The bad experience the SR20/22 had with chute emboldened pilots is about to recur.

A second engine is performance. A chute is lack of performance.

The total system weight on the SF50 for the chute will probably approach 300 pounds. The weight of the actual chute itself is the minor part, most of the system weight is in the structural design of the chute anchor to the plane itself. You have to decelerate 6000 pounds from, say, 180 knots, no small feat!

Are pilots going to pull the chute for a generator failure? Bleed air problem? Loss of instrument air?

There is a lot more to a second engine than having a second source of propulsion.

Mike C.

Exactly what I have been saying, jets dont fail at altitude. Pilots crash them on takeoff or landing. There is no use for a chute.

Please dont compare a PC12 or TBM 900 to this clown jet.

The chute is not about the plane.

You have to look at it from the perspective of a wife married to an overstressed guy who wants the third class medical to go away.

I'm pointing out that we shouldn't. The "clown jet" is half the price. Its like comparing a TBM900 to a CJ3+.

I was under the impression the engine on the SF50 vectored its thrust to eliminate any significant pitching moment from a change in thrust. Is this not the case?

For me, a chute would represent an out for my family if I was incapacitated.

Seems like were polarized chute/anti-chute. It's not a regular jet. It only has one engine. So the chute works potentially just as well for a single engine jet as it does for a single engine piston plane. Regardless of how it has affected training and perceived risks, it has saved lives and is a great innovative idea. Yeah, sure, marketing made it something it wasn't,but that's being corrected with additional training.

Still, marketing may make this plane fly in spite of engineers doubts, but a plane like a Pilatus doesn't even need marketing. That's the sign of a great aircraft.

Vectored thrust? Never heard this but make me want it even more. Sold!

Yes, I hope the backup instruments all run on air, especially in a plastic jet. One good lightning strike and I may have zero instruments otherwise.


You can't take a load in the design without adding weight, no matter when you designed in the chute. Then every extra pound of that load path creates extra weight to carry it around in engine, fuel, wing area, etc.


The chute weight penalty is over 100 lbs in the SR series.


This Dilbert applies for comments like this:

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-05-08/

While there is no doubt the accident rate was high, especially early, the fatal hull loss rate was under 10%. King Airs are quickly catching up lately.


Flying checks at night on a schedule after a second job did most of the damage. The private owner operators weren't having a problem. Now, the check haulers went away, the rank newbies get training, no more problem, in fact, now the safest turboprop since the SFAR training began 8 years ago.


The video by Klapmeier describes a flight before the SR22 FIKI system was approved, thus it was operating under an experimental certificate at the time. Cirrus has since removed that video.


Another airplane beset by its capability to efficiently haul cargo.

At some point I hope people realize the pilot and the mission make more difference than the airplane, but the fixation to blame the machine is a strong reflex. If a given airplane is more capable at hauling cargo or bush ops, it has a high accident rate. Duh.

Mike C.

Vectored thrust? Never heard this but make me want it even more. Sold!

Statistically, it can be shown it hasn't.

Corvalis, an extremely similar aircraft in all respects but the chute, has half the ACTUAL fatal accident rate, never mind all the fatal situations the SR chute supposedly "saved" people from.

People who buy a Cirrus SR series find themselves in 3 TIMES the fatal situations as a Corvalis owner, and the chute helps them escape only ONE THIRD of those situations.

The chute defenders always have a tough time trying to rationalize this data away as their arguments always lead back to either some as yet undiscovered design flaw in the plane itself (hint: it's not there) or some risky behavior among the Cirrus pilots, which leads right back to the effect the chute has on pilots when they make risk assessments.

Mike C.

Ok, Mike, I'll bite. I think we can all tell you have something of an issue with Cirrus - don't know why, but consider this.



That quote is so elitist. I hope some young and aspiring pilot doesn't come talk to you first.

I also don't get your point. Accidents are preventable? Yeah, some are, some aren't. If you lose an engine at night, is that preventable? Maybe, maybe not. I've got a decent amount of time, ATP, type rated, and I train pretty hard. I owned an SR22 for a bit of time this year and I have to tell you, I would have pulled the chute if the engine quit. No attempt to glide unless I was right over an airport. I also just landed a jet with one engine caged on a 61.58 checkride. When was the last time YOU landed with one engine completely shutdown. Until you have done it - its all just simulation and wishful thinking.

Mike, I have no idea your age or your aviation experience. It looks like you fly a pretty capable machine. But, your comments just remind me of the old geezers at the airport that think aviation should not change and that superior piloting saves the day. I call BS.

I sat in the mockup at OSH. I am not sure if this jet is for me, but it warrants consideration. It doesn't perform the same mission as a TBM, PC-12, Mustang, or Embraer. But, it is sweet, sexy and has ramp appeal. And it is new and feels good. It doesn't smell like 100 years old and the 2 or 3 people you might be able to squeeze in it will be impressed.

I kind of like the fact that it is limited to 25,000 feet. It keeps my airspace clear...

Also, lest we forget you will have to have a type rating to fly this thing. You will also be required to have a 61.58 each year. That is either with a full motion sim or with a DER. That is much more than you are required to have. There is a big difference between a 61.58 and a BFR/insurance school.

So cool

If so, then that's a hit in efficiency to redirect the jet wash, yet another compromise to find a place to a single jet on an airplane.


When is the last time a jet flown by a single pilot crashed because of this?

I honestly can't recall a single case. Anyone?

Then there is the issue of the deployment envelope. The SR series has a ridiculously narrow deployment envelope, so much so that if you can get inside the envelope, it almost proves the airplane is under control and you don't need the chute.

While the SR series has had successful deployments outside that envelope, there have been a number that have failed. On a fast 6000 lb jet, the deployment envelope will be even more of a requirement.

So we have an extremely rare event, pilot incapacitation, and then the non pilot passenger has to take the action to deploy the chute, and then it has to happen well before the situation is obviously out of control.

The chance of this happening is nil.

Indeed, there is ONLY ONE INSTANCE of CAPS deployment by a passenger in SR series (Indianapolis, IN), and that was verbally commanded by the PILOT (who, alas, was the one fatality).

That's right, in the entire history of all the SR series airplanes, no passenger has EVER activated the chute on their own volition. The SF50 fleet will never have anywhere remotely the number of hours the SR series has had, and it will have a far more reliable engine, so the statistical chance the chute in an SF50 is deployed by a passenger within the useful envelope is basically zero for all SF50 for all time.

By the time a passenger in an SF50 realizes things are really bad, the chute won't work any more, going too fast or too low. If you disagree, then why does a PILOT, who KNOWS what is going on, fail to activate the chute in 2/3rds of the fatal situations he encounters. WHY WOULD A NON PILOT PASSENGER DO BETTER?

Mike C.