With the safety parachute those cirrus planes have, it seems to me that I am reading all the time about people dieing in those airplanes. I wonder if there really is any better safety record for them??
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/ju ... ane-crash/

No, it's not you. A lot of Cirrus crashes result in fatalities. Guys with more money than abilities are buying this hotrod and getting themselves into trouble.

It doesnt help that those planes try to kill you with convenience from the second you sit down. The perception of safety... Damn fun bird to fly though

Others have opined that the BRS may impart a sense of security that may lure some pilots into taking unwise risks.

I remember one stormy night some 5 or 6 years back. Scattered cells, low icing level, and one of those nights you would rather not be "up there" I told the wife. Later we heard of the Cirrus driver who left Reno for CA and pulled the wings off . . . and the parachute too after he iced up in IMC. AOPA did a training tape on this incident as the pilot tried to climb above the icing.

Some of these planes get their speed through a combination of big motor and high wing loading. The is especially so with some experimental fast glass. Tailplane icing can be insideous and rapidly builds on narrow airfoils.

I live near the southeast end of the lake. No way in hell I'da gone up there that night.

The only two accidents that have hit close to home with me have involved a Cirrus. Is it because they are todays "doctor killers" like the bonanzas were back in the day? One of the accidents involved 3 lawyers, with little hours, that flew into the side of a very high time tow plane pilot. Thats all she wrote.

It is not you. There are a lot of issues with a Cirrus.

When the manufacturer and the FAA start recommending re-currency/transition training for a 4 seat 160-170 knot airplane, that raises all kinds of flags for me. Not to mention the latest round of design changes in the most recent models. A different size tail, dihedral angle, etc.... Why were so many produced in its original form and now these changes? These are not just marketing induced like good old omni-vision.

Another interesting failure mode of these machines. I believe there have been at least two that have burned up on the ground due to a long distance taxi and having to hold the brakes to keep it strait while encountering a cross wind. Check it out on the NTSB database. A steerable nose wheel must be very difficult/expensive to design. You usually don't see something as complex as that on any airplane larger/more expensive than say a 150.

The airplane must really appeal to the wrong crowd. My two cents anyway.

The BRS has nothing to do with it. It's a faster, slicker, more powerful airplane with a very modern panel that gets flown into wx. Also, it somehow attracts less experienced wealthy pilots.

Wasn't it only able to achieve certification for spin recovery WITH the BRS? Who wants an aircraft like that?

soggyc wrote:Another interesting failure mode of these machines. I believe there have been at least two that have burned up on the ground due to a long distance taxi and having to hold the brakes to keep it strait while encountering a cross wind.

What?! That is crazy, I hadn't heard about that.

The Cirrus has a fatality accident rate of 1.44 per 100,000 hours flown vs 1.41 for certified single engine piston GA aircraft in general. It has a better fatal accident rate than several popular legacy high performance piston singles such as the C-210 and Bonanza and not as good as Mooneys (they have a very good safety record, probably due to the wing levelers that were standard equipment for many years). Since the fleet of Cirrus aircraft are fairly new and they have the 'chute, you would think they might do better, but they are by no means falling out of the sky at a much greater rate than most other high performance singles. Of course if you really want to see dangerous aircraft, go into a twin engine at over 2 fatal accidents per 100,000 hours, or fly homebuilt aircraft or gliders at over 5 per 100,000.

Never flown one. But opinions are like a-holes, and thus:

I think the problem is with the company's sales force that ((probably) tells 50 or 100 hour "new money" pilots it's perfectly safe for a low time pilot when it is really not. Chute or no chute, a pilot gets into trouble faster and into worse trouble with a thin-wing fast laminar glass airplane than they would get into in a 182. Period. The little Xbox game controller joystick (instead of a yoke or center stick) makes it more of a game too, IMHO.

Another part of the problem is the less than thorough flight training which is getting common. There's not the same progression through the "apprentice" or "journeyman" stage for pilots anymore. Add today's low attention span and immediate gratification mentality, throw in high tech electronics that often substitute for common sense,and you likely have created a perfect storm. And like a "perfect storm", remove any one or two of these factors and you probably would not kill anyone. (meaning the whiz-bang electronics and laminar wings and even the chute are incredibly good tools when used properly)

In other words, to bring up a brand new concept, and to invoke a new-age, ultra-modern warning, and to coin a phrase not ever before heard... "There is no royal road to geometry"

Another SR22 went into the North Rim of Grand Canyon last night or with in last 12 hours .News didn't have much info except coming from Texas to Henderson . Maybe a high speed decent and inflight brake up ? I understand that that chute can be deployed only up to 120 knots otherwise it will depart and fold up like a napkin .Pretty sweet and cool airplane for cruising --- expensive plastic.

The stat I'd like to see is crashes per hour logged as PIC. They're the bird of choice for celebrity pilots, Always 1 or 2 sitting on the ramp in JAC or SUN. I'd like to have one, got to demo one in J-Hole, did some stalls and slow flight. It seemed normal, I even took to the hockeystick controls. Insurance would have cost me 10k/ year

I have a bit of time in a SR22 and went through their formal CSIP transition program. I do not have time to expand on it tonight, but suffice it to say, it is an airplane that has had the stupid designed out of it. It is very easy to fly, land, and taxi...and yes Zane, it will recover from a spin without pulling the chute. It had to complete 50 spin recoveries using standard recovery techniques in order to be certified in Europe, BUT the POH says to pull the chute...as I said, they have designed the stupid out of it. The initial POH listed spin recovery techniques followed by CAPS if control cannot be regained, but that was subsequently changed in future editions. The nose gear is free castering and the brakes DO overheat if you ride them which HAS caused fires. Part of the pre-flight is to check the brake indicator "eye"...if it indicates overheat then the aircraft is grounded.

My opinion, the aircraft is very easy to fly and very capable, but the pilots often times are not. I have said many times (including on their Cirrus Owners Pilots Association forum) they would cut their losses and fatalities by getting tailwheel training and unusual attitude / aerobatic training. Why? Take a look at the number of landing accidents in Cirrus aircraft. A large number of these Cirrus drivers do not understand basic aerodynamics, the value of a slip, how to slip, what causes a spin, don't know what a rudder is for, and consider loss of a glass panel and emergency scenario. They are mostly type A personalities who are self made, successful businessmen...try teaching them something I personally know of two STU rated pilots who purchased brand new SR22s and both now have over 200 hours and are still STU pilots...it is not uncommon to find 75 - 100 hours STU rated pilots in the Cirrus and pilots who have not yet solo'd at 50 hours.


That's my .02 for the evening.

I stumbled onto a pretty good blog a couple of months ago that addresses this very topic. The author, Steve Wilson, uses some very interesting statistics to really bash the Cirrus safety record.

http://stevewilsonblog.com/2009/04/16/dead-pilots-dont-lie.aspx

I stand corrected on the spin thing...

How does the Cessna Corvalis* rate in accident stats vs the SR-22? It seems to be a comparable aircraft in performance and mission.

*Cessna spells Corvallis wrong... Go Beavs.

Zane wrote:*Cessna spells Corvallis wrong... Go Beavs.

That has always bothered me.....

Beaver Nation!

Zane wrote:I stand corrected on the spin thing...

How does the Cessna Corvalis* rate in accident stats vs the SR-22? It seems to be a comparable aircraft in performance and mission.

*Cessna spells Corvallis wrong... Go Beavs.

The spin thing is a common misconception...I thought the same way until I discovered otherwise.

I have a bit of time in the Corvalis as well...I would take it over the Cirrus any day from a quality standpoint. Also very easy to fly...I'll post more when time permits.

Cirrus' production numbers were out of sight for five or six years before the economy fell apart. I believe that they were up to three Certificates of Airworthiness issued per day at one point. There are nearly 4000 on the registry. I had a discussion with a Lancair/Columbia/Corvalis factory instructor about this, and he had worked up the statistics, and found that the fatalities per fleet hour were not abnormal. Having flooded the market with an expensive new airplane, it's not surprising that the owners fly these things a lot. One sort of needs to fly often to justify the purchase.

Do Cessna 172s and 182s crash a lot? Yep, because they fly a lot.

I do, however believe that the chute would certainly influence the "go/no go" decision. One interesting thing about the chute is that it can only be deployed under some fairly low airspeed. The only time I can imagine deploying it would be under complete loss of control or structural failure, when I can't exactly slow the plane down. If I could, would I need the chute?

Scolopax wrote:The only time I can imagine deploying it would be under complete loss of control or structural failure, when I can't exactly slow the plane down. If I could, would I need the chute?

Excellent point. I'm not an aero engineer, but I think they could have designed some sort of smaller "pilot chute" that came out first and slowed the airplane down to the level where the main recovery chute would not be overstressed. It would be a two stage deployment. This would raise the minimum altitude at which deployment could occur, however it would probably mitigate a larger and more frequent problem of pulling the chute apart due to a high speed deployment. I'd guess that the majority of Cirrus chute deployments happen at cruise altitude, VFR pilot diving inverted out of clouds at or over Vne, etc.

Three lawyers get killed and it's called an accident?

In response to the initial question: It's you.

As others have said, look at the NUMBERS of these aircraft out there. They are outselling EVERYone else in the market, even now with a really down market. New airplanes tend to fly more at least initially than do older airplanes, I believe, especially when you just paid a half mil for the thing.

Cirrus has an in house training program. Does Cessna for it's piston models? How about HBC? Mooney?

As pointed out, the accident record is no worse than many other legacy airplanes. I SERIOUSLY doubt that very many pilots of the Cirrus make a go-no-go decision based on the availability of a parachute.

The airplane WAS spin tested for US certification, Cirrus CHOSE to certificate it based on alternate means of compliance (the parachute). It exhibited no unusual spin characteristics.

It's a fast airplane, it accelerates quickly, and the "average" Cirrus pilot isn't the most experienced, which is precisely why Cirrus has their own training program.

The accident near Grand Rapids, MN a couple years ago is illustrative of what may be the primary issue. Fortunately, that one was overturned on appeal, and it looks like Cirrus won't have to pay for the pilot's terrible mistake. A low time, VFR only pilot, who chose not to finish the Cirrus provided training (even though he'd paid for it in buying the airplane) and launched into VERY low clouds, before sunrise, in icing conditions, trying to scud run far enough to get into VFR......Not Cirrus' fault, and in my opinion, falls into the same category as the "Forked Tail Doctor Killer" legend associated with the Bonanza.
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