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To Pull or Not !

MooneyMitch
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MooneyMitch Grand Master

MooneyMitch

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4 minutes ago, alextstone said:

I'm probably out of line offering this but it seems to me that the whole thing was a little too well documented and narrated to have not been planned in advance.  Care to discuss?

My thought as well.  Perhaps it was the editing process that created these thoughts.

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hypertech Rising Star

hypertech

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And were they flying from the right seat or something?  Seems like that tree should have come up right through the pilot's leg.  The guy in the video doesn't seemed injured at all which seems remarkably lucky for a crash with enough force to impale the cabin all the way to the bottom of that tree.  A foot further and this would have been a CAPS fatality if that tree had come up through the seat.  On the other hand, could he have gotten to the shore line at best glide and not landed in the trees at all?

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DXB Grand Master

DXB

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I'd certainly rather hit the treetops under CAPS than gliding without CAPS.  Though CAPS is no substitute for airmanship and judgement,  I'm in no position to Monday morning quarterback the decisions this pilot made before he pulled the chute. For someone first considering getting into flying, videos like this make a very strong impression of the CAPS system offering an enormous safety dividend that nothing else can.  The marketing wins handily. For many of us, that enthusiasm is tempered by awareness of situations where CAPS won't save you as well as disdain for the exaggerated safety claims and the invulnerable attitudes that these claims tend to breed.  Nevertheless, anyone who has flown over unforgiving terrain with an uneasy feeling in a piston single cannot deny the appeal of having the option that the chute provides. If I ever replace the Mooney with another piston single for serious traveling, it will have a ballistic parachute. 

 

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kortopates Grand Master

kortopates

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41 minutes ago, hypertech said:

And were they flying from the right seat or something?  Seems like that tree should have come up right through the pilot's leg.  The guy in the video doesn't seemed injured at all which seems remarkably lucky for a crash with enough force to impale the cabin all the way to the bottom of that tree.  A foot further and this would have been a CAPS fatality if that tree had come up through the seat.  On the other hand, could he have gotten to the shore line at best glide and not landed in the trees at all?

We had a local C172 fatality exactly in that way when a tree impaled the rear seat area after the C172 stalled out trying to outclimb rising terrain during a training flight. But alot of the blame was placed on the rear seat occupant for not wearing seat belt, but I don't think we know if it would have made a difference. At least with the parachute on the Cirrus, I expect that the Cirrus came down significantly slower through the tree than a plane without one; but hard to know. But agreed and there was much discussion about gliding to the lake in the prior discussion.

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Ned Gravel Grand Master

Ned Gravel

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Just a small correction.  Our version of the pilots who fly into harm's way for a living belong to the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), not the Canadian Royal Airforce.   Not a biggee and not really fussed what one calls our "400 and a quarter mile" gang.  I was army.

Those that appear on the ground when called are SAR Techs (Search and Rescue Techs).  Over half of them are from the army.  There is a reason for that.

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