+ would offer? Not just the radar altimeter and automated gear extension but autothrottle, flaps, braking, an auto-flare, etc...
Are the radio calls one-way, or can it understand directions from the air traffic control tower (e.g. Don't use Runway 6, Runway 8 is clear)? How's that work, voice recognition or teletype or something?
Pretty sure the system doesn't parse ATC audio but as other posters have noted can use machine readable METARs and other data to get a sense for weather and available runways. (Note that the system does NOT parse NOTAMs yet per https://skiesmag.com/features/virtual-co-pilot-garmin-autola...) Beyond that am guessing that it declares its intentions and hopes ATC can pave a clear path. They are generally exceptionally good at doing this for aircraft in distress; just squawk 7700, state your intentions on 121.5, they will make it happen - you're allowed to do literally anything and violate every rule in the book if it's required for safety of flight. You can land on an active military base or a major commercial airport runway if you need to. Mind you, there may be some paperwork to fill out on the ground after, but while you're in the pickle everyone is there to help.
Additional context: there have been major airliner crashes resulting in hundreds of deaths as a result of planes put in holding patterns by ATC that ran out of fuel while waiting to land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052
Any reasonably sophisticated jet (of which this is clearly one) will have access to more or less realtime weather data, as well as NOTAMs (notices to airmen) regarding closed runways and such.
I'm not familiar with the system's details, but I would assume that it would pick the nearest towered airport with emergency services that met the requirements of the landing performance. Landing autonomously on a strip in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around, isn't likely to be particularly useful in an emergency unless the aircraft is no longer airworthy - and even then, if you can keep it in the air, going somewhere big with emergency services is a better idea.
A towered airport will have air traffic control (not all small strips do), and if the jet sets the transponder code to indicate an emergency, and is making blind radio calls about intent as to what runway it's going to land on, ATC will then clear the airport for the incoming emergency, and keep everyone else out of the way - and roll the trucks to meet it once it stops. I doubt it will bother getting off the runway autonomously - just come to a safe stop, shut down, and then it's someone else's problem to taxi it off.
Aviation is somewhat nice in that way. Emergency traffic has priority. If I were to be flying a Cessna 152 along Lake Michigan and had an emergency with O'Hare being the nearest airport, I've got priority, and the oceanic heavies will get out of the way until it's resolved. Now, you may have some serious questions about what the problem was, but this is the sort of stuff resolved after the fact, on the ground.
> you may have some serious questions about what the problem was, but this is the sort of stuff resolved after the fact, on the ground.
There will be questions, but there is a very strong doctrine of "A pilot in an emergency can do whatever the fuck they think is best", to the point where they are explicitly trained to ignore ATC orders in an emergency, if they don't agree.
A pilot would have to do something extremely malicious before the FAA would even start to question the choice of emergency landing airport. They don't want pilots second guessing their decisions out of fair of reprisals.
If a pilot were to call mayday and say they're landing on runway 6 everyone would be trying to ensure runway 6 was clear. The only way 6 would be blocked is if there was something already on it that couldn't be moved in time. Think of a mayday call as the lights and sirens of the sky.
Yeah--the point is that a plane under robot control like that is going to be calling mayday and everyone on the frequency is going to make way for it if possible. You make way for a plane calling mayday like you make way for any vehicle running lights and sirens--but in the sky there's a lot more ability to make room and a lot more enforcement against anyone who doesn't obey.
One way. The purpose is so that other pilots are aware that there's a problem. In a lot of US airspace there is no air traffic control, and most strips do not have anything resembling a control tower.
I think you meant to say "single pilot passenger jet" that is fully certified, and if so, that statement is not correct. The Phenom, Citation, and several others are.
I suppose GP meant to say “single engine non-turboprop turbofan/turbojet private jet that are FAA certified to operate in the US with appropriate civilian licenses”.
And while there are countless single engine jet planes and many small business jets without lavatory, there indeed aren’t many (“jet” engine && single engine && business jet) designs, let alone civilian type certified models.
Certification is the process of getting an aircraft design/model approved by the FAA for sale/use. There are 3 phases for GA commercially available aircraft, type certification (design approved), production certification (manufacturing approved), and airworthiness certification (plane tested, and ready for sale to the public)
Usually when someone says a plane has received its certification they mean it’s ‘airworthiness certification’, so the final approval by the FAA.
Each commercially ised or sold aircraft has to come from a certified Desogn Organisation, has to be built by a certified Production Organisation (in most cases the same company, aerospace legallish Airbus and Boeing have a DO and a PO which arw separate entities as far as authorities are converned), needs an Type Certificate (achieved after successful flight testing and to be redone if there are configuration and design changes) and has to be maintained by a certified maintenance organisation and operated by a certified operator (continued airworthymess is a operator thing, just don't ask me any details on that, I work on the PO and touched some maintenance stuff in my life so far).
Usually, EASA and FAA cross certify, making it easier to get one if you have the other already. Fascinating stuff, aerospace certification.
Boeing skipped the step "to be redone if there are configuration and design changes" for the 737MAX, and smoothed over the differences with software. FAA was supportive of that rule-bending, and other countries followed along.
Yes and no. They din't skip it, the FAA acceptrd and certified the new design based data Boeing provided. Boeing should have, in my opinion, completely recertified the MAX instead of treating it as just a new 737 variant.
> It also boasts the Garmin Safe Return system; where the autopilot lands the aircraft in case of Pilot incapacitation - doing everything from radio calls, selecting the appropriate airport and runway, flying the approach and landing to a stop.
Indeed, you need to consider CAPS early because it requires altitude, in a plane with a problem you are presumably losing altitude, maybe rapidly, so it won't be long before you can't use CAPS. By then you need to have either decided to use it, or picked some other course of action so that you don't need it.
Unlike the rocket ejector seat in a fighter jet, CAPS cannot save you very close to the ground. The ejector seat in a modern fighter is rated for zero/zero ie you could pull the handle from a plane that's just sat on the ground motionless, it would still eject you upward and you'd probably survive. CAPS is intended to be used at two thousand feet AGL (ie above the ground)
> CAPS is intended to be used at two thousand feet AGL (ie above the ground)
As another person commented[1], they claim it to work as low as 400ft (straight and level flight, 920ft during a spin). Much higher than a combat jet, but not too bad either.
As a glider pilot I find this mindset disappointing. Every aviator must have a constantly updating array of "what if" situations and planned responses: "Right now, where's my best landing spot and how would I get lined up for that?" etc. It leads to a chess-like thinking ahead mindset which brings all kinds of benefits. "Whelp I'll just pull the lever if something goes wrong" robs you of that.
Automation and chutes are fine but we keep seeing incidents where lack of judgement, planning or basic stick and rudder skills were contributory.
You can find it dissapointing, but they found that statistics supports this kind of emphasis in the parachute training.
Obviously it is not true that people use it as a first resort. Landing with wheels on the runway is the first resort. As supported by the fact that vastly more cirruses land that way.
Initially they trained it as a last resort. Something you only do when you get mated in that chess game you mention. What they found is that pilots were reluctant to pull the lever. They know it totals the aircraft and it is hard to see the point where all is lost with 100% certainty. Pilots crashed planes where the chute could have saved them.
So they changed the emphasis. They now tell the pilots in their training that if they are ever in any doubt they should pull the lever. The people on board will walk away and the plane is the problem of the insurer. After this change in the training they have seen that pilots were pulling a lever a lot more and a lot more lives were saved.
> Automation and chutes are fine but we keep seeing incidents where lack of judgement, planning or basic stick and rudder skills were contributory.
Absolutely. There are a some general aviation pilots who perhaps should not be flying. I don’t know how the people organising the parachute training at Cirrus could help with that though.
The thought process for out-landing a glider and landing a Cirrus in a field is very different.
A typical glider might touch down at 40mph, a Cirrus SR22 at 70mph. The glider might weigh 800lbs and the Cirrus 3600lbs. The energy at touchdown (remember velocity is squared!) is radically different. Also keep in mind that the wheels are only about 15" in diameter. 70mph in a typical farm field on 15" wheels is not going end well unless the field is perfectly smooth and firm. Not to mention the challenges of not hitting power lines, fences and cows while going significantly faster on approach (final speed is more like 100mph).
The parachute is there to take a situation where survival is a real gamble and turn it into a situation where survival is probable (almost 100% so far).
> Automation and chutes are fine but we keep seeing incidents where lack of judgement, planning or basic stick and rudder skills were contributory.
The same reason modern high performance singles like the TBM are known as “dentist killers”. The profusion of technology that eliminated those stick and rudder skills has led to a lot of inexperienced pilots getting into situations they shouldn’t ever be in.
Interesting, never heard of that reputation being associated with more modern turboprops like TBMs.
Definitely have heard of it for older piston prop planes, especially from the early 2000s, which I always understood is partly a mix of factors re: the affordability of GA piston planes, how common it was to fly without IFR training etc...
I would imagine with turboprops like the TBMs, quite a few factors filter out their ownership by folks who aren't IFR trained, + the fact jets are as I understand generally inspected with much more rigor on more frequent basis?
Which the Cirrus is. Is there a reason they selected this design?
Vision Jet is a great airplane with a sound design. But they are akin to the general aviation equivalent of a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Lots of fun and perfectly safe if you know what you’re doing. Disastrous if not.
It really just comes down to training. An aircraft with this level of performance would have only been flown by someone with an ATP certificate 20 years ago. Now anyone with money and a PPL + type rating can get into situations they have no ability to correct.
Ballistic Recovery System. It is a parachute afixed to the airframe which can be deployed by the pilot. It is named that because the parachute is pulled out of its housing by a small solid-fueled rocket.
Engine failure, running out of fuel, stalls, spins, midair collisions, disorientation, etc. Cirrus has a history of CAPS deployments, linked in the article and copied here: https://www.cirruspilots.org/Safety/CAPS-Event-History
But I was under the impression that pilot training has a lot of attention on recovery from a stall or spin, and unless at low altitude, those are generally recoverable (in a small aircraft). Would love for someone with actual knowledge to weigh in, thanks!
In docile trainer aircraft the spin can be recovered from, but that's usually only allowed to be tested in the utility category which has more restrictive weight & balance limits. In famously efficient airframes, it can take several thousand feet. In this article, the famously hard to insure pilot killer the Lancair IV took 4,000 feet: https://www.kitplanes.com/taming-the-lancair-iv/
Part of the Part 23 (certified aircraft rules) process is demonstrating spin recovery. The Lancair is experimental so it's not Part 23. Cirrus said, "We put in a parachute instead of demonstrating spin recovery." To which the FAA said, "OK, that works for us."
Since the Cirrus prohibits spins (most certified aircraft do) and Cirrus never demonstrated it officially, I only have the word of random comments on the internet to go with. The assumed state is, "The SR22 has poor recovery characteristics from spins and the manufacturer states in the POH that CAPS is the only recovery method." Maybe it's not all that bad, but at pattern altitude (this has sadly been demonstrated) I'm sure it's fatal.
There's some folklore in that criticism. Cirrus listed CAPS as its spin recovery technique because it was the easiest + cheapest way to demonstrate that it meets FAR 23.221. EASA didn't accept that and required actual spin recovery, so a test pilot put an SR20 into a spin about 60 times without incident. It sounds like there is some technique to it, but nothing that couldn't be taught in transition training or that you wouldn't expect from such a slippery airframe:
> The Cirrus test pilot performing the spin program noted that while all spins entered were recoverable, they required a method of spin recovery that, while not unique in light general aviation airplanes, is different from that of a light trainer airplane in which a pilot is likely to receive spin training. Significant variability in spin recovery training techniques also exists – ranging from merely releasing the elevator control in some light trainers, to movement of the control to neutral, to brisk forward movement to neutral, to brisk foreward movement past neutral, etc.. In the case of the SR20, the proper spin recovery procedure is to briskly move the elevator control to the full down position. This is an unnatural control movement, when the nose of the aircraft may already appear to the pilot to be pointing down sharply. This is also a movement not typically advocated by spin training instructors due to associated discomfort.
Stall avoidance and recovery is mandatory training for certification, arguably mandatory training for make/model checkout even if there's no type rating required.
Stall spin training is only required for flight instructor certification. While anyone can do this training, FARs require both instructor and student are wearing a parachute, unless it's for CFI training.
It can take time and altitude to recover a spin, and low altitude maneuvers are often where unintentional spins occur. That said, I don't know what the minimum altitude for a parachute deployment is. That'd be important.
There are no minumums per say. If you need it pull it. The higher you pull it the better it can work. They say the demonstrated parameters are: 400 feet in straight and level flight and 920 feet in spin.
Very impressive to see how many people were able to walk away from these incidents, I wonder what the counts of injury or worse would look like without this system?
Also it seems like these small planes have a lot of incidents, I'm guessing due to relatively inexperienced pilots?
>Also it seems like these small planes have a lot of incidents, I'm guessing due to relatively inexperienced pilots?
There's also less redundancy in the plane overall so if something goes wrong it's more likely to lead to serious issues. A large commercial plane has multiple pilots, engines, power sources, control surface systems, computers, sensors, etc.
Small plane pilots are generally “not as experienced as they could be” and so Cirrus pilots are trained “when in doubt pop it out” as you might be able to successfully crash land or make it to a landing field, but the chute doesn’t work below a certain altitude.
This incident looks like it may be one of those cases. The pilot was on the glide slope to the airport when he runs into a microburst and decides to pull the lever before getting pushed down into the lake.
I’ve seen way too many episodes of Air Crash Investigations.
A microburst could easily take out a full-sized airline at low altitude. That’s why airports and planes have equipment to detect air shear so they don’t fly into it. Small planes are far more affected by weather and don’t typical have radar or safety systems like flight envelope protection.
General Aviation/Private Aviation is as dangerous as riding a motorcycle, per hour of participation. At least the last time I checked the statistics. It might have improved with navigation technology and flight planning software becoming more affordable.
Yeah but to be fair, aviation statistics would also be 10% as bad if they excluded people who didn’t fly into bad weather, took off overweight, didn’t have enough fuel in the tanks, ran out of light or were too fatigued, or couldn’t say ‘no’ to tasking or an unserviceable aircraft.
Small planes are often flown under visual rules without a flight plan, meaning that pilots are free to basically dick around... with prohibitions against unauthorized entry into controlled airspace and flying too close to people and structures on the ground. And that's totally fine when done responsibly.
But the free-form nature of the vehicle operation provides more opportunity for screw-ups. Maybe someone was buzzing his house or not paying attention to flying while giving a sightseeing tour to his friends.
Compared to commercial flights, it's no wonder that GA has a far higher accident rate. Commercial flights fly extremely predictable and repetitive routes and procedures, which reduce the number of variables into the mission. I'd liken the comparison to that between personal cars and buses, except commercial air travel is even more regimented than bus travel.
Yes to both, with the assumption a unpowered landing is not a better option. The straps are part of the air frame - so the parachute more or less turns this into something disposable. Spin recovery is tricky enough I don't believe they have a procedure that does not involve the shoot.
A photo from the prop version, post deployment. You can see how the straps are embedded in. Neat system.
Nearly always in the event of an engine failure or an unrecoverable attitude; which may be a spin.
Cirrus’s transition training emphasises pulling the chute - the seats and airframe are designed to absorb the vertical impact and protect the people on board. Most other aircraft you learn to pick a field to glide into, or do spin / unusual attitude training to recover from them. The chute is essentially a get out of jail free card for when you don’t have the options for any of those things.
AVweb did an interesting video a couple of years ago, "Are Planes With Parachutes Really Safer?":
> The Cirrus line of aircraft have been flying for 20 years and although most people in aviation know they have full aircraft parachutes, it's fair to ask how effective these have been. With more than 90 uses of the so-called CAPS, has the system really saved lives? In this video, AVweb's Paul Bertorelli analyzes the record.
Concludes that parachutes a generally a good thing, and even though the Cirrus aircraft fleet has grown from 5000 to 7000 airplanes over the last ten years (12m30s), the anual fatality numbers have stay the same and so have overall annual accidents.
The first few years didn't see much improvement, probably because the training didn't emphasize it as much, but since ~2013 the advice is generally "if you're experiencing issues just pull the 'chute". There is a cost to fixing the aircraft afterwards, but it will be you paying it and not your widow or estate.
The often not considered factory is the type of pilots that are attracted to (or advertised at) Cirrus's are generally considered to be high risk / low hours / non-current, so the accident stats are even more remarkable.
This is an often repeated, but completely false observation. The reality is that Cirrus and Diamond dominate the market for new piston singles [1]. If you want to buy a piston aircraft with the latest safety features, performance, comfort and training, then Cirrus is the number one choice. Cirrus has the number 1, 3 & 6 top selling aircraft (all have the same airframe and avionics with different engines) and thus dominates new sales.
The Cirrus SF50, which was the subject of this story, is the top selling light jet by a large margin too for many of the same reasons. It provides the best safety features, technology, comfort and price - though admittedly it does sacrifice performance to achieve the other attributes. This is aviation and everything is a collection finely balanced trade-offs.
It may or may not be false but I don’t see the relevance of citing stats about the purchase of brand new airplanes. As I’m sure you know, most airplanes sold are used, because most people can’t afford a brand new 4 place certificated airplane.
The problem with Cirrus is the parachute. Insurance companies don’t like it because instead of half or more of aircraft landing safely on a road or in a field, they are now all write offs.
This then adds insurance premiums. We are also now in the position of having to do extra annual training (irrespective of experience) to get insurance because so many amateur pilots are flying Cirrus (I think it’s the new V tail doctor killer, minus the killing). You have been warned: there are better aircraft out there imho.
And I haven’t even started on the flight controls (spring feedback is terrible), unstable yaw stability without yaw dampener (pax vomit profusely), and single power lever which decreases rpm with power resulting in an aircraft unable to (easily) slow down (without idle) which is normally done with prop braking. This results in energy problems similar to airlines where rookie pilots who cannot think ahead end up with too much energy. Also these modern long thin glider wing designs trying to get +5kts more can go to hell - they are getting so large it makes ground handling difficult; often longer than the airborne saving. If you want to get there faster, you save time on the ground.
A decked out RV-10 is a good alternative.
> ...and single power lever which decreases rpm with power resulting in an aircraft unable to (easily) slow down (without idle) which is normally done with prop braking
The article is about the Cirrus Vision Jet, not the Cirrus SR22 propeller-driven aircraft.
Very interesting point but this chute is seriously making me consider taking flying lessons. Compared to motorcycle, plane is far safer. If an engine fails you can still glide to safety. Failing that deploy this chute.
One additional feature safety would be terrain recovery where if it detects you are unconscious, the plane would automatically pull out of the dive or avoid terrain obstacles (like side of a mountain) and place itself in a holding pattern. Taking a step further, the plane would identify nearest field without traffic or powerlines and deploy the chutes to land itself.
The last two layers are really nice to haves, its already incredible to have chutes readily available in private jets. Now its tough to argue that flying is inherently dangerous with these extra layers of last resort measures.
Having said that I do think cheaper alternatives to this Cirrus jet already exists, nothing wrong with propeller planes either. My goal would be to be able to do bush flying, landing on top of mountain fields, camping for a while and then flying back home.
What you’re after is a piper cub. Incredible short field takeoff and landing performance. You can land from an engine failure in a tiny amount of space, quite safely.
The comments so far seem to presume the parachute is the only thing required to keep you safe. Statistically there’s two engine failures every 100,000 hours in single engine pistons. That’s incredibly low. Most pilots are lucky to make 1000 hours in a lifetime.
The thing that is actually going to kill most people is flying a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the side of a hill in bad weather, hitting wires, or mishandling on base turn and stalling.
The previous comments about the parachute being ineffective for takeoff and landing are partially correct. The minimum altitude for successful CAPS (parachute) deployment is 500ft AGL, but it has been used much lower successfully (sorry don’t have the figures but I think 200-300ft).
They market the CAPS like it’s the only thing required to make flying safe but in reality you are more likely to kill yourself than the airplane killing you; and a parachute won’t stop that.
I know of 7 engine failures with people I know and they all walked away safely after landing in a field. It’s rare it ends up in a fatality, even without a parachute. Most are in fact twin engines that suffer an engine failure and mishandling results in Vmca (too slow for rudder to keep it straight), and they depart controlled flight and crash. 2 engines is not safer.
At least for commercial flights, takeoff and landing are the dangerous parts, and that's where the chute is least effective. I wonder if it's the same for general aviation.
I wonder for those situations where you experience catastrophic failures at low altitude situations where you can't deploy the chutes, whether some type of short burst rockets situated around the plane could activate to "cushion" the plane and orientate it to safety.
Sort of like the short takeoff/land rockets used in large military planes.
As a general aviation pilot it’s my opinion that takeoff and landing are indeed the most dangerous parts of a flight. Takeoff being the most dangerous of the two.
I looked into the stats before I started flying and iirc this is not the case for private aircraft on a per-hour basis. In fact, private aircraft may have been riskier than motorcycle.
Last time I checked overall private flying was about 8 times more dangerous than a car, and right on par with a motorcycle.
~~However, something like 35% of the accidents are running out of fuel, and of the remaining accidents, 35% of those were in poor weather.~~
So if it is a clear day and you remember to put fuel in the airplane it gets you ahead of a motorcycle and not as safe as a car.
It really depends on if you look at just fatal accidents or all accidents.
Edit:
Looking at 2019 it appears 38 of 109 fatal accidents were weather and fuel related.
So if you fill up with gas and fly on a nice day you are definitely still worse than a car and maybe twice as safe as a motorcycle? (statistically speaking of course)
If choosing a powered outdoor hobby, maybe ride motorcycles offroad then. Trail riding is totally a thing. With electric motorbikes it could be a peaceful day out!
If you pull the parachute, it's very likely to be a hull loss.
There are a whole lot of scenarios where you might pull the parachute but have a decent chance of getting down safely.
So, the parachute optimizes for occupant survival, but not survival of property. Insurers are in a conflicted scenario here: lowering injury claims but increasing property losses.
Teslas are in a very similar position and you can get insurance for those.
It's a total loss if you need any kind of body work (due to absurdly long wait times and Tesla considering damn near everything on the car structural) or anything related to the battery (due to replacement cost).
Insurance companies have a great deal of experience in the business of pricing risk. If they could model the risk of insuring Cirrus aircraft as if they did not have parachutes, then a first-cut model for them with parachutes seems well within reach - just assume all in-flight incidents causing damage will be total losses!
awesome to see the first real world example of a caps parachute deployment on the vision jet working out well.
the caps parachute results in “a good day for the passengers — walk away, bad day for the insurance company — plane will never fly again”
the vision jet also has a “safe return” feature that will 100% autonomously land at the nearest suitable airport.
both brs and safe return are designed to be initiated by a passenger, in the event of pilot incapacitation.
i’ve had the pleasure of flying on a vision jet before — it’s a really cool aircraft that flies almost as fast and high as much more expensive jets. and can be easily (realistically) flown by a single pilot.
> i’ve had the pleasure of flying on a vision jet before — it’s a really cool aircraft that flies almost as fast and high as much more expensive jets
It’s a really cool aircraft but It’s nowhere close to the speed or service ceiling of most private jets.
Here’s Citationmax departing LAX in a vision jet. It’s a beautiful video to watch but it seems like he is struggling to reach the Standard Instrument Departure (SID) altitudes for each waypoint, only able to do about 100 KIAS in the climb.
> It’s a really cool aircraft but It’s nowhere close to the speed or service ceiling of most private jets.
there's a recent story of a vision jet pilot who's been putting "treat me like a turboprop, I don't mind" in the comments of flight plans to let controllers know what they can expect performance wise from him (and to make them laugh).
It’s a cool plane but very much does not “fly almost as fast” as traditional jets. It’s super slow and sluggish in that regard and causes headaches for ATC because it can’t fly as fast or climb as fast as other jets. Think everyone cruising down a highway with nice spacing doing 65 MPH and then one person is doing 45 MPH… that’s what ATC has to work around.
It's in a strange spot because practically every other single engine jet aircraft is military, and I imagine it's tricky to drop a bigger engine in the vision jet without sacrificing cabin/cargo space. I liked the other comment comparing it to a turboprop. I'd say it's performance is something like turboprop+ but it's clearly not in the same category as other small passenger jets.
Agree it's awesome. Although the cruising speed is around 300 knots where a small bizjet would be over 400. That is more comparable to a fast propeller plane.
I am sure the plane can fly again on most cases, they just don't want the liability and they want to put "pressure" on the pilots to only deploy it when necessary.
A Cirrus pilot that loses an engine at a safe altitude will not think of deploying it because the plane will be gone.
I don’t think that’s the way insurance companies look at it - as I recall, I think they actually waive the deductible in the event of a chute deployment to encourage use of the system. Paying for an airframe is a lot cheaper than the inevitable wrongful death lawsuits.
I'll be really curious to see what the reason for the deployment was. If it was listed elsewhere, I have missed it.
Looking at the CAPS pulls on SR22## aircraft, the primary reasons are almost always either 1) pilot error or 2) engine issues.
Getting to the point of being insurable in a VisionJet is likely no small feat, though I admit I have no idea what the minimums and/or ratings required are to obtain an affordable policy. I am expecting that a low-time pilot is not going to be able to afford the insurance.
Turbine engines are notably reliable, so am curious if there was some other kind of issue.
In any case, glad they are OK and am interested to see the NTSB report someday in the future as to the cause.
While the official report on the reason will probably not come out for a while, there is some speculation that it was due to convective activity (thunderstorms) in the region. Someone on the Cirrus pilots forum looked up the weather at the time of the incident, and it looked like there was some decently heavy precipitation along the approach path.
Cirrus had a bad safety record when the aircraft first came out (this was the SR series). In essence it was a similar story to the “doctor killer” mantra that plagued Bonanzas early on… essentially pilots with more money that flying skill. The SR series are nice aircraft but also not “docile” relative to other single engine pistons. One can get into trouble real quick if flying outside the numbers and envelope.
Cirrus really revamped their training and that had a big impact. They also changed training to really emphasize chute pulls, which had probably led to some hair trigger pilot pulls but has also saved lives.
Will be interesting to see what happened here when all the details come out.
The bigger the vehicle the more altitude that is needed to deploy chutes. The bigger the vehicle the proportionately heavier the chutes need to be because they need to spread out more and they need to be stronger.
Furthermore, most commercial aviation disasters occur at low altitude and the ones that happen at high altitude tend to be too catastrophic for chutes to be of value. (If something bad happens at high altitude that doesn't destroy the plane it tends to make it back.) Off the top of my head I can only think of three crashes where they could have used chutes--two where the hydraulics were damaged by high energy events (and would the chutes have worked properly??) and one fuel failure due to hijacking.
I’d imagine it might be technically possible but not practical. The weight required for ballistic parachute systems is substantial. On small aircraft (such as Cirrus and Icon) it reduces the useful load, and thus range/payload, substantially. Range and payload are very important aspects of commercial passenger aircraft.
Further, commercial passenger aircraft are already very safe due to system redundancy not practical on smaller aircraft. Would a ballistic parachute system help with many accidents in this category? I would be willing to bet not. Ballistic parachute systems are not a magic bullet - they require substantial altitude/time to deploy (as much as 900 feet in a spin, for example). Many substantial aviation accidents happen during takeoff and landing below or near these altitudes.
Would you pay a multiple of your current airfare for an extremely small (practical) reduction in travel risk?
I don't see why not but passenger aircraft are incredibly safe and the pilots are usually very experienced with at least in co-pilot. Even more so if you exclude war and runway related accidents which wouldn't be helped by a parachute.
A parachute in the right place could help some of those landing/runway incidents too. But hard to imagine many pilots deploying the chute on a landing they thought they were good for.
Chutes take some period of time before they begin slowing the aircraft. If distance to impact is less than the distance to deploy the chute, the chute does not help.
But they also come at the expense of control. Once you pop the chute, you're a passenger, you no longer have the ability to control or point the airplane in any preferred direction.
If you've lost that ability already, the chute is fine, but if you still have the ability to influence your path, being able to pick what you hit and how fast you hit it can be worth a lot.
Drag cars have parachutes. I’m unsure why a parachute would keep you going straight only. All your other controls are still there, you just have more drag.
I used to do lead generation marketing for these folks and noted this was a neat feature at the time that was a big value prop we led with. Glad to see it works.
Looking at the photos, at least one of them crushed a pickup truck coming down in a parking lot. It'd certainly be a bad day for a bystander if they couldn't get out of the way. But, as you say, an uncontrolled landing is no better, and with probable higher impact speeds and greater risk of fire.
It amazes me the way the pilot doing the demonstration in the video (embedded in TFA) is so calm and matter-of-fact about the process. It's putting a remarkable degree of trust in an automated system, which, if there were some edge case failure, would be fatal.
