Another Cirrus landing by parachute 3 Nov 15

[JEM]

This morning, in Arkansas, a plane piloted by a former CEO of Walmart came down beneath a parachute on a main road in Fayetteville, Arkansas. More info at the link...

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/11/a-former-walmart-ceo-comes-down-under-a-parachute/414046/

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

covered over on the Virus thread

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Blatant advert for Cirrus. . . . even the reporter has one. . . . ( ! )

 

someone please tell the yank that the plural of Cirrus is NOT "Cirri" .

 

Sorry,. . .just Yankmediabashing again . . .

 

 

[old man emu]

HEADLINE:

 

Wall Street Journal

 

Walmart Chief claims soft landing after financial crisis

 

 

OME

 

 

[facthunter]

Want's golden parachute for retirement. ... recent managerial performance something of a let down, shareholders say... Nev

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Think it was a poor decision for just low oil pressure.

 

 

[DrZoos]

[huppypuppy]

I happen to know two people whose lives were saved by the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System - the SR22 they were in lost oil pressure en-route to Dubbo so they had to do an emergency landing in a farmer's paddock 15km south of Gilgandra. The pilot knew his SR22 had the CAPS parachute on board and deployed it 200ft above the ground - plane only sustained minor damage and both on board suffered only minor injuries

 

 

[Happyflyer]

 

Oh yeah, this guy. He flew on for two or three hours with a low oil pressure indication and then pulled the handle over 'tiger country' when his engine finally failed. He had overflown several airfields. https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2012/aair/ao-2012-154.aspx I wonder if he would have pushed on if he had not had a parachute?

 

 

[huppypuppy]

That's the one! John is a well-respected Dubbo businessman who owns a block of shops in West Dubbo - Tommy (his passenger) owns his own mechanical repair shop....

 

 

[dazza 38]

[ATTACH=full]39440[/ATTACH]Oh yeah, this guy. He flew on for two or three hours with a low oil pressure indication and then pulled the handle over 'tiger country' when his engine finally failed. He had overflown several airfields. https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2012/aair/ao-2012-154.aspx I wonder if he would have pushed on if he had not had a parachute?

I wasnt there or anything and this is a pure arm chair comment. But it looks like they parachuted down over a potential runway.

 

 

[Geoff13]

I sure as heck think I would have taken the option of landing it rather than pulling the pin given where it has landed. That does not look like tiger country to me.

 

 

[huppypuppy]

It's a farm just south of Gilgandra towards Dubbo - the field was just ploughed ready to seed

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

I've been looking at that photo for ten minutes just gobsmacked at the waste of a good aircraft. Attention owner please do not buy another aircraft take up golf or something .could put THE SPACE SHUTTLE IN THAT PADDOCK.

 

 

[Ultralights]

At about 1122, the oil pressure annunciator light illuminated

 

At 1401, the engine failed

so, he flew for over 2.5 hours with a low oil pressure warning... at 150Kts+ that is a lot of options to land safely.

 

 

[BLA82]

I agree with Ozzie, a waste of a great aircraft and a example of why insurance policies keep increasing

 

 

[BLA82]

so, he flew for over 2.5 hours with a low oil pressure warning... at 150Kts+ that is a lot of options to land safely.

That's just plain stupid.

 

 

[Dieselten]

The error of judgement in this case is overflying a number of airfields with a low oil-pressure warning.

 

The good judgement-call was using the CAPS - as he would have been trained to do by Cirrus if he did the sim course they like all new pilots to do. A Cirrus airfame tech would look at that and say "yes, that can be repaired and returned to the air", and the investigating Police would have said, "yes, they used the parachute and they're both still alive as a result."

 

As for electing to use the CAPS rather than land in the paddock, it comes down to the decision made by the PIC at the time and under the pressures he was handling in the heat of the moment. It is debatable which of the two alternatives would have cause more damage to the aircraft; land under the CAPS and break the undercarriage, or land on the paddock and risk flipping the aircraft over on its back if the surface was too soft. I imagine he decided to use the CAPS after seeing the nature of the surface at relatively low altitude and realising it was not as firm a surface as it first appeared...another prudent decision.

 

Again, the CAPS has saved two lives after a poor decision (not to land at an airfield whilst the engine was running) was made. We can all be armchair experts and claim we could land the same aircraft in that particular paddock but only the man flying the aircraft at the time knows all the factors he had to take into consideration before making the decision. Ultimately, he did well and has lived to profit and learn from the experience.

 

 

[facthunter]

Forgive me if I'm not impressed. Overflying good aerodromes with low oil pressure indication is poor airmanship NO excuses. That engine could have thrown it's innards through the cases and cause fire. People shouldn't press on and hope it will be OK. Happens all the time. I don't know if this pilot will learn but others can . If something's not right with an engine get it on the ground and fix it.. You even do this if you lose one and have a multi engined plane. The engine is probably quite damaged as well. Fair bit of cost and undue risk. Nev

 

 

[Dieselten]

The engine is a consumable item on an aeroplane. The airframe is just hardware, and is replaceable, as is the engine. But people, human-beings, fathers, brothers, husbands etc are not so easy to replace.

 

Those two individuals are irreplaceable to their families and frends. Yes, I know a human-being can be created by two congenital idiots, both of who are thoroughly enjoying themselves at the time (how else do you explain some of the more "loopy" politicians we see on the media every time there is anissue needing a seven-second sound-bite), but the result isn't quite the same.

 

I refuse to pass judgement on the PIC simply because I wasn't in his shoes, I didn't face the circumstances he had to face, and I didn't make the decisions he made. There were deficiencies in airmanship, yes, but at least the pilot now has the time to reflect on his decision-making process and perhaps revise his estimation of his own abilities given that the abilities of the aircraft have given him the chance so to do.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's nice not to pass judgement but the points I raise are valid and I don't withdraw from any of what I have said, mainly for others to consider . Is this just another bad judgement caused in part by the sense of security a ballistic chute is promoted on? You don't bypass a suitable aerodrome, with a suspect engine, which eventually failed just proving the point. Had it caught fire the use of the chute would have been contra-indicated .Nev

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Bit more wind will finish off that airframe.

 

 

[robinsm]

maybe the answer is not the parachute, its not to buy a Cirrus, they seem to be dropping out of the sky at an alarming rate.

 

 

[facthunter]

In this case it is an engine common to many aircraft, that was the cause. The adherence of RAAus to the 45 knot landing capability makes outlandings more likely to be without injury than faster aircraft like Lancair for instance . Nev

 

 

[Teckair]

Apparently with out power the Cirrus is a unsafe heap of crap I would not get in one.