When I was making my failed predictions, Cirrus co-founder Alan Klapmeier was making a couple of his own. And don’t forget, Cirrus delivered a capable airplane at just the right time and hit its stride in the early 2000s. I think the real number was higher then and is probably higher now, particularly those new to aviation. When Cirrus was maybe seven years into its golden success story, we conducted a survey bluntly asking owners if the parachute was a factor in the buy decision. I suspect it will be used in anger far less than CAPS, but enough people will push the buy button who might not otherwise to make it worth the effort of certification. Yes, it’s a safety enhancer, but the real genius of CAPS is that it’s a powerful sales lever, both for buyers or buyers’ spouses who might be fence straddling on buying an airplane and for the parachute true believers. This kind of misses the point or at least deals it a glancing blow. They would have survived, as Clausewitz said of war to politics, by other means. It’s also true that some who used the parachute would still be alive if they hadn’t used it. There are a few people who are alive today who wouldn’t be were it not for the parachute. Would a parachute really affect overall system safety? As I explained in this week’s video, for Cirrus, the answer is yes. I’m sure hideboundedness is part of it, as is the prohibitive cost and complexity of certifying a legacy airframe for a parachute, although that has been done for the Cessna 172 and 182 as a BRS STC. Why this is so would be a good Wharton study. Cessna, Mooney and Diamond haven’t given it the time of day.
While lots of light sport-type airplanes have parachutes, it’s an idea that only Cirrus has gotten to work on a sustainable scale.
CIRRUS SR22 PARACHUTE FULL
When I wrote about Pipistrel’s new Panthera RG last week, I mentioned in passing that it has a full airframe ballistic parachute.
This dubious record might cause a more reasonable person to be timid about future futurism, but not me. Every one of the 7500-plus Cirrus airplanes out there, including the jets, still have parachutes. I further predicted that the first STC to apply to the Cirrus would be to remove the parachute. He graciously never insisted on pay up after this never happened.
I bet a friend that the first activation of it would be by accident on the ground.
0 kommentar(er)
