Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

[Ragwing nut]

Although I did not see him much, we kept in touch through common friends. He and another person was killed in a SR-22 and the crash left very little that was identifiable. That makes 25 people killed in 11 accident in these things. Anyone know of any structural AD's on Cirrus'? The owner had just upgraded from an Arrow and was receiving instruction from what I have heard so far. I swear it seems like I know more pilots that have been involved aircraft accidents alive and dead over the last 20 years than have not. The pool of pilots I know is not not small either.

[astjp2]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

Have you ever seen a corvette get into a wreck? Same thing happens. Sorry for your loss of a friend Tim

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

The SR-22 is actually a very SAFE plane (I worked on its BRS system). The problem with it is the same as with the Bonanza. It is a high performance plane that "can" be flown by pilots who aren't really ready for it yet. That is what gave the Bonanza the nic-name "Dr. Killer". Even the Cub is just dangerous enough to kill you. It isn't fair to blame the pilot or the plane for the loss of one of our brothers or sisters until we know what the real cause is. The only thing that bothers me more than blaming the design for the loss, is an investigator who jumps on "pilot error". There IS NO SUCH THING as "pilot error". Proper design and procedures will keep the pilot from making errors. If they don't, they weren't the proper designs or procedures.
I guess you can tell I'm conflicted. One of my jobs for 20 years (yea, same time I was doing NDI) as an engineer was crash investigation. First question we asked was "how many Alpha injuries?" (deaths). Zero meant a few weeks of challenging, exciting work. Any more included a personal sense of loss for those on board. I always took a call of "pilot error" as a cop out.
I'm feeling that sense of loss now and my deepest sympathies. Pray for a good investigator who won't default to the easy answer. Your friend, and all of us deserve better.
Hank

[SteveR]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

I just sent you a PM Mike. I'm afraid I knew the passenger in the plane. I sure hope not, but I'm afraid it was.

Sure are strange circumstances around the crash. Two experienced pilots, a new airplane, ideal flying weather. Really strange. I was at the Paul's Valley airport earlier Saturday, usually I see this guy there.

[Ragwing nut]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

For those local on the board, Joe Grimes was one of the 2 on board I knew. Excellent mechanic, proficient pilot with time in many various aircraft. The other was a vetenarian I did not know. Weather was absolutely perfect an so not a factor.

Hank, the BRS system only saves the pilot and plane if it can be deployed. No evidence that the BRS system was deployed. Witnesses heard erratic prop noise right before impact. With evidence of engine running and no chute, I firmly believe a structural failure occured. Right now pilot error to me is far from my mind.

[tawadc95]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

even the best can do some things wrong on occassion.
I have known several who were the best of who's who in flying and have died from something as simple as pulling the throttle back to quickly on a bearcat...something he had never previously been known to do.
life is a fickle friend

[tawadc95]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

Hank,
I agree with what you are saying about design ...the tripacer is a classic example of an airplane almost totally impossible to get get into a dangerous flight situation, but that is a purely mechanical approach.
One thing even a well designed airplane cannot do is account for our decisions and that is where the problems start.
I think most accidents are a result of poor decisions...some with immediate repurcussions and some are very delayed in coming(poor maintenance decisions can take years before finally becoming fatal) and they hide under the guise of structural failure when they were really the result of decisions by the owner and or pilot.
Another one I think is a big factor is people who fly different airplanes can treat the airplane we are flying today like the one we flew yesterday. A simple example would be flying a pattern as tight in a Bonanza as we do in the tcraft that we fly more often, how many other failures (decisions ) to treat each airplane we fly as it's own individual does it take to create a fatality?
This is all thoeritical but I believe is true based on analyizing my own mistakes and observing others habits and so forth.
My final thought on this is based on watching people drive nowadays. How many skilled drivers are around now? I believe 60% maybe more of the people driving now do not have the necessary skills to truely be a safe driver
or the mindset to maintain vigilence while behind the wheel,especially in Calif. where they just get off a camel or burro and go to a car.
Like a car I am sure there is a certain percentage of pilots who allow their attention or vigilence to drift from the cockpit...which isn't always a bad thing,but neither can we predict when it will become a fatal decision to wander off in thought.
Mike , not meant to point at your buddies lost, just ponderances.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

The key in an investigation is to NEVER stop at the principal cause of an accident (Bearcat pulling the throttle too fast, Lower Longeron failing, allowing the wing to fold, VFR pilot flying into IFR conditions). Those are cop outs on the part of the investigator. A good investigator will look deeper into WHY the pilot pulled power so fast and how the design can be improved to prevent it in the future (training, mechanical stops, frictions?). It is just SO EASY when you are doing an investigation to see that a Taylorcraft strut pulled out and put out a grounding inspection on the struts (Where have I seen THAT one!). When you do these investigations they are DEPRESSING and you just want to get away from them after a while, especially if you KNEW the crew. The quick answer is SO easy. Good investigators will look for the ROOT causes (there are almost ALWAYS several) and address them. We OWE that to those who died. It's an incredibly hard job when there are fatalities.
After the Navy I was offered a job with NTSB but couldn't see myself in a smoldering hole full of passengers. It was hard enough with 2 or 4 Naval Aviators who knew the risks and fought for the chance to take them.
On the Cirrus, the amazing thing is how hard it is for the owner to pull the BRS handle. In ANY emergency your first though should be, "I sure hope the Insurance Company’s plane comes through this OK". It is hard to not try and save your baby with all that work in "IT". Remember a Taylorcraft is an "IT" no mater HOW many times we call it "her". Think of "Crispy". ANYTHING you survive can be brought back. Wreck the plane to save the passengers if you need to and don't hesitate.
Hank

[VictorBravo]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

I humbly disagree about the Cirrus. The aircraft itself may be perfectly safe from a flight qualities and mechanical standpoint. You know far more about that stuff than I do Hank, I'll take your word

But the Cirrus FACTORY and their very good marketing people have put it into the hands of pilots who are not flying as fast as the airplane is flying, which makes the combination of pilot/airplane less safe.

The combination of less formal instruction due to higher per-hour instruction costs, less importance placed on thorough instruction by the FAA, fewer professional instructors (and more well-meaning but transient CFI's), and the changes in society values in average adults today are the real issues here.

But the Cirrus is the poster child for the problem because of how pretty it is, and how well it seduces today's BMW and Lexus customers, and how poorly everyone has anticipated what the end result would be. As such, the Cirrus is part of the problem despite it being a "good airplane".

I am usually the LAST guy to support new and more restrictive FAR's... but they truly need to put different training and currency parameters on fast or touchy airplanes. They truly need to put a hard requirement in for X hours in a <120 mph airplane and then X hours in a <160 mph airplane before being able to just go rent or buy a >200 mph airplane. And perhaps it needs to be different training too, like thinking ahead of the airplane, faster flight planning, etc. God help me but perhaps the little airplane equivalent of a "type rating" would be appropriate.

The FIRST @($^#$ thing is that they have to do is take the focus off of the damn big-screen TV gadgets and put it back on the airplane itself. In the Cirrus the GPS and flight computer is larger than the flight controls. What does that say? The advertising appeals to today's XBox and Play Station game nerds and Blackberry bozos. What does that say? Doesn't take a genius to figure out what the customers and renters focus turns out to be, does it?

Sorry, I sincerely have no axe to grind with the Cirrus (other than the left hand pilot side sidestick!!). But the fact is that enough of these airplanes crashing, filled with Starbucks-era low time Microsoft pilot-lite types will result in more restrictions on MY airplane and MY flying and MY ability to go out and enjoy a Taylorcraft...

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

Bill you have a good point. Way back a long time ago in a place far far away, I learned how to Skydive with an old emergency chute. The type that had the orange and white alternating panels, we called them candy stripers. This was my first chute. At this time you learned in this type, Period! Then after you were signed off you could jump the new Para Commander a chute with a reversed center section for better maneuverability. Then a Rogollo type came along, another sign off to jump it, (by the way I have 3 jumps on that model, two reserve rides! LOL). They did not last long, too many problems. Then the square we all see today came along. Another sign off just to jump that one too. We killed very few because of parachute handling and landings. It didn't make the jumper any smarter but it taught him to respect his equipment, and it taught him its (the chutes) limitations.
Larry

[PT13Pilot]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

I too hold no grudge against Cirrus, and last week I was verbally stoned to death by pilots on the Pilot of America website for my comments. A fellow asked whether he thought a new Cirrus SR-22 Turbo was a good airplane to learn in. Could he learn in it, sure. Should he? Not without enough training, and not just learning what buttons make what screen light up. I too am bothered by the frightening regularity these things are having fatal crashes, vs. the number produced. There are plenty of other airplanes that have similar speeds, pilot demand, etc that aren't having a problem to this extent.
I have watched for 3 years as an aquaintence of mine has gone from a couple hundred hours in a Tiger, and bought an SR-22 3 years ago. He is you're typical Lexus driver, though a nice guy, who has been sucessful enough to drop that kind of cash for an airplane like that, and flies it A LOT for business in all kinds of weather. 2 years ago, after he came back from his yearly Cirrus training, his takeoff technique had changed dramatically, and I figured maybe he was just showing off. I watched for a few weeks and his takeoffs were hold it on the ground, yank it up at a 45 degree angle and level off at a few hundred feet. I finally asked him about it, and he said Cirrus told him at training that the chute won't work below 400ft, so they were training him to leave it on the ground to way above normal rotation speed, climb steeply through 400, then level off. My response was, "that's great, what's gonna happen if you're 200 feet up and the engine decides to quit? Now the parachute won't save you, and you'll be lucky to cram the nose down to save it the old fashioned way". He didn't say anything, but I noticed his departures were more normal. This year he went back and they're not teaching that any more, he told me. I think their marketing department is selling these sexy airplanes to people who aren't getting enough training, and training that is contantly changing. And getting people to rely on a parachute that can certainly be an added safety item, but not unless properly utilized. This high performance stuff isn't anything new. That airplane didn't reinvent flying, or break any speed/altitude records, so I again have to wonder why so many are having problems, even in good weather.

And I'm sure the investigators have their hands full, there isn't much left but a puddle of melted fiberglass when they crash, making it awfully hard to piece together what happened. I hope this accident will be investigated properly, instead of a quick "pilot error" and everyone goes home.

Look at the B-26, with it's high wing loading and poor training at the start. They killed a lot of people before they came up with the proper training. Was it the planes fault, no, it was poor trainings fault. By the end of the war they had the highest survival rate in combat of any bomber of the war.

I wish Cirrus would concentrate on flying the airplane before wooing the new owners with screens and autopilots. Bad things still happen, and if you're used to watching the big screen with the autopilot on, waiting to pull the chute handle, you're gonna get hurt when it hits the fan.

[PT13Pilot]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

Bill,
And I agree with your comments on all the gadgets. The last shop I worked was attached to a 25 plane flight school that had an owner who loved all the new stuff and glass cockpits to the point of insanity. When we got our first new G1000 airplane, a DA-40, his first comment was "this is an airplane you can fly like this!! (as he crossed his arms and smilled)." They've already had 1 fatal crash, and a handfull of others directly relating to letting the airplane get away from someone, and most were with instructors. It was sickening to see. We had 3 Katanas for primary trainers, and they wouldn't fly them on a cross country training trips if BOTH GPS's didn't work. All that stuff is neat and does have it's place, but only after you learn to fly the airplane. I took the owner of the school for a ride in the Stearman. And after letting him play with the airplane while waiting for the ball to break out of the glass in the ball and bank, we were no more than 10 miles from the airport, and he didn't know where we were, no GPS!! Scary stuff, and there are a lot of people just like him.
Chris

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

We don’t disagree at all Forrest. The Cirrus is a GREAT plane, when flown properly. It is a high performance plane that unfortunately attracts pilots with more money than experience. It was the same with the Bonanza, with the same outcome, lots of dead Doctors. The Bonanza is a great plane too. I have never actually flown one, but I have flown a Barron, which is worse for a low time pilot and even MORE attractive to someone with more money than experience (flew it with a professional corporate pilot flying the owner around. Smart owner, he KNEW it was too much plane for him!)
We developed all the technology for the glass used in the Cirrus in my project at NASA but it was developed so INSTRUMENT flight would be safer. Like you said, all the glass in the world isn’t going to make a low experience pilot safer handling a hot airplane.
I worry about pilots with low experience taking high performance planes out to learn in. Part of the NASA AGATE project was the Flight Training Curriculum work package to address that. It was supposed to develop the training processes to make sure those low time pilots could fly the planes safely at lower cost. Unfortunately the research was done, the curriculum was developed and tested, and then there was no commercialization of the output. It is still infuriating to me that no one picked up the ball (as promised) and provided the training. NASA can’t do that part. We were a research organization, not a school. We have several letters from pilots saved by the systems in the Cirrus who wouldn’t have made it in other planes, but that doesn’t make up for those lost. With the proper training process a pilot CAN be safe in a much shorter training time, but the full training was never made available and without it I agree that you need to do the old time method of stepping up from planes like Taylorcrafts or gliders to learn how to FLY the plane first, not “operate” it.
There is nothing basically wrong with the Cirrus. It is just NOT the right plane for someone who doesn’t have the training or experience to fly it.
I don’t “operate” anything much more complex than a Taylorcraft any more. What for, my buddy the corporate pilot loves company and I always feel safe with him if I want some high performance flying fun. If I want technology to play with there is all the space stuff now. Still doing my best to make flying safe in and out of the atmosphere. Still hurts when we loose someone.
Hank
PS
I agree on the left hand controls, I never liked it much either, but they are REALLY easy to get used to.

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

I have learned a lot from this thread, I too have seen too many pilots who finally get the money, then do not have the experience and may never have time to get it in their life time.
I have two people in mind that I told were way in over their heads, they grumped a bit and left me standing , they are now Dead.
Airline Pilots and a Pitts are sometimes a problem too.

[Bojambles]

Re: Lost another fellow pilot friend yesterday.

I to agree that the airplane is probably not inherently dangerous, but far too often I see the gizmo kids in the cockpit playing with the gadgets and not flying the aircraft.

Awaiting weather, trying to get into Sun n Fun many years back at Winterhaven we watch the Cirrus demo slide down the runway on its nose after a demo flight which concluded in substantial damage to the aircraft.

Many years later with the slick marketing campaign the Cirrus began arriving at my home town airport in multiples, which prompted me to take a look at the TCDS.

At the time the Cirrus SR-20 Airframe only had a 4200 hour life limit. I could not believe people were shelling out a quarter million dollars for an aircraft with such a life limit.

I see they have raised that limit considerably since then and are as follows:


TYPE CERTIFICATE DATA SHEET NO. A00009CH

Additional Limitations: Airframe life limit: 12,000 flight hours