NC Bill Posted October 25, 2011 Report Posted October 25, 2011 Yesterday a Cirrus went down near Dallas. Initial press reports are that the BRS system had deployed prior to impact. No details yet. There are over 5000 CIRRUS flying with that 'chute which provides a great deal of evidence as to the efficacy of the system. If interested there is a discussion of the BRS going on in the public area of the CIRRUS owners website. Might prove interesting http://www.cirruspilots.org/forums/p/126875/605503.aspx#605503
S4Flier Posted October 25, 2011 Report Posted October 25, 2011 Addison Airport is in a highly populated area with really no good area to put down off airport. According to the latest news, the pilot reported engine trouble and made one attempt at landing back at ADS but was unsuccessful. He put it down at Hebron High School (around 6nm north of ADS) with one fatality (of 3 on board). Chute was deployed but no word at what altitude. I believe you need 400' AGL for the CAPS to fully deploy.
NC Bill Posted October 25, 2011 Author Report Posted October 25, 2011 ...I believe you need 400' AGL for the CAPS to fully deploy. Quoting Rick Beach from the COPA website discussion I previously mentioned. Rick is referring to those who have pulled the "Little RED HANDLE" while flying CIRRUS aircraft. CAPS has worked and people survived in these circumstances: airspeed from 34 to 187 KIAS altitude from 50' to 13,000' AGL attitude inverted, spiral dive, unusual attitude landings have been on shrubs, trees, forests, mountain slopes, inhospitable terrain, river, lake, pond, ocean, residential neighborhood, communication tower, telephone tower And for comparison an SR-20/22 has a MaxGTW of roughly 3,000lbs rather than 1320lbs. That's some of the data their group has collected by meticulously following ALL CIRRUS accidents including deployment of the BRS parachute. If you have any interest in the usefulness of your BRS parachute I urge you to take a look at the discussion on the public side of the COPA website http://www.cirruspilots.org/forums/p/126875/605523.aspx#605523 Then for safety's sake think about when you might want to use it.
S4Flier Posted October 25, 2011 Report Posted October 25, 2011 Actually, I got the 400' AGL from the link provided. The actual saves may be at other altitudes but the forum indicates that CAP is designed to fully function at 400' AGL and above. May or may not have been an issue in this case.
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