Roger Lee Posted January 3, 2012 Report Share Posted January 3, 2012 Something you should know about the BRS mandatory repack at 6 years. This is required and there is no way around it for an SLSA. It must be done and it can not be tagged "IN OP" (in operable). It was standard safety equipment for the plane on its initial airworthy cert. I talked to FD and they say it is required. I talked to the FAA and they said it was required because the aircraft MFG said so. The only way around it for an SLSA would be to get an LOA for its removal from the aircraft MFG. That isn't going to happen. That would be liability suicide. So if it's in the plane it has to be inspected and operable. Yes an ELSA can do whatever they want, but if you keep negating everything that is put in place for your safety (SB's, hose replacement, scheduled maint., chute repack, ect...) someday we may be reading about you on an NTSB report or the front page of the newspaper. I guess that's one way to get 15 minutes of fame. If the chute time elapses you are out of airworthy and since your insurance says a condition of the insurance is to be airworthy then that would terminate the insurance contract. If a mechanic signed off on a plane out of the chute cert date the inspection would be null and void because it can't be airworthy with an out of date chute and the mechanic would be up to get whacked along with the owner by the FAA. The mechanic will get it twice as bad. Don't wait until your last possible moment or at the last second during the annual. Plan ahead and get this done before the annual. It's easy to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N89WD Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 I actually had mine done at my last annual in July '11. It took 10 days and cost $800 bucks. I decided to get it done early to bypass all the chutes out there that are due. It was quite simple and painless. One year early was a good idea in my opinion. Happy flying guys! Anybody heading to Lakewood this March? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S3flyer Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 This is required and there is no way around it for an SLSA. It must be done and it can not be tagged "IN OP" (in operable). This isn't entirely true across all LSA manufacturers. TL-Ultralight (Sting and Sirius) explicitly state that the GRS (Galaxy Recovery System) is not required for airworthiness. They will provide a placard if the chute is not repacked as per the manufacturer's service interval. This also means that you may fly your aircraft while the chute is being serviced. That being said, it is strongly recommended by TL and the importer SportAir and I personally (well, my wife ) wouldn't be flying without it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted January 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 You stated what I had said in the previous post. It is up to the aircraft MFG to either deny or allow such a practice. Most won't do it as it can be liability suicide in a court battle to allow someone with no professional standing and training to remove or disable a chute when it is a known life saving piece of safety equipment. Just like the medical profession the patient has no professional training, but the paramedic or doctor lets them do something they know could or might have severe consequences. The paramedic or doctor will loose every time. I've seen it in court many a times over the last 30 years. Always error on the right side of an argument as the MFG or doctor. If it goers south your screwed with a poor choice. The Mfg thinks it's extremely important to put chutes in all their planes because it could save a life. Then one day they grant someone an option to remove it or make it "In OP". Now this person goes out and gets killed and maybe a passenger too. The personal injury lawyer sues the aircraft Mfg and maybe times two for the passenger. The aircraft MFG will probably loose and may be out of business and if 1 in a million chance he wins it just cost him a quarter mill to get out from under the suit. Either way it is liability suicide. If the aircraft Mfg had bothered to ask the lawyer before they gave any one that permission and before someone got hurt then the lawyer would most likely tell them not to do such a thing. That way the company has lost nothing, protected the owner from a personal bad choice and doesn't need to defend itself as to why they let someone remove the chute when they thought it was so important to start with and put them in all their planes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Meade Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 Roger, You've given a good summary of why other people want to make my decisions for me, and they all make sense from the other person's point of view but they don't always make sense from the user/owner point of view. It is indeed important that we know why manufacturers and others act as they do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted January 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 Most of the time MFG's make decisions to protect us from ourselves and yes from liability. When MFG's a give owners too much leeway they tend to make poor decisions for several different reasons, but the bottom line is then we screw up we sue the company because they didn't protect us from ourselves and they knew there was a chance we would screw it up. I was a dive compressor developer and MFG for years with nice high insurance premiums. You won't believe the things people tried to do or wanted to do. Let's see go under water 100' and do something that all books advise against and is known to kill people and they wanted me to help them. Not in this lifetime. When you have to pay $30K+ a year in in "dummy" insurance premiums you get the message real quick. As a fireman I know thousands of patients that thought they could cheat the system and not get hurt. Then one day they call the paramedics and on the way to the hospital say "Thats never happened before". Wish I had a dime for every time I heard that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chanik Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 The trouble is this litigeous atmosphere sets the noise floor for warnings way too high everywhere, so truly dangerous things get lumped in with innocuous stuff. Every food package I look at in the grocery stor says may contain nuts or processed in machinery that may have processed nuts. Including on a bag of peanuts. Being so over-warned, now I basically don't know which cookies really do pose a threat to my daughter with her nut alergy. Planes are the same way; sadly you have to figure out for yourself whether something is truly risky. FSS NEVER recommends VFR flight even on sunny days. Rotax recommends that the cowl be removed and the engine carefully inspected before every flight. I don't know anyone who does this. For that matter, a thorough annual before each flight would be even safer. The risk, according to BRS, of not repacking is that the canopy can deply slower than usual. Is that much extra flight safety risk? It is for their liability, I get that part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Meade Posted January 5, 2012 Report Share Posted January 5, 2012 I note that there is no placard that says don't deploy the CTSW BRS faster than 184mph, but it is in their specs and you can bet that in a deployment if there was any possiblity that BSR would be targeted by a suit, that the deployment speed would become a question in their mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mocfly Posted January 20, 2013 Report Share Posted January 20, 2013 Anyone know what the turn around time is now for a re-pack? Is it better to call in advance of shipment to help move it thru? As always Thank you for the replies. Chris N530CT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted January 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2013 Hi Chris, You have to call in advance to get a return authorization number to put on the box and give them your personal info. Turn around time is 2 weeks. http://brsparachutes.com/repack_center.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Hereford Posted January 21, 2013 Report Share Posted January 21, 2013 Please provide regulatory citation to support "mandatory" chute re-pack. Doug Hereford Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Posted January 21, 2013 Report Share Posted January 21, 2013 I'll make the popcorn while we wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandpiper Posted May 21, 2013 Report Share Posted May 21, 2013 I just got my chute back from repack. When I first called them, they said they would turn it around in 5-7 days. Actual turn around time was 12 days. So, expect to be down around 22-25 days unless you opt for overnight delivery which, for me, would have been cost prohibitive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tip Posted March 21, 2014 Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 I received my chute back today. BRS said that it would be a 5 day turn around. They actually had it for 9 business days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyingMonkey Posted March 21, 2014 Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 I received my chute back today. BRS said that it would be a 5 day turn around. They actually had it for 9 business days. Still pretty quick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anticept Posted March 21, 2014 Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 Hi everyone! I was advised recently by FDUSA that we can actually permanently remove the BRS system with an MRA. However, doing so is not recommended, and has no advantage for weight savings, as a ballast must be added in its place. The parachute repack really isn't that expensive, all things considered, but I am dreading that 12th year rocket and repack replacement. That's going to be stupidly expensive (Cirrus BRS replacements are 10k)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted March 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 It goes from around $846 to $1350 ish It isn't that big of a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anticept Posted March 21, 2014 Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 Oh good. When I heard the cost of the cirrus, I about flipped out. The cost of certification I guess, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted March 22, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Plus it's a chute almost twice our size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NC Bill Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 I thought this topic had been kick around before. For anyone interested here's a link to a 4 page forum discussion in 2012. http://ctflier.com/index.php?/topic/1454-brs-6-year-repack-requirement/#entry10814 As I recall [i may misremember so read the forum posts yourself] the consensus was "no requirement" for the CTLS due to lack of a citation in it's AOI. Other models do require one. Not sure what the new CTLSi AOI specifies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 If you incur the cost to purchase an airplane with a chute, why would anyone not want to incur the cost to keep it current, safe, and legal? Risk management. The odds of a chute repack saving your life are vanishingly small. Your discretionary safety money is probably better spent on training, carb rebuilds, ADS-B and a new ELT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Cesnalis Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 "part of the cost of owning the plane you chose when you bought it." I don't see how that is somehow regulatory or persuasive. The 5 year hose change fits that description and compliance cost me a total power loss on takeoff at an airport with no options. I paid to have my chute repacked to be prudent, I don't know that much about chutes. I hope that compliance doesn't end up biting me on the repack as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Then allocate more money. It's part of the cost of owning the plane you chose when you bought it. You asked a question. I assumed it was a real question and not rhetorical. I gave you a real answer. Sorry for wasting your time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runtoeat Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Another advantage for the repack is it's guranteed - just bring it back in if it doesn't work and they'll repack it. :wacko: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FastEddieB Posted March 24, 2014 Report Share Posted March 24, 2014 Another advantage for the repack is it's guranteed - just bring it back in if it doesn't work and they'll repack it. :wacko: Maybe. Have to ask this guy if that was the case... http://ctflier.com/index.php?/topic/1956-cirrus-brs-malfunction-addison-tx-may-16-2013/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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