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New Mooney Design with BRS Parachute?


MrRodgers

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5 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Not true!  If you're not too large, you can carry a thin wife, an infant and a diaper bag plus full standard tanks.  Maybe Mooney could offer discounts on shipping luggage...

If however you slow an Acclaim down to say 170kts in the teens you can take 700lbs of payload 500nm  with reserves.

Or you could buy a 55 year old Comanche 400 and fly yourself and two full sized males plus gear 900 NM and land with 2 hours of fuel left.  

Clarence

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16 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Or you could buy a 55 year old Comanche 400 and fly yourself and two full sized males plus gear 900 NM and land with 2 hours of fuel left.  

Clarence

New plane shoppers aren't shopping for old planes.  If they were, nobody would ever sell a new plane.

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37 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

Ah.  I get it now.  Intentionally obtuse.  

Ah. I get it now. Asking for evidence and reference to back up one's claim is intentionally obtuse. You claimed that Mooney's retract gear will not be absorbing enough of energy yet Cirrus Vision jet BRS exists. So who's right? You or Cirrus engineer? That's why I ask for evidence and numbers. You spoke like you have dropped enough Mooneys with a BRS to make that statement. 
 

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8 hours ago, johncuyle said:

Useful load is the problem.  BRS is heavy.  Making the problem worse by adding BRS is counterproductive.


People who are arguing about UL is missing the point. The proponent of BRS like myself isn't asking for compulsory fitting of BRS - Cirrus has to, for aerodynamic reasons that somehow all its ads failed to mention - we are asking BRS as an option. Unless you are saying every Mooney buyers / pilots have identical build, experience, risk profile, missions, and partner preferences, then options are a good thing.

I think OP's question is whether an optionally BRS-equipped Mooney will be technically possible and commercial viable. Looking at Cirrus (Vision jet for technical possiblity and SR for commmercial success), I say yes to both counts. 

Let's spare each other of patronizing comment - pilots who want BRS are, somehow, inferior pilots that don't possess luck, skill, and cool-headedness - and of re-telling of fatal incidents to prove their point.

Edited by Tommy
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@mike_elliott Any chance of asking Mooney International if BRS is technically possible on the current airframes - at least, it's objective compard to the debate on whether it's commercially viable -  for our Mooneys? If it can't be done, then I think we can bury this BRS on Mooney discussion once and for all. 

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1 hour ago, Tommy said:

Ah. I get it now. Asking for evidence and reference to back up one's claim is intentionally obtuse. You claimed that Mooney's retract gear will not be absorbing enough of energy yet Cirrus Vision jet BRS exists. So who's right? You or Cirrus engineer? That's why I ask for evidence and numbers. You spoke like you have dropped enough Mooneys with a BRS to make that statement. 
 

The vision jet does a number of things on autopilot automatically to assist the brs if triggered such as slowing the plane before it deploys - if I understand correctly.  It may well be coupled to automatically lower gear as well.

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11 hours ago, Tommy said:

@mike_elliott Any chance of asking Mooney International if BRS is technically possible on the current airframes - at least, it's objective compard to the debate on whether it's commercially viable -  for our Mooneys? If it can't be done, then I think we can bury this BRS on Mooney discussion once and for all. 

It is not without major modification, requiring recertification from what I have been told. Funny thing is Kevin Kammer used to work for a company that did the hollywood aero stunts for movies. They wired up a military cargo chute to a C150 for a stunt well before Cirrus was a gleam in the Klapmeiers eyes and performed a "save". After the stunt, they did a quick walk around, disconnected the chute and flew that sucker back to the airport, something you cant do in a Cirri.

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58 minutes ago, mike_elliott said:

It is not without major modification, requiring recertification from what I have been told. Funny thing is Kevin Kammer used to work for a company that did the hollywood aero stunts for movies. They wired up a military cargo chute to a C150 for a stunt well before Cirrus was a gleam in the Klapmeiers eyes and performed a "save". After the stunt, they did a quick walk around, disconnected the chute and flew that sucker back to the airport, something you cant do in a Cirri.

Mike, do you know if the BRS company had to get the whole airframe rectified to get the BRS STC for the Cessna 172 and 182?

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8 minutes ago, mike_elliott said:

I do not, Erik. Sorry I missed you when I was in upstate NY last week

:-). I missed you too!!!!!  Next time good buddy.  Let me know when where, and I might come to you.  I forgot - where did you go specifically?

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46 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

.....wired up a military cargo chute to a C150 for a stunt well before Cirrus was a gleam in the Klapmeiers eyes and performed a "save". After the stunt, they did a quick walk around, disconnected the chute and flew that sucker back to the airport, something you cant do in a Cirri.

If a Cessna 150 survives thousands of student pilot “landings” what’s a mere parachute drop?  

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1 hour ago, mike_elliott said:

It is not without major modification, requiring recertification from what I have been told. Funny thing is Kevin Kammer used to work for a company that did the hollywood aero stunts for movies. They wired up a military cargo chute to a C150 for a stunt well before Cirrus was a gleam in the Klapmeiers eyes and performed a "save". After the stunt, they did a quick walk around, disconnected the chute and flew that sucker back to the airport, something you cant do in a Cirri.

If BRS is the solution to Mooney sales and if major modifications to the gear and seats are not possible why not just use a bigger chute to lower the rate of drop making it survivable. Whatever material is being used for parachutes these days I'm sure is pretty light so a big canopy wouldn't make that much difference.

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13 hours ago, Tommy said:

Ah. I get it now. Asking for evidence and reference to back up one's claim is intentionally obtuse. You claimed that Mooney's retract gear will not be absorbing enough of energy yet Cirrus Vision jet BRS exists. So who's right? You or Cirrus engineer? That's why I ask for evidence and numbers. You spoke like you have dropped enough Mooneys with a BRS to make that statement. 
 

Nope.  I never claimed any such thing.  And I never mentioned the Vision jet.  I was helping explain Shadrach's post that you had misread/misunderstood.

But you've misread my post as well.  I see the problem, and I won't fall for it again.

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5 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

Nope.  I never claimed any such thing.  And I never mentioned the Vision jet.  I was helping explain Shadrach's post that you had misread/misunderstood.

But you've misread my post as well.  I see the problem, and I won't fall for it again.

I think I understood him perfectly well but thank you anyway. 

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On 5/30/2019 at 11:24 AM, Shadrach said:

 That was a Lancair, it was 9 years ago, I believe the pilot tried to get the joggers attention but he had ear phones in.

It's happened more than once.

I'm sure there are others, but that's the first page of Google results.

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On 5/30/2019 at 10:26 AM, Shadrach said:

 

@chrixxer‘s scenario involved luck, skill and cool headedness. He was lucky to find the patch of neighborhood that he did. He had the skill and presence of mind to deliver the plane to the accident site with minimal energy. 

 

More than that, I was in control of the aircraft until about 8' AGL, when a tree took over. (The tree gets a lot of the credit.) About 30' AGL I had to actively maneuver to avoid an apartment building.

In the second situation (the emergency landing at Pt. Mugu), I was - miraculously - able to get the engine restarted and to make partial power, which made the NAS a viable (if inconvenient, for everybody) landing spot. The plane was reusable.

I'm a big believer in flying until you can't. I'm not sure I would have pulled the 'chute in the first situation; if I hadn't gotten the engine back in the second situation, I would have gone slightly offshore and pulled it (especially vs. ditching with fixed gear).

It's another tool in the chest.

If I didn't think the SR20 was dangerously underpowered and too expensive, and if I could afford an SR22 and liked how it flew, I might have considered a Cirrus to replace 4BE. (I have about 75 hours (out of about 630 hours total) in SR20/22s). But the earlier (affordable) G1/G2 models suck for hand flying (that bungee-linked side stick), the avionics are getting really long in the tooth and not economically upgradeable (e.g., to go to a WAAS GNS, never mind a GTN, you have to somehow find and install an R8.2 version of the Avidyne Entegra PFD), the SR22's cost-per-hour is about double my Mooney, and the SR20, as noted before, can't climb better than 300 fpm 200 lbs under gross on a 72° day out of sea level (BTDT)...

After 4BE, I was flying two days later (got shoved into the left seat and told to fly home, still sore and shell shocked). At a much higher altitude than I'd have typically flown before, and with that CAPS pin out (the owners of that plane never pull it, I now always do - it's on the checklist, it's getting done). The 'chute definitely gave me a boost in confidence. I'd love to see a Mooney with a 'chute, to be honest. (I'd love it even more if I could afford one.)

I recently got checked out in the Sling LSAs that are renting at my home field for a little less than what it costs me to fly 3RM per hour(!). But I'll only fly the ones with BRS, 'cause I don't trust that Rotax engine all that much (friends are tower controllers at SMO - where Rotax powered SportCruisers are a significant portion of their training traffic - and speak of those things returning about once a week with a "rough running engine").

But I fly over a lot of mountainous terrain, where survivable landing options are few and far between. Mountain? 'Chute. Water? 'Chute. Desert? Eh, probably 'chute, but I'd get down low and near a road. (If there's an empty road: Road.) Nice thing about the 'chute, you can get down to ~750' AGL, see if there are power lines or other issues that will make that road no good, and yank the lever over something flat.

Over a dense urban environment, at 10pm on a Friday night (highways and major roads were bumper-to-bumper)? Well, maybe I could find a deserted industrial area, or an empty stadium, or something, and maybe the 'chute would be an option I'd consider. Maybe not. Can't say. Honestly. The thought of coming down uncontrolled, into what might be a bus full of kids returning from band camp, or an apartment building full of the sleeping oblivious ...

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16 hours ago, Tommy said:

Ah. I get it now. Asking for evidence and reference to back up one's claim is intentionally obtuse. You claimed that Mooney's retract gear will not be absorbing enough of energy yet Cirrus Vision jet BRS exists. So who's right? You or Cirrus engineer? That's why I ask for evidence and numbers. You spoke like you have dropped enough Mooneys with a BRS to make that statement. 
 

The Cirrus Jet is constructed almost entirely from carbon fiber and was designed to absorb a CAPS ground impact from the first design drawing.    When I mention spring steel I was talking about retrofits.

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22 hours ago, Tommy said:


People who are arguing about UL is missing the point. The proponent of BRS like myself isn't asking for compulsory fitting of BRS - Cirrus has to, for aerodynamic reasons that somehow all its ads failed to mention - we are asking BRS as an option. Unless you are saying every Mooney buyers / pilots have identical build, experience, risk profile, missions, and partner preferences, then options are a good thing.

I think OP's question is whether an optionally BRS-equipped Mooney will be technically possible and commercial viable. Looking at Cirrus (Vision jet for technical possiblity and SR for commmercial success), I say yes to both counts. 

Let's spare each other of patronizing comment - pilots who want BRS are, somehow, inferior pilots that don't possess luck, skill, and cool-headedness - and of re-telling of fatal incidents to prove their point.

OP was asking about the M10J, which is a totally different plane.  I think the M10J would have been an interesting plane that would have slotted into the market somewhere between the DA20 and DA40, but that's a really rough market.  The DA20 is pretty adequate for a trainer and cheap to run.  The DA40, those planes have unbelievably good safety records.  I suspect buyers are sort of like Volvo buyers thirty years ago, before everything became so safe that it didn't matter which car you bought.  If you absolutely, positively, must have the safest piston single on the market, you don't even bother to consider anything else, you just buy a DA40.  The M10J was cancelled, so the OP was largely irrelevant after the first couple posts and the thread evolved into the usual "what does Mooney need to do to sell planes?"  Answer:  Increase useful load so that they can compete with Cirrus.

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9 minutes ago, johncuyle said:

OP was asking about the M10J, which is a totally different plane.  I think the M10J would have been an interesting plane that would have slotted into the market somewhere between the DA20 and DA40, but that's a really rough market.  The DA20 is pretty adequate for a trainer and cheap to run.  The DA40, those planes have unbelievably good safety records.  I suspect buyers are sort of like Volvo buyers thirty years ago, before everything became so safe that it didn't matter which car you bought.  If you absolutely, positively, must have the safest piston single on the market, you don't even bother to consider anything else, you just buy a DA40.  The M10J was cancelled, so the OP was largely irrelevant after the first couple posts and the thread evolved into the usual "what does Mooney need to do to sell planes?"  Answer:  Increase useful load so that they can compete with Cirrus.

So the answer to OP's question: "is Mooney contemplating a BRS version" is to increase useful load....

Ok got it. 

Also do you work for Diamond's sales department? "If you absolutely, positively, must have the safest piston single on the market, you don't even bother to consider anything else, you just buy a DA40." Straight out of the glossy brochure! Big claim! Do you have numbers to back his up?

Maybe you should take a look at this:  https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2017/aair/ao-2017-096/

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On 5/28/2019 at 12:59 PM, Hank said:

What sells Cirrus isn't the chute, it's a full-blown "lifestyle" marketing campaign aimed an aviation newbies, showcasing the automotive-style interior. The chute caters to the fears of their uniformed, aviation-uncaring passengers . . . . .

I was having this discussion with my father the other day.  Cirrus's target audience are not experienced pilots.  They want to attract the current crop of young millionaire who thinks that throwing dollars at something automatically makes it better. 

 

Every aspect of the Cirrus design says it is designed for people who want to approach flying as if they were driving their car:

  • Base model includes an autopilot that will fly it from 50' after takeoff to 50' before touchdown.
  • The autopilot comes with a panic button to put the AP into "save me please" mode.
  • There is a whole-plane parachute, for when the unexperienced non-aviator operating the thing puts it into a place even the panic button can't save
  • The interior layout is designed to make things look pretty and open, rather than to put things where they need to be for the pilot to use them.

I have not flown one yet, but everyone I have spoken to with experience flying both Cirrus and non-Cirrus aircraft indicates that they are not pleasant to fly by hand.  Any pilot who was awake during his primary training knows that a plane which is under control and can be set down with deliberate intent is better than one which is at the mercy of the winds.  That same pilot will know that the best spin recovery technique is the ability to recognize when a spin is at risk, and recover from the stall condition before it becomes a spin.  That same observant and alert pilot will be aware that the purpose of the human pilot is to bail out the autopilot, not the other way around: the AP is a workload reduction tool, it is not a replacement for an instructor or more experience safety pilot in the right seat, if you are not comfortable flying the plane yourself.

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5 hours ago, ShuRugal said:

I was having this discussion with my father the other day.  Cirrus's target audience are not experienced pilots.  They want to attract the current crop of young millionaire who thinks that throwing dollars at something automatically makes it better. 

 

Every aspect of the Cirrus design says it is designed for people who want to approach flying as if they were driving their car:

  • Base model includes an autopilot that will fly it from 50' after takeoff to 50' before touchdown.
  • The autopilot comes with a panic button to put the AP into "save me please" mode.
  • There is a whole-plane parachute, for when the unexperienced non-aviator operating the thing puts it into a place even the panic button can't save
  • The interior layout is designed to make things look pretty and open, rather than to put things where they need to be for the pilot to use them.

I have not flown one yet, but everyone I have spoken to with experience flying both Cirrus and non-Cirrus aircraft indicates that they are not pleasant to fly by hand.  Any pilot who was awake during his primary training knows that a plane which is under control and can be set down with deliberate intent is better than one which is at the mercy of the winds.  That same pilot will know that the best spin recovery technique is the ability to recognize when a spin is at risk, and recover from the stall condition before it becomes a spin.  That same observant and alert pilot will be aware that the purpose of the human pilot is to bail out the autopilot, not the other way around: the AP is a workload reduction tool, it is not a replacement for an instructor or more experience safety pilot in the right seat, if you are not comfortable flying the plane yourself.

I respectfully think you made a lot of unresearched or unqualified guesses in forming that post. It’s hard to do, but I wish you could see the enormous number of airline pilots, military and ex-military pilots, and other experienced aviators who have chosen Cirrus. 3 or 4 of them I know personally have come from Mooney ownership! The marketing is tuned to do what marketing must do (tap new audiences), but you can’t deliver 7000 piston singles in <20 years without capturing a very large share of veteran aviators. As to your bullet list, new Mooneys have the same autopilot with same panic button, and Mooney would give anything for a “pretty and open interior layout.” That leaves the chute on your list, and to categorize the pilots in a different brand of plane as “non-aviators” is a bit naive. 

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I respectfully think you made a lot of unresearched or unqualified guesses in forming that post. It’s hard to do, but I wish you could see the enormous number of airline pilots, military and ex-military pilots, and other experienced aviators who have chosen Cirrus. 3 or 4 of them I know personally have come from Mooney ownership! The marketing is tuned to do what marketing must do (tap new audiences), but you can’t deliver 7000 piston singles in
I was not making any statement that no people outside of Cirrus's target audience would find the planes attractive: They are fast and have an excellent useful load for a piston single. That plus the automation makes them good for extended cross country trips, especially when IMC prevails.

I was making the observation that the Cirrus design philosophy appears, to me, to be primarily geared around attracting into aviation people who are not of the aviator mindset, but who do have lots of money. That doesn't mean it won't fit anyone else's mission.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

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