Accident recording

[rwanttaja]

Ron, first of all, you write Cirrus never spun the airplane. I don't know where you got it, but using in a topic to try to discredit what I wrote is not a straight way to make or try to make your point. I never wrote those words or that line or that thought.

Good gosh, Bill. I've been writing all along that Cirrus did some spin testing. I *never* wrote that Cirrus didn't do any spin testing. You're the one who says that Cirruses can't recover from spins. Look at your first post on this subject: "A Cirrus is NOT certified to recover from spins, it would not do so in flight testing..."

I asked you, "Are you implying that a Cirrus *cannot* recover from a spin?"

How about a simple yes or no answer? Has Cirrus ever spun the airplane, and did it recover? Their web posting regarding European testing says they did.

What I wrote was that Cirrus is not certified for spins, or spin recovery and obviously I mean U S certification.

I agree there.

I believe a test pilot was killed during their spin testing,don't know the details....

Yep, details never matter. Like the fact that the crash you're apparently referring to was a Cirrus VK-30 pusher.

CHI96FA116

I don't know Canadian or British spin certification regulations, but I would be surprised if it met them.

The spin requirements for Canada can be found in CAR 523.221...which says the same thing as US Part 23.221. I doubt Canada is required to automatically accept US certification; one report I saw said that the Type Certificate was granted after negotiation with Canadian officials. Like the FAA, the Canadian authorities have accepted that the Cirrus meets the "Equivalent Level of Safety" argument. It's essentially the same way the Icon got approval for weight over the LSA limit.

The British use the EASA standard, and the Cirrus link I posted earlier says that they did sufficient spin testing to satisfy them.

Despite any amount of pr and sales propaganda from you or Cirrus, the laws of aerodynamics (re bank angles and g forces on accelerated stalls) as well as gravity are the same everywhere. A recent Aviation Consumer report puts Cirrus in the middle of gen av accidents, not better or worse, and notes that despite the supposed safety features, except the parachute, Cirrus is not showing to be safer than all others.

So the Cirrus is no safer...but no worse...than any other GA aircraft? That's good news, really, for a high-performance aircraft marketed to low-time pilots.

There are a number of Cirrus accidents, I believe at least 80 fatalities) that involve stall/spins.

Really?

I took another pass through my database, opening up the time instead of just ten years. I see 47 Cirrus accidents where a stall or spin was mentioned in the narrative. Total fatalities, 58.

On twelve of those, spins resulted. Total fatalities, 19.

Of those twelve, two involved icing, one spun out after continued VFR into IMC, and at least two were at altitudes too low to recover.

ATL04FA096
ATL06LA035
CHI06FA043
CHI06FA245
CHI06LA078
CHI08FA039
ERA09FA053
ERA09FA169
ERA09LA200
LAX07FA021
WPR10FA383
NYC02FA089

Of course, this is only the US accidents. Them furriners, they just can't fly, can they?

So we're looking at 19 fatalities over 12 years (2001 to 2012). That's some death trap, Bill.

Most are not beginners, rather pilots with a fair number of hours (1100) even with an instructor on board.

Of the twelve case, nine had Private tickets. One case was a Commercial pilot receiving instruction from a CFI. The pilots involved in spins had a median flight time of 865 hours, with 170 in type. Lowest time in the spin cases was 222, highest time was a ATP with 12,000+ hours.

But, most of all, in this topic I was trying to help folks learn from a fatal accident and instead you have tried to make the topic about Cirrus spin safety.

So why not clarify your original gratuitous (e.g, not required in the context of the accident report) statement that implied that Cirruses could not recover from a spin?

By the way, if you are so certain that Cirrus will recover from spins okay, how about going up and doing some and posting the video on this forum. I and probably others would like to see it.

Because I am not qualified (haven't spun an airplane for ~40 years), am not properly certified (cannot fly a Cirrus as a Sport Pilot), and do not fly aircraft outside their published limitations. Nor do I try to goad people into violating FAA regulations, but that's just me....

Ron Wanttaja