45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to date.

[FastEddieB]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

Complain about Cirrus' marketing but in the end the pilot is ultimately responsible.

Check out this ad:

Hint: It's not a Cirrus ad.

I like the line about "tomorrow might not happen", if he doesn't charge ahead because he can't afford to wait.

The word "ironic" comes to mind.

 

[Henning]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

Get a grip. Most of those "saves" with perhaps only a couple exceptions were pilots who got themselves into trouble through their own faulty decision making. Rid yourself of faulty decision making (i.e. by training) and it is far less likely to happen. So am I going to blow that kind of cash on something for an instance rarer than getting hit by lightening or winning the lottery? Review just how many crashes are blamed on critical malfunctions and then subtract the number of pilots without the stones or training to put it down safely when they could have. Most of this nation is open space without cities, rocks, or water. The vast majority.

Moreover, pull the chute over lake Michigan you still get to drown. Pull it over a remote mountain and you still get to try and hike your way out or hope for rescue. Every form of refuge has its price.

Training has no effect on poor decision making, there just is no fixing stupid.

 

[0luke1]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

Suppose you have a bird strike and are left with only one eye.
Part of the beak is lodged in your neck hitting a nerve, causing your head to twitch and legs to flail wildly.

You are completely coherent but in a lot of pain, and don't have full motor control from the waist down.

Also by a weird twist of events, the bird survived. The bird is flapping all over the place and bleeding from where his (I think it is a boy bird) beak was.

It's starting to rain.

Now you have a wet bird that has gotten himself wedged in between the dash and the knobs and inadvertently pulls the mixture. The engine quits.

There you are at 12000 feet, wet, partially blind, windshield smashed, no engine (couldn't get it restarted) it's raining, you got the Jimmy legs, and you feel like you may pass out from blood loss.

And you are a hemophiliac.

Do you pull the chute?

I mean a bird strike can happen to anyone.

You're absolutely right and making more sense than anyone.

When I was in flight school, they briefed us on a turkey vulture strike that knocked the student unconscious who then slumped against the stick and the instructor had to bail out (he was covered in turkey vulture guts, which he assumed belonged to the student's head). The student woke up, pulled the t34 out of its dive and flew home. The instructor had to hitchhike back from Alabama.

If they had a CAPS, this story would not have been nearly amusing.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

Get a grip. Most of those "saves" with perhaps only a couple exceptions were pilots who got themselves into trouble through their own faulty decision making.

There have been more than "only a couple." Off the top of my head I can think of two pilot incapacitation events and a control failure - Exactly the type of thing that even you would want a red handle for.

There are a LOT more situations where the pilot should have pulled the handle and didn't than there are situations where the pilot pulled the handle when they maybe still had other options.

Moreover, pull the chute over lake Michigan you still get to drown.

For much of the year, you wouldn't even live long enough to drown.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

Suppose you have a bird strike and are left with only one eye.
Part of the beak is lodged in your neck hitting a nerve, causing your head to twitch and legs to flail wildly.

You are completely coherent but in a lot of pain, and don't have full motor control from the waist down.

Also by a weird twist of events, the bird survived. The bird is flapping all over the place and bleeding from where his (I think it is a boy bird) beak was.

It's starting to rain.

Now you have a wet bird that has gotten himself wedged in between the dash and the knobs and inadvertently pulls the mixture. The engine quits.

There you are at 12000 feet, wet, partially blind, windshield smashed, no engine (couldn't get it restarted) it's raining, you got the Jimmy legs, and you feel like you may pass out from blood loss.

And you are a hemophiliac.

Do you pull the chute?

I mean a bird strike can happen to anyone.

The chances of a bird strike with a still-living bird pulling your mixture in a rainstorm is probably still better than the chances of a hemophiliac getting a medical.

 

[steingar]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

There have been more than "only a couple." Off the top of my head I can think of two pilot incapacitation events and a control failure - Exactly the type of thing that even you would want a red handle for.

Only a paltry few, and I don't weigh my odds that way. Like I said, if I'm going to blow that kind of money on aviation I'll go for the training that might prevent bad decision making and empower me when things go wrong. Such training is far more likely to come in handy and would be way, way more fun.

Hell, with parachute money I'm halfway to an A&P at the local school, with which I could maintain my own aircraft and make certain that catastrophic failure never occurred.

 

[frcabot]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

You can never guarantee that catastrophic failure won't occur.

The point mostly was discussing chute activations in airplanes already equipped.

 

[frcabot]

Re: 45th Cirrus CAPS (Parachute) activation in Aus and the best footage caught to dat

Training has no effect on poor decision making, there just is no fixing stupid.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, but I don't think that's true. That's why there are entire books and courses and seminars devoted to aeronautical decision making.