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Using water reduces the risk to people attempting to wrestle a 55-foot diameter parachute canopy blowing the breeze, which would easily lift one of us off the ground! Check out the size in this photo from the Frederick mid-air. And water is something that these guys bring with them...

You are both right. The number of NTSB investigations of Cirrus aircraft has declined over the past few years. Recall that Cirrus continues to deliver 250-300 new airplanes each year, a 5% annual increase, while the number of accidents declines. And risk homeostasis, related to increasing...

No. To my knowledge, no one has been injured after a landing under canopy. The Cirrus parachute has reinflated and flipped over several aircraft, with one dramatic video at Fort Hall, ID, where the parachute dragged the aircraft at perhaps 15 mph upside down until the parachute snagged on a...

Indeed, by my reckoning, 120 people have died in 58 Cirrus fatal accidents where the pilot faced a scenario in which another pilot pulled the red CAPS handle and all survived. That is, in similar scenarios, one pilot pulled and all lived while another pilot didn't pull and all died...

The Cirrus engineering folks are really, really interested in this issue. What breaks at high speed? So far, not much, even at airspeeds way above the demonstrated deployment speed of 133 KIAS. In the Norden, CA, investigation, the parachute separated between the kevlar risers and the...

I like cherries, but explain how numbers have been picked? For a description of the numbers, see this COPA web page, Cirrus Accident Rates. Relevant how? And when? This blog is ancient -- from 2009. Here's the fatal accident rates before, during and after that time period: Cheers Rick

Negative. No other NTSB investigation lists Wyoming than Rock Springs. An SR20 crashed at Maybell, Colorado, the chute deployed from impact forces, and it dragged the wreckage 1.5 miles into Wyoming, close to Baggs, WY. This image shows the CAPS activation cable: Cheers Rick

Actually, the frequency of Cirrus fatal accidents has dropped dramatically over the past 12 months and trended down over the past three years. For more details, see Cirrus Fatal Accident Rates on the COPA web site. 12-month rate is 0.42 fatal accidents per 100,000 flying hours, 36-month...

Got evidence? Cheers Rick

Just one. Norden, CA, in 2005. Parachute ripped off the airframe under extreme high loads. ATC radar last point showed a ground speed in excess of 270 knots and engineering calculations suggest a descending airspeed in excess of 300 knots indicated. Survivable deployments of the Cirrus...