How fast in feet per minute does the BRS float a CTSW down?

[FlyingMonkey]

We pull the chute as a last resort because all is lost and to save our hides not because the plane is still flyable. If it was flyable then land and the other scenario is over too rugged a terrain to land without getting killed.

Why would anyone with a sutible landing spot pull a chute on a flyable plane. If it is that controllable to stall it to the ground then it is flyable because that takes coordination.

 

I agree with this. If you have a good landing area, use it. If you don't, or in your descent the landing area turns out to not what you thought it was, then chute. If the airplane can't be flown for any reason, then chute. The fact we have an option when pilots of most other airplanes have to grit their teeth and ride it out is fantastic, IMO.

 

I don't want people to think from my comments that I think the BRS is some crazy last ditch hail mary that will likely get you killed. When used in its envelope it is a very effective tool; I just want to make sure that people don't think it's a risk free option that should be used in any bad situation and will magically save their bacon. It's a system with a LOT of variables, and therefore has risks attached to its use. Like everything else in aviation, know the risks and act accordingly.

 

The BRS was one of the reasons I chose the CT over other aircraft, in fact!

[FlyingMonkey]

Another point to consider, is that while there have been zero fatalities in the Cirrus when the CAPS/BRS is used within its envelope, they have also had a pretty high number of chute pulls. I don't think there have been very many recorded pulls in the CT. While I'd like to think that since the systems are designed and manufactured by the same company they'd get similar results, I don't know that we have enough data to say for sure what kind of results we'd see in a CT from use of the BRS in various conditions. My inclination would be to assume a similar result pattern to the Cirrus experience, but I guess we don't know what we don't know.

 

Do we have a list of CT chute pulls and the results to look at? Are there any conclusions we can make from that data?

[FastEddieB]

For apples to apples...

 

There are something like 5,000 Cirrus' out there. And they fly a lot. In all sorts of weather.

 

How many CT's? And how does their annual usage compare? Certainly will be fewer loss of control in IMC pulls, for example.

 

But I will agree that there seem to be a lot of CAPS pulls.

 

Right now the stats are:

 

41 CAPS saves with 85 survivors.

103 fatals with 204 fatalities and 27 survivors.

 

Far too many, but the overall fatal rate of 1.6 per 100,000 hours overall has come down to 1.12 in the last 12 months. I think this goes from slightly worse than average to slightly better than average.

[FlyingMonkey]

Eddie, I was not insinuating there were *too* many pulls for the Cirrus, or there was any problem there. I just meant that there is much more BRS data available for the Cirrus than for the CT.

[FastEddieB]

Got it.

 

Be warned - I'm having trouble with the site - I was unable to access this thread for a while, re:

 

[paul m]

We pull the chute as a last resort because all is lost and to save our hides not because the plane is still flyable. If it was flyable then land and the other scenario is over too rugged a terrain to land without getting killed.

Why would anyone with a sutible landing spot pull a chute on a flyable plane. If it is that controllable to stall it to the ground then it is flyable because that takes coordination.

I wonder how much of the decision to pull will be influenced by where you normally fly.  Up here when I  look down I see alot of trees and alot of houses.  I'm pretty sure I am going to pull if I lose an engine unless in easy gliding distance of an airport.  I doubt I could practice enough to feel confident i could land on a golf course fairway when the chips are down.  So I would guess I would pull 9 out of 10 times.  If I Iived and flew over alot of open areas, llke deserts, farms etc I would guess my mindset would be more likely to be I can land this thing if its flyable.  When the day comes to make the decision I wonder if 10 years of assuming I would pull will win out over "there looks like plenty of places to put this down."           

[Acensor]

I'd like to explore Alex's "stall it in" idea a bit more. I know that Diamond's official position is that you trim the airplane full nose-up, and it will descend slower than the rate of an SR22 under 'chute. Of course, there is still some forward motion to deal with...

tim

Hi Tim,

 

"Exploring" "stall-it-in" is a good description for what I'm doing. That and sort of practicing it.

 

It's just ONE option maybe worth to have PRE considered and rehearsed to the extent practical...and be able to pull out of my pocket quickly.

I brought it up because I have never seen it explored in formal emergency procedures. And it seems like it may have a place somewhere between the scenario where BSR deploying is clearly the least bad idea and where a standard off airport landing on that nice flat unobstructed 2000 foot field well within glide distance is clearly the least bad option.

Just as I'd like to find out before I NEED to know how high I'd need to be to be sure I could make a safe return-to-runway turn , I like knowing I COULD do a flat mush pancake crash landing into a piece of ground to short or too cluttered for attempting a standard off runway emergency approach. {Hummm. Is there really such a thing as a "standard" emergency? ;-) }

 

 

In my present ELSA with MY typical two lightly loaded seats, as I said, I've practiced that power-on-idle flat-controlled-level-mushing-down stall enough times to be pretty confident I could hit the ground level at 500 feet per minute (6mph) moving forward at ~25 mph with still having directional control. Even milder if solo.

 

Andy has tried something very similar with passenger in board in his CT and of corse came up with different forward and vertical speed numbers, and hi own sense of how controllable and predictable a flat mush stall is. Your milage may vary.

 

Alex

[Acensor]

We pull the chute as a last resort because all is lost and to save our hides not because the plane is still flyable. If it was flyable then land and the other scenario is over too rugged a terrain to land without getting killed.

Why would anyone with a sutible landing spot pull a chute on a flyable plane. If it is that controllable to stall it to the ground then it is flyable because that takes coordination.

I agree pulling the chute while plane is still flyable is in the "why would you do that" bag generally.

In addition to the exception scenario you mention (really really nasty terrain within gild distance) there's the one where pilot is incapacitated... Like the pilot who got a stroke passed out and came too long enough to deploy, the several who found themselves totally disoriented in IMC that the didn't intend to find themselves in (their places were still very much flyable.) and deployed. arguably if the didn't deploy in their still fly able planes they'd be Controlled-flight-into-terrain statistics today.

 

I was exploring the stall-to-ground idea for where terrain looks to rough and/or too small for a "conventional" emergency off runway longing approach.

 

 

Alex

 

 

The situation I was exploring with

[Doug G.]

I am well aware of the edit button, but it would not come up when I posted, so I went with option b. I will take care of it now.

[FastEddieB]

 

 

I agree pulling the chute while plane is still flyable is in the "why would you do that" bag generally.

In addition to the exception scenario you mention (really really nasty terrain within gild distance) there's the one where pilot is incapacitated... Like the pilot who got a stroke passed out and came too long enough to deploy, the several who found themselves totally disoriented in IMC that the didn't intend to find themselves in (their places were still very much flyable.) and deployed. arguably if the didn't deploy in their still fly able planes they'd be Controlled-flight-into-terrain statistics today

 

Alex

 

Not arguing - we all have to make our own decisions on this.

 

But again, I want to stress (from the Cirrus world): "103 fatals with 204 fatalities and 27 survivors."

 

Many, many of those fatals were in planes that were flyable - right up to the scene of the fatal crash. The pilots never made the decision to pull, assuming they could save the situation. Until they couldn't. And died. And probably would have survived had they pulled.

 

Just something to think about.

 

 

PS - the formatting here is wonky, and I can't seem to fix the "quote" tags to work right. Did something change with the updated site?

 

 

[Anticept]

Not arguing - we all have to make our own decisions on this.

 

But again, I want to stress (from the Cirrus world): "103 fatals with 204 fatalities and 27 survivors."

 

Many, many of those fatals were in planes that were flyable - right up to the scene of the fatal crash. The pilots never made the decision to pull, assuming they could save the situation. Until they couldn't. And died. And probably would have survived had they pulled.

 

Just something to think about.

 

 

PS - the formatting here is wonky, and I can't seem to fix the "quote" tags to work right. Did something change with the updated site?

 

 

Yes, the editor is now a WYSIWYG editor. Make sure you are typing in the plain white area below the quote boxes. You can switch to raw BB code mode by clicking the switch button.

 

As for the cirrus numbers: How many of those fatalities are from people who knew they were in a bad situation? I wouldn't want to just simply say that because someone died, it was time to pull the chute. Some of those might have been perfectly normal flights right up until that very last "oh shit" moment, leaving no time for chute deployment...

[FastEddieB]

As for the cirrus numbers: How many of those fatalities are from people who knew they were in a bad situation? I wouldn't want to just simply say that because someone died, it was time to pull the chute. Some of those might have been perfectly normal flights right up until that very last "oh shit" moment, leaving no time for chute deployment...

Good points.

 

Stall/spin in the pattern and CAPS is unlikely to come to the rescue.

 

Or a botched go around.

 

Or CFIT.

 

But having watched the pattern of accidents since 2007, a great many could have benefited from CAPS, including a few off-airport landings that turned fatal.

 

Good overview from Cirrus here: http://cirrusaircraft.com/static/img/CAPS_Guide.pdf

[Roger Lee]

BRS has had saves at 100', of course higher better. It's never too late, but don't hesitate.

[FlyingMonkey]

The video Eddie posted is pretty convincing. I'm leaning more toward the "pull early, pull often" camp after watching it.

[FlyingMonkey]

BRS has had saves at 100', of course higher better. It's never too late, but don't hesitate.

That seems to be the theme...have the handle always in mind because the hesitation is what kills. The Cirrus video's idea to think of the BRS first in any potential emergency is a good one. Even if you decide against it, it's in your mind if the situation degrades.

[Ed Cesnalis]

When I cross the cascades I bring a climbing rope.  The forests are high and dense and If I deploy I fully expect to end up high in a tree.

[Runtoeat]

We've had this discussion on other threads in our Forum and I've posted about a few LSA crash landings.  One was a non-fatal where a CT lost power and landed in Ohio.  I personally saw the CT afterwards and learned that the pilot was above 6,000', lost his engine, figured he was above farmland and decided to deadstick it into a field.  All was going as planned until he ran into a 8' deep ditch he didn't notice and flipped the plane, tore off both wings, tore off the engine and front gear and pulled off the main gear.  He and his passenger crawled out the popped out windshield.  The second landing was in Michigan.  This involved a Technam and the pilot was the only one onboard and was killed.  According to a friend who assisted the FAA with the inspection of the aircraft, the pilot lost power on takeoff.  Still above the runway at about 500', he elected to set down in a soybean field next to the runway.  All was going good here too until the final touchdown where the soybean plants snagged the landing gear, bent one leg backwards and up thru the floor of the plane where this unfortunately punctured the pilot's lungs.  There was a third crash of a CT in Michigan and I also saw this plane afterwards.  The pilot was a low hour student who just got his solo rating.  He tried landing at his families grass strip, caught a cross wind, got into a row of trees and took both wings off the CTLS before he skidded to a stop on the plane's side in the gravel road running parallel to the runway.  He got out and cell phoned the FBO that rented him the plane to come pick him up.  In this instance, he had no chance to pull his chute.

 

The reason I am bringing these incidents up is that these show that "willing" an airplane back on the ground seems reasonable while sipping a cup of coffee and going thru the "I'll do this and that" at the kitchen table.  Or, "there are plenty of open fields where I fly, I'll just stall the damn plane in, can't be that big of a deal".  These examples show how what looks like a "slam dunk" at 3,000' looks a lot different at 100' and that even a field that looks safe, such as a soybean field, can hold some unpleasant surprises.  Many of you have thousands of hours and might have even brought in a plane without power and I understand how you have the confidence to feel you are capable to repeat this feat.  For me, with a little less than 800 hours, if I've got a dead engine and don't see a long stretch of good road below me to land on, I'm mentally prepared to pull the Red handle and just hope my BRS does everything the designer intended it to do.

[Ed Cesnalis]

I have had 2 emergency situations with a BRS and in both situations I elected to land and not pull.  The aircraft was slower than my CT.

• I had less than 5 hours and on a lakebed departure I contacteda sage bush and snapped off my left main gear - I did not pull the chute instead I landed on a dirt road with full left stick and realized no additional damage.
• I was soaring engine out and could not restart and could not find a reasonable landing opportunity. - I landed on steep terrain with little gear damage.

A deployment in this quad city challenger might have meant limited damage yet instinctively I landed it and never thought about pulling because I could still fly it.

[S3flyer]

Many years ago I lost the engine in my Bellanca and my choices to land were a pine forest, ocean bay, or a field. The field looked really good from 6000'. Not so good at 1000' where the field turned out to be a saltwater marsh with the tide out. It was still the best choice, though.

 

I'm with Dick, I'm pulling the chute unless I KNOW the surface below is landing-friendly. I also plan on flying it down to 1000' or so before pulling to have more control of where I end up.

[sandpiper]

Dick,

 

Just because someone has a lot of hours doesn't mean they will make a better decision or perform better than a lower time pilot. During my last flight review simulated engine failure at 3000 ft I picked what I thought was a good landing area. Did a text book performance and would have touched down on target. But, at about 600 ft I found out I picked the wrong place. The end result would not have been pretty. So, my thousands of hours would have not served me well if that had been the real deal.

 

There were plenty of fields, I just picked the wrong one.

[Mike Koerner]

For me the chute deploy criteria is a bit narrower:

1. Fire
2. Loss of control
3. Loss of thrust with no landable terrain evident within glide (which also covers the case of engine out in IMC... which shouldn't really happen since I don't fly IMC and VFR on top)

As a sailplane pilot I have the advantage of having made almost a thousand (983) power-off landings. Several have been off-field: a couple of desert meadows, several dry lakes and a dozen or so farm fields. (We also practice low-altitude rope breaks regularly).

I do recognize that any off-field landing is risky. And though I'm careful to look for ditches, power lines and barbed wire fences, a single 4x4 post or sprinkler may not show up.

But CTs have some great attributes for surviving off-field landings - as compared to my sailplane, and even more so as compared to a cirrus: We have a high, short wing and most importantly, we can land slow. Energy goes up as the square of speed but I read once that injuries and damage go up as the cube. In a CT, if you touch down near stall speed with the wings level, into the wind and up-slope (if there is either) - even if you hit something (at least something soft like the tree the Irish gent landed in) or snag the nose and flip over (which our planes are prone to do) - there is at least a good chance that you'll walk away.

Our BRS chutes are a tremendous safety feature too. We need to keep that in mind and, as others have said, make sure we don't forget to use it when needed. But it is not without risk.

Chutes don't always open completely. I used to spend a lot of time at an airport with an active jump operation and had the unpleasant opportunity to witness several jumpers ride streamers into the ground (your attention is drawn to the sky when you hear the other jumpers on the ground screaming for him to cut-away, even though there is no way he can possibly hear them). The Apollo capsule had 3 chutes because it needed two to get the astronauts down alive; and sure enough, Apollo 15 lost one. But unlike Apollo and the jumpers, we don't have a back-up, or a cut-away.

And even if we get a good chute, which I expect will happen damn near every time, once the chute is open we have less control of where we end up. The side of a building, a busy freeway, or a crowded city street would not be good. Charlie Tango is prepared for a landing in the trees, but what if he's blown into the rock face of Mount Morrison south of his home port. Obviously, these are low probability events too. Furthermore, we may still have a significant degree of control under the cute. I understand the CT hangs nose low, in which case the control surfaces may still offer some degree of control. As always, we should continue to fly the plane until it comes to a stop. (The nose down attitude should absorb part of the impact load too).

With respect to IMC, I am not now, and have never been instrument rated, but I have some hood time, and I've put my head down now and again. As long as I am able to maintain control and stay clear of terrain (my iFly paints terrain at or above my altitude in red) I'll try to extricate myself rather the pulling handle right away.

Similarly, with a midair, I'll wait to determine if I still have control before hitting the silk.

With respect to water, as long as the waves aren't too large (which constitutes unlandable terrain) I'll fly it in and spend the extra altitude maneuvering as close as I can to a boat or the shore (particularly a beach).

By the way, fire was not on my list until I read this discussion. Not only will the chute get me down fast, as Fast Eddie says, it will also leave me free to concentrate on using the fire extinguisher and whatever else I can muster (bottled water, spit, a blanket, my shirt) to my full advantage; or failing that, to climb back into the tail boom or up one of the shrouds.

These are not pleasant thoughts. Sorry.

Mike Koerner

[FastEddieB]

As far as the field ending up being less forgiving than it looks at altitude...

 

A lot of you may have seen this:

 

 

You can fast forward to about 9 minutes on the digital display if it's too long.

 

Job very well done, and it worked out fine, sans chute. But note the obstructions only visible from very, very low down.

[Runtoeat]

Good conversation and helpful thoughts.  Obviously, making the decision to pull isn't a "black and white" situation.  Dave's comments provided some more definition to on my decision to pull.  His thought on setting a minimum altitude, if this option might exist for me, makes sense.  Do all I can do to set up for a deadstick but have a set AGL for "go/no go" if I don't see hard packed, friendly terrain down below.  One other recurring thought I have is how helpful it would be to have access to a simulator to run thru some simulated engine out scenarios.  It would be REALLY nice if the simulator had the BRS performance included in the program.  I would think that spending a few hours each year in such a simulator would provide a lot of insight to develop one's personal plan.

 

Eddie, I saw your video a while ago but good to watch again.  Some thoughts: I don't ever want to ever have to go thru this!  The pilot was very cool and didn't seem to get rattled. "Flying along" with him in this video,  I don't see myself being as calm and collected. Seemed he kind of casually checked his GPS for "nearest" while watching his engine eat itself up!  He had a lot of time due to having a lot more altitude than I would have since I fly low levels.  I fly over a rural areas with many farms but he sure did have a lot of (what appeared to be) flat ground to choose from - if you discount the stone fences!  I'd have to say in this scenario, my plan would be to look for hard and level ground but be ready to pull at 500' AGL if it looked muddy and/or furrowed, had trees.

[S3flyer]

VFR pilots might want to rethink their chute strategy. There was a study awhile ago that was entitled "178 seconds to live". A summary from the Australian aviation agency:

Spatial disorientation is the big danger. And it can happen a lot faster than you might think – just 178 seconds on average, about the length of a commercial on TV .

That estimate is based on studies in the 1990s by aviation researchers at the Uni- versity of Illinois. They took 20 VFR pilots and got them to fly into IMC in specially programmed flight simulators.

All of the pilots in the study went into graveyard spirals that would have ended in uncontrolled flight into terrain or roll- ercoaster-like oscillations that became so intense that they would have resulted in structural failure of the aircraft.

In repeated tests on the simulator the re- sult was the same – all pilots lost control of the aircraft. The outcome differed only in the time required before control was lost which ranged from just 20 seconds to 480 seconds.

From the FAA, 76% of VMC into IMC accidents involve a fatality.

 

I'm not saying one should pull the chute immediately upon entering IMC. A 180 is typically the first move. After that, the chute should figure into the decision process.

[Ed Cesnalis]

I'm not saying one should pull the chute immediately upon entering IMC. A 180 is typically the first move. After that, the chute should figure into the decision process.

 

 

I spent 25 minutes in inadvertent IMC in my CTSW.  I have never understood this 'seconds to live' idea and I don't subscribe to it.  A crash in IMC would likely be fatal but just because I am IMC doesn't mean I am going to crash.

 

As i said above I have had 2 forced landings, one without friendly terrain and the other without a main gear attached, add to those the inadvertent IMC and I have had 3 events where the chute never even entered my thinking process. 

 

I'll pull when I don't have the confidence to continue flying.