Plane parachute
- Thread starter nsaspook
- Start date
Swell parachute. I only wish it had reminded him to fill the gas tank. 
Still, he was lucky he didn't have to be anywhere near Washington D.C.
A government employee was playing with a toy quad-copter today and every channel on my TV is having a terror crisis threat about it tonight.
Still, he was lucky he didn't have to be anywhere near Washington D.C.
A government employee was playing with a toy quad-copter today and every channel on my TV is having a terror crisis threat about it tonight.
The Cirrus is one of the new breed of private airplanes that boasts a ballistic parachute for emergencies. Running out of fuel seems about the easiest thing not to do, yet such pilot errors are 5 times more likely than mechanical failures as the cause of crashes (http://www.ghafi.org/download/GA-Analysis.1.pdf ).
In one incident I witnessed, a pilot flying from Louisiana to St Louis asked for priority landing at Spirit of St. Louis airport in the early 1970's. I was #1, but was made to circle. As soon as he landed and the nose of his airplane rose (he was in a Piper Cherokee/Arrow) his engine stopped on the runway and he had to be towed to the ramp. I was flying from ROC and had made a fuel stop in Columbus, even though my airplane had the range in theory to go non-stop. Running out of fuel is capital stupidity in my book. A fuel stop may delay you a little bit, but it has so many other advantages to offset the 15 to 30 minutes it takes.
John
In one incident I witnessed, a pilot flying from Louisiana to St Louis asked for priority landing at Spirit of St. Louis airport in the early 1970's. I was #1, but was made to circle. As soon as he landed and the nose of his airplane rose (he was in a Piper Cherokee/Arrow) his engine stopped on the runway and he had to be towed to the ramp. I was flying from ROC and had made a fuel stop in Columbus, even though my airplane had the range in theory to go non-stop. Running out of fuel is capital stupidity in my book. A fuel stop may delay you a little bit, but it has so many other advantages to offset the 15 to 30 minutes it takes.
John
Amen!
but I have a brother-in-law that came to mind immediately when I saw this on TV.
Guy with parachute was flying from CA to HI.
Ok, something is strange here. Strange about the pilots decisions and why he made them.
Cirrus says their plane (SR-22) has a range of 800 miles including reserve at full speed and minimum payload. 40% extra at 2/3 power.
And the distance from LA to Maui is way more...
And, go figure, he ran out of fuel 1000 miles NE of Hawaii.
Am I missing something in how fuel range is calculated at other altitudes or payload?
Cirrus says their plane (SR-22) has a range of 800 miles including reserve at full speed and minimum payload. 40% extra at 2/3 power.
And the distance from LA to Maui is way more...
And, go figure, he ran out of fuel 1000 miles NE of Hawaii.
Am I missing something in how fuel range is calculated at other altitudes or payload?
post#5 by spinnaker: He did not run out of fuel.
Apparently you can triple the distance on an 800 mile gas tank when flying down hill, as clearly shown by the map in post #9. Unfortunately, 2400 miles was not enough for a 2,490 mile trip.
post#5 by spinnaker: He did not run out of fuel.
Apparently you can triple the distance on an 800 mile gas tank when flying down hill, as clearly shown by the map in post #9. Unfortunately, 2400 miles was not enough for a 2,490 mile trip.
That was the pilots claim. Not saying it was reality.
From a Honolulu report:
Ferry flights have additional fuel tanks temporarily installed in the baggage compartments and/or passenger area. Transfer pumps are used to pump the ferry fuel into the main tanks of the plane where its used normally. If a valve or pump fails, you have problems but at least time to sort them out while burning off the remaining fuel in the mains. Reports say the pilot had enough time to declare an emergency and get things right - including getting close to the cruise ship before ditching. There have been a few other ferry incidents over the years due to the same kind of problem. From a distance, it looks like the pilot did everything right. My guess is that once the rescue was set up, he shut it down and popped the chute. Good job.
Ooh! Complicated math!
A thousand pounds of extra fuel and a 180 pound pilot cuts the range down to 100 miles, but the "payload" weight of fuel is constantly dropping and it is added to the original specification of 820 miles and multiplied by 1.4 for running at 65% throttle.
I could take 5 minutes just to figure out the equation. Maybe that's why pilots have to study piloting.
A thousand pounds of extra fuel and a 180 pound pilot cuts the range down to 100 miles, but the "payload" weight of fuel is constantly dropping and it is added to the original specification of 820 miles and multiplied by 1.4 for running at 65% throttle.
I could take 5 minutes just to figure out the equation. Maybe that's why pilots have to study piloting.
You can fit accessory tanks (sometimes called ferry tanks) in many aircraft. The Cirrus is quite a small airplane. I son't have a clue as to whether it can be fitted with ferry tanks.
John
More like, pilots learn how to use little charts prepared by engineers...Ooh! Complicated math!
A thousand pounds of extra fuel and a 180 pound pilot cuts the range down to 100 miles, but the "payload" weight of fuel is constantly dropping and it is added to the original specification of 820 miles and multiplied by 1.4 for running at 65% throttle.
I could take 5 minutes just to figure out the equation. Maybe that's why pilots have to study piloting.
..and why engineers study calculus.
I have flown a Cessna 206 (high-wing, single-engine, turbo-normalized) that was ferried from HI to Oakland, CA. A 400 gallon rubber bladder tank is put on the floor (to spread the weight) right at the C.G. A small 24Vdc pump is rigged to transfer fuel from the bladder up into the wing tanks during flight. The aircraft takes off over-gross weight, so a FAA ferry permit is required. Single pilot, life raft aboard.
I was at the Oshkosh fly-in and talked to homebuilder Jon Johanson that flew his RV4 from Brisbane to Oshkosh (twice). His longest leg was from HI to CA.
I worked at HP with Chuck Kingsford Smith, whose father first flew the other way in 1928.
Sounds like a differential equation. Do pilots have to study calculus?Ooh! Complicated math!
A thousand pounds of extra fuel and a 180 pound pilot cuts the range down to 100 miles, but the "payload" weight of fuel is constantly dropping and it is added to the original specification of 820 miles and multiplied by 1.4 for running at 65% throttle.
I could take 5 minutes just to figure out the equation. Maybe that's why pilots have to study piloting.
One thing that a lot of people overlook is the effort that was put into rescuing this one person out in the middle of the ocean (okay, so "middle" is a bit of a stretch). The FAA notified the Coast Guard and dispatched a C-130 and contacted a cruise ship that threw it's schedule out the window and went to the serve as the rescue ship. This is typical response. A decade or two ago the pilot of a Cessna got disoriented and ended up way out to the east of the East Coast over the Atlantic and the Navy diverted an entire carrier battle group that was within range to intercept him. I don't recall for sure, but I think the pilot ended up landing on the carrier because the captain determined that that posed less of a risk to the pilot than ditching in the sea. I can't find a reference to the event, but I found some sites were a few others commented on (what appears to be) the same story.
You see this all the time. A missing hunter, hiker, skier, elderly person with dementia, whatever and you immediately have search parties that can number into the hundreds with numerous aircraft in support. Most of those searchers are volunteers, but not all of them. Corporations often get into the act, often in a support role by supplying, or at least paying for, food and such to support the searchers and in many cases will send their own aircraft to assist in the search provided they can get a suitably trained pilot (who sometimes has no affiliation with the company and is just a search pilot that doesn't have a plane available (the normal case on a search -- more pilots than planes).
There aren't that many countries that will put forth that kind of effort to save a single individual -- says quite a bit about those countries that will.
You see this all the time. A missing hunter, hiker, skier, elderly person with dementia, whatever and you immediately have search parties that can number into the hundreds with numerous aircraft in support. Most of those searchers are volunteers, but not all of them. Corporations often get into the act, often in a support role by supplying, or at least paying for, food and such to support the searchers and in many cases will send their own aircraft to assist in the search provided they can get a suitably trained pilot (who sometimes has no affiliation with the company and is just a search pilot that doesn't have a plane available (the normal case on a search -- more pilots than planes).
There aren't that many countries that will put forth that kind of effort to save a single individual -- says quite a bit about those countries that will.
Probably in the same way that baseball pitchers do.
