Student pops the chute rather than the parking brake

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Fwiw- this was a 172 with a BRS STC.
Anyone know where the handle is located in a retro-installation?
 
Brad Z said:
Fwiw- this was a 172 with a BRS STC.
Anyone know where the handle is located in a retro-installation?
Click to expand...
BRS website has photos:

BRS-20.jpg


FMP.jpg


Looks kinda hard to do accidentally
 

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The Cirrus chute takes a 40 pound pull, I'm thinking BRS probably ships with similar system?
 
The first photo shows a safety pin. Shouldn't that have been in place after landing and before leaving the airplane?
 
A former classmate of mine was an instructor pilot for Vietnamese pilots flying the C-7 Caribou. During a before-starting checklist, the student pilot missed the fire warning test. He was supposed to push a button that illuminated the engine emergency shutdown T-handle. The IP pointed to that line on the checklist, and the Vietnamese student reached up and fired a fire extinguisher into the engine.
 
According to the report, the "student" has his Commercial Single Engine and Multi Engine Land certificate, Certified Flight Instructor certificate, and about 250 hours of flight time on the same make and model of the plane.
 
Instructor: After I interviewed the student why he pulled that handle he responded that he didn’t know what it was, so he assumed that it had to be the parking brake.

Again, this student had flown this make and model multiple times before.
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Just wow... Before I solo'ed I had already learned not to use the park brake on a C-152 or a C-172.

Because it might not release.

Do you really have to ask me how I found out.??
 
Zeldman said:
Just wow... Before I solo'ed I had already learned not to use the park brake on a C-152 or a C-172.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I have over 800 hours in Cessna 150 and 172's, always used the parking brake, and never had a failure to release. I do not recall any of my partners reporting a problem, either. Possibly better maintained?
 
Pulling a red handle you know nothing about , especially a handle that has a sticker on it that says “BRS” … I don’t know , seems rather careless.
 
Doesn’t look like the after landing check list was done,only a guess.
 
Either the preflight briefing was bad, or the pilots retention is troubling.

I have flown with pilots like that, but only once each.
 
Never underestimate human stupidity.
 
250 hours in 172s and he appears to not know the parking brake handle? He might want to start studying the POH for getting checked out in a 709.

(I know he won’t get a 709 over it, it was just an easy shot at a dorky joke.)
 
ateamer said:
250 hours in 172s and he appears to not know the parking brake handle? He might want to start studying the POH for getting checked out in a 709.

(I know he won’t get a 709 over it, it was just an easy shot at a dorky joke.)
Click to expand...

Really isn't that unusual though. A lot of flight schools don't use them because they are prone to fail. Also very common to leave off if there is any chance the aircraft may be towed or repositioned. I can only think of one aircraft I've flown that we ever used the parking brake, and that was a plane with no toe brakes and only a handbrake. Setting the parking brake was mandatory for runups.

Heck, the airplane I own I've never used the parking brake, not really even sure how or if it works.
 
Well, the good news here is that he's learned the lesson and won't do that again.
 
I think pulling handles that you don't know what they do is worse than forgetting that you need to pull a handle. JMO
 
Matthew said:
BRS website has photos:

BRS-20.jpg


FMP.jpg


Looks kinda hard to do accidentally
Click to expand...

If I had to guess, it was muscle memory and his unconscious mind was thinking he was in his car.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Really isn't that unusual though. A lot of flight schools don't use them because they are prone to fail. Also very common to leave off if there is any chance the aircraft may be towed or repositioned. I can only think of one aircraft I've flown that we ever used the parking brake, and that was a plane with no toe brakes and only a handbrake. Setting the parking brake was mandatory for runups.

Heck, the airplane I own I've never used the parking brake, not really even sure how or if it works.
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The Cessna parking brakes wear out quickly. The mechanism is just light stuff. In the 150 it was just small jam plates on the master cylinder pushrod, and those plates have holes designed to jam the rod when they're cocked. The edges of the holes wear and lose their grip. It's the same idea that a lot of household screen doors used on their closers, to hold the door open.

The O-rings in the masters and calipers are Buna-N, a semi-synthetic rubber dating from WW2. It works ok, but if it's subjected to constant pressure it will take a "set" and deform. The pressure pushes it up against the cylinder wall and piston land, squaring it, and when the pressure is taken off after a long hold it relaxes and then has little sealing pressure left against the cylinder, and it starts leaking. I have repaired that stuff too often due to an owner using those park brakes all the time instead of chocks. The calipers suffer the worst. They're often hot by the time you park, and the heat adds to the deformation. That heat also expands the hydraulic fluid trapped in the system, increasing the pressure on those seals.

upload_2023-2-9_8-50-35.jpeg

Cars use a mechanical brake application, unless some newer ones are using hydraulic. In any case, they sure aren't using Buna-N O-rings.

The airplane's park brake is handy for short periods, such as holding the airplane while you chock it or fuel it, but long holds will cause you problems.
 
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midwestpa24 said:
Heck, the airplane I own I've never used the parking brake, not really even sure how or if it works.
Click to expand...

so I went to pick up my plane after annual and hit my knee on some unknown thing, ouch

good to know it works!
 
Matthew said:
BRS website has photos:

BRS-20.jpg
Click to expand...

I'd add, if this was a Cirrus it would be much more unusual, parking brakes aren't usually located on the roof. A floor mounted one would seem to make a little more sense it could be the parking brake. Maybe a human factor type thing?
 
midwestpa24 said:
I'd add, if this was a Cirrus it would be much more unusual, parking brakes aren't usually located on the roof. A floor mounted one would seem to make a little more sense it could be the parking brake. Maybe a human factor type thing?
Click to expand...

Are parking brakes usually manipulated by RED handles?

I don't mean to disqualify the possibility, just... why color it RED if that's common in-cockpit color? And if red is an unusual color, why did this Student ignore it?
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
The first photo shows a safety pin. Shouldn't that have been in place after landing and before leaving the airplane?
Click to expand...

Fo Cirrus it is/was on the shutdown list. I was about 50/50 doing on shutdown or once parked; same for a number of pilots I have flown with. If I am blocking a taxiway and people are waiting, it was something I often punted till parked. As a result, I ended up running through the shutdown checklist a second time when just before leaving to make sure nothing missed.

Tim
 
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