The controversy over Cirrus safety and specifically spins:

When Cirrus was introduced and marketed, there were 2 safety items touted. The parachute which has worked great in numerous times, and also a supposed wing design that made it "spin resistant". Lot's of spin with this, in other words, lot's of marketing hype.

We now know, from facts of accident records over the history of Cirrus, that if it "spin resistant" it certainly is not spin proof. There have been spin fatal accidents and those where a spin was saved only by the parachute.
These are facts, not opinons, and not personal attacks.

It is also a fact that Cirrus DID NOT do the full course of spin testing as per past U S regulations in the same way that Beech or Cessna did in the past.

Now some Cirrus proponents on this forum claim Cirrus did some spin testing in Europe and met or could have met the standards there.

I regard this as a lot less than proven. Thus, I think believing this whole heartedly is like drinking the Kool Aid. Now you as a Cirrus owner may buy into the whole idea, and I may not. But that is not the same as a personal attack. And by the way, I don't sell Beech products or in any way have any profit tied to their sale, other than I own one which is not for sale now.

My doubts about Cirrus being able recover from a spin with normal control inputs, short of using a chute, has nothing to do with any personal attack on anyone.
I just don't believe Cirrus should be a sacred cow on this site or any other, and history is full of overhyped and overmarketed airplanes, etc.
And by the way, Aviation Consumer had some of the same doubts.

A final point, it seems strange that on Beech forum, there is so much talk and so much promoting of Cirrus. Do the guys go on the Cirrus forum, assuming there is one, and promote Beechcraft?

Bill G

As soon as the Panthera is certified, the Cirrus is history.

I dont want to fuel Cirrus controversy but am curious about one thing. Without knowing the depth of the subject I am aware that modern certification standards are more rigourous than those in place when many aircraft, including Beech products, were developed and that Cessna chose to re-certify the piston line inder the modern code. Did the Bonanza similarily get re-certified to modern standards? And how would those earlier requirements compare to modern certified craft like the Cirrus, Diamnond, Columbia etc.?

Tim , I am not an expert on certification standards, but your idea that modern certificaton standards are more rigorous than in the past is not true, at least as far as spins, I have read and been told about it. I also have read that some other planes may have been certified without meeting the 61 knot stall speed of the past.

In the past a plane like a C172 or Bonanza 36 would have actually had to do a series of tests spins and meet recovery standards which are something like recovering in less than 2 turns with normal control input. Firing a chute is not normal control input.
Now Cirrus DID NOT do this same full series of tests like Beech or others. It is a little of a grey area, the standards may have been changed before or when Cirrus came along. Some people claim Cirrus was given a waiver because they came up with the parachute, but I am not sure that is the case.
In any event, Cirrus did Not do the full series of spin and recovery tests like other planes had done in the past to get U S certification. That much is fact. Now there are people on this forum that make claims about what Cirrus could have done or would have done, or maybe did in Europe. You can give these reports whatever weight you think they deserve.
To me it is a little like if someone came up with a new medicine and says it cures insomnia, baldness, and lowers your colesterol. Then you ask if is is FDA approved for use in the United States. And they admit that no, in fact it is not approved, but maybe it could have been or woud have been and some folks in China tested it and said it was good to go.

Bill,

...I know you're probably aware of this, but nobody here disputes the fact that Cirrus chose to not do the official spin-testing protocol during the certification process. They chose to incorporate the parachute as an ELOS feature. I think everyone here agrees with this as factual.

Why the obsession with repeating it over and over again?

Sometime yes, you do just have to admit it - I'm envious of the BIG 'chute on a Cirrus and other aircraft. I have 'chute envy....

I don't mind admitting it......I think the CAPS chute is a great feature. I wish my Bonanza had one. I do not have any immediate plans to buy a Cirrus, but I would consider the chute to be a positive feature of the aircraft.

Certification standards have become much tougher but I don't think the spin area is one of them.

Cirrus has never promoted the wing design as more spin recoverable. The design (also on the Columbia) is a more extreme variation of something on many planes including those from Beechcraft and that is the idea of making the wing root stall first. Rather than a taper and stall fence, the dual AOA Cirrus and Corvalis wings make the change in an abrupt manner. It is the result of NASA research on stall recovery and isn't a Cirrus invention.

When the FAA eliminated spin training as a requirement they also added more emphasis on stall recovery and avoidance. I personally have done spin training but the fact is that stall/spin deaths went DOWN after the FAA changed the training standards. The FAA has more recently focused on spin avoidance in aircraft certification. For example the Lancair Certified 300 was certified under ELOS since it incorporated a rudder limiter. I have not seen any data showing a person is more likely to die in a spin in a Cirrus than in another aircraft not certified under ELOS. I'll make an exception here for Diamond which, based on the data I have seen, has exceptional characteristics.

The cuffed wing design tends to result in a plane requiring forceful elevator use to exit a spin but one which can be recovered from a stall even when using less than stellar piloting skills. The question then is which is better - recovery characteristics or avoidance characteristics. I think even Cirrus would admit that they are skewed to the avoidance characteristics end.

Having spoken directly with Alan Klapmeirer on the subject, I accept his word that he insisted the chute be standard and that after that decision was made, Cirrus found they could save money by avoiding the spin testing series. By the way, Dale wanted it to be an option. It was Alan who had survived a mid-air and he insisted it be standard.

It is fascinating to me that many are focused on the spin issue and focused in a way that often seems inconsistent to me. For example, I love the Baron. The fact that it isn't spin certified doesn't bother me. Yet I see people who I suspect love the Baron focused on spin recovery.

With the exception of Diamond (and I don't know how they track their hours without the same required hour checks as Cirrus), nobody in a piston x-country platform has a safer record over the last 3 years - not even Diamond over the last 12 months. It's far and away better than the Personal & Business GA category.

The focus has nothing to do with sense. I still struggle to know why three or four people here still feel the need to deride it. The vast majority have moved on.

As well you should, Paul! Bow to the 'chute!

Seriously...I went from a Bo to a Cirrus. I loved my Bo. I love my Cirrus. The Bo (F33A, TN IO 550) had more capability ( could do 4 normal adults and reasonable luggage with full fuel) than the Cirrus (3 maybe), but that is my current mission. The Cirrus is way more comfortable because of the air conditioning. The Cirrus is clearly a safer machine. The data support that increasingly, and when ya need it, the parachute is a massive advantage.

I never spun my Bo, and I have never spun my Cirrus. I did spin the hell out of my HP 16 glider. I haven't spun my Cubcrafters Carbon Cub either...it is placarded against it...even tho I bet it spins nicely.

The Bo was a bear to do a power-on stall...very aggressively dropped a wing and made me sweat. The Cirrus is a real sweetheart to do a power-on stall...pretty much a non-event. With just me and an instructor the Cirrus is benign power off too...and I have gone from full left to full right aileron whilst in a fully developed stall...with ease. Wouldn't try that in a Bo. Wouldn't try that with someone in the back seat of the Cirrus, either.

End of the day, though, every time I fly the Cirrus, I feel pretty darn good about the safety after I go above 500 feet...and before I descend down to 500 feet. I have a back-up option which is very, very reliable, and which saves lives. I like that a lot.

If that makes me less of a man, so be it. If the Cirrus is less of an airplane because it hasn't done a US spin certification...oh well...the only time I ever used a spin as a necessary part of a flight was once when I got sucked up above some clouds in the aforementioned HP 16. I knew that the ceiling below me was around 7000 feet, and I knew the HP spun very stably...and I could recover in a turn...so I just spun it down through the clouds. Only instruments were altimeter, variometer, and ASI...well, and a yaw-string, but it was wet. I figure the Cirrus instruments can help me if I get in that position...oh, yeah, I do it all the time...again.

I'm happy with my choice. Greenwood is no doubt happy with his.

Can't we all just get along? Or not, cognitive dissonance is a powerful disturbing force.

Jim

You are in the majority

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=92230&hilit=Brs

I don't think I could recover any aircraft in the traffic pattern from an incipient stall spin. Since that is the most likely place to have one other than losing control in IMC the whole discussion about which airplanes have been shown to be spin recoverable by a professional test pilot under stringent test conditions are academic to me.

What I have learned in this thread is not to experiment with the edges of the flight envelope with passengers on board.

I have also had to face the fact that there are a lot of places in the flight envelope of the planes that I have flown, fly or plan to fly that I couldn't recover from at this point. So, I'm going to go take a two day upset recovery course this weekend to try and do something productive about it.

In another place on this forum is a very clear video of a Pipistrel Panthera doing a 10 turn spin with 4 people in the plane, and recovery within 1 turn of recovery. This series is shown 3 times with 3 different camera views.
They also have a chute.
This shot looks like recovery could be made in a few hundred feet, so it you were aware of spin entry at 1000 ft pattern start, and corrected right away, you could recover in the pattern. Of course, if the pilot is that aware, he probably wouldn't get into a spin anway.

This is not yet a production plane.

I did. Well, at the risk of bringing Religion into this thread, I chalk that recovery up to the Big Guy in the Sky because, there is no way some snot-nose teenager could have pulled that off without some help.

Jim...you stated you feel your Cirrus is clearly a safer machine than your Bo. I'm curious to hear you elaborate a bit on that conclusion. Is it primarily the extra cruise phase safety afforded by the chute? How do you assess overall?