Are Planes With Parachutes Really Safer?

The Cirrus line of aircraft have been flying for 20 years and although most people in aviation know they have full aircraft parachutes, it's fair to ask how effective these have been. With more than 90 uses of the so-called CAPS, has the system really saved lives? In this video, AVweb's Paul Bertorelli analyzes the record.

[bcy]

"Better to go home with a good story than ride your ego into a crater"--wisdom applicable to many situations!

[russellwitt]

I worked at a Cirrus repair center, the biggest problem with the CAPS can be summed up in a direct quote from a Cirrus pilot that came into the shop “The weather was really crappy but I had the chute so I took off anyway “ I had to walk away.

[mierbeuker]

Well think of it this way, in 100% of accidents, 100% of aircraft that has a chute, has at least one extra option to prevent a catastrophic crash that aircraft without a chute, simply do not have.

I love options.

[sirclarencedarrow]

In Germany CAPS systems are mandatory for most ultralights and have "saved" more often than not, and their use is part of pilot license training.

[blancolirio]

20 years of data in 13 minutes! Great presentation. Thanks Paul.

[eno]

Back in the good ol' days, I once decided to make a plane in Kerbal Space Program. Only problem was, I'd yet to unlock landing gear. So.. I decided to make the plane "take off" vertically with several small single use rockets that would then detach. To land, parachutes would deploy to safely bring the plane down.

This was probably the safest and most reliable plane I ever built.

[QuantumRift]

ANY landing you can walk away from is a GOOD landing, including a parachute "landing".

[NikosWings]

Great video and as a Cirrus pilot I attest that the CAPS is always in the back of my mind, or rather 1 foot from my head, if something happens, it’s good to know I have a fighting chance.

[Woopigdippers]

I was in high school, I looked up and saw a plane no more than 500 feet in the air. The engine obviously blew out over us, and to my surprise a parachute came out of the plane, and he swung down to the ground. Relatively slow. It was the video with “west ave” at the streetlight.

[MikeKobb]

One of the best researched, most clearly presented treatments of the CAPS system I've seen anywhere. Thanks, Paul!

[johndonaldson]

My nephew had to deploy the parachute a few months back. He had only very minor injuries.

[tomgrimes]

I'm not a pilot and know nothing about airplanes. But I am (among other things) a TV news producer. This video is unusually well written, shot and edited. The graphics -- usually a trouble spot -- were well put together and helped the narration. The on-air talent is superb. He knows what he's doing. Congratulations on a well done video.

[deeanna]

I wish there were more of these videos. They are informative, and this guy is really funny!

[mobiltec]

I told a flight instructor friend of mine who was also a skydiver like me, that he should put a BRS on his instruction plane. He claimed that the only time he would ever need that is if he had a mid air collision. Well guess what. He had a mid air just a few hours later and died as a result. The other aircraft also went in and both occupants were killed. Being that the collision was wingtip to wing tip, I'm almost certain that a parachute recovery system would have changed the results of this accident.

[mqbitsko]

Obvious answer: Yes, if you know what you're doing.

And that'll pretty much cover every other safety related question in aviation.

[AVweb]

To answer a general question several have posed about Cirrus and spins. The Cirrus aircraft spin normally and recover normally. I interviewed a couple of Cirrus developmental test pilots in the early days of the company and they confirmed this. Since the parachute was planned from day one as a safety device, Cirrus proposed and the FAA accepted it as an equivalent level of safety in lieu of full spin testing.


Full spin workups comprise a matrix of 500 or more data sets. Very involved and very expensive. The CAPS allowed Cirrus to bypass that. But if you know how to recover from a spin--idle the power, ailerons neutral, rudder opposite the spin and forward stick--it will recover just like it's supposed to.

[superdupergrover]

Better to be judged by twelve than be carried by six.

[originaldylanbaxter]

A hang-glider buddy of mine has been flying a similar system since his early days in the sport 20+ years ago. Apparently just months after he installed the system the 'chute actually saved his bacon when a nasty thermal inverted his glider. It wasn't pretty, but he walked away.

[rogerjones]

My dad Rocky Jones (retired USAF fighter pilot and test pilot for Hughes Aircraft Co) was the test pilot and president of "SuperChute" in Newport News, VA back in the late 1980's. They had a Cessna 172 with a canister underneath the belly with a spring loaded drag chute attached to a large zero-porosity parachute. During the first flight test with the FAA and a TV news crew filming he flew to 5000 ft. and then cut the power to simulate an engine failure and pulled the chute. Nothing happened, so he aborted the test. At 3500 ft. however the spring decided to deploy the system after all. It worked, problem was he was spinning wildly because engine was running. He had to manually detach the chute from cockpit with detach system in order to recover from the spin, then he had to dive to regain airspeed to recover. Thankfully he was a great pilot and safely landed. They checked the plane for damage and reloaded it another day, and this time he safely brought it to the ground WITH the parachute, and then had to re-evaluate for any damage and fly the plane again and safely land in order for the test to be a success. Even though it was, the FAA gave them all kinds of grief during the testing about "explosive" bolts, etc. Unfortunately before any more testing could be accomplished my dad was killed in a Formula-1 air race in New Braunsfels, TX in 1990 when an illegally participating (previously reprimanded for earlier races) active NASA shuttle pilot clipped my dad's wing and spun him into a cornfield! He was only 69 and would have celebrated his 100th birthday last week 091420 if he were still alive.

[CrazyNate]

I don't want to be a dot on your annoying graphs. haha