Cirrus training CAPS use rationale

[Rick Junkin]

I thought this was interesting and enlightening. Some of you may already know this but it was new learning for me.

A good friend of mine is an instructor at the Cirrus Training Center in Knoxville. He explained to me why he would almost never attempt an off-field landing in a Cirrus. He said there is a very high probability of nose gear collapse and flip-over on a rough field landing, which would likely trap the occupants inside.

According to Jeff:

The Cirrus CAPS system is designed to descend the airplane in a slightly nose down attitude. In addition to the honeycomb seat structure that absorbs an amazing number of Gs on ground impact, the nose gear structure is designed to fail in such a way as to also absorb impact energy. Because of this the nose gear is not as robust as one might think. Anecdotally I recalled hearing about quite a number of nose gear collapses on Cirrus aircraft as a result of bounced landings, which now makes more sense to me. Jeff then showed me some pictures of Cirrus airplanes upside down in pastures where an emergency landing had been attempted. Now, I know you're probably thinking the same thing I was, that any airplane could flip over on an emergency landing in a soft or rough pasture. But according to Jeff the odds are way against you in a Cirrus, and the risk of getting trapped in the airplane if it flips is exceedingly high. If an unknown open field were his only option in an emergency he would definitely use the CAPS.

So that's why the Cirrus training emphasizes (insists?) that the CAPS is the answer to an engine failure over anything but a suitable/designated landing strip. In optimizing the airplane for the survival of the occupants after a CAPS deployment the nose gear was developed with a shock-absorbing collapse as a design feature.

That explained a lot for me.

[exM20K]

very interesting and seems sensible to me.  The DA40 has an internal release for the rear door at the top hinge to facilitate emergency egress, but the SR2* baggage door doesn't appear to be very accessible from the cabin. 

In our planes, it is very important to open and latch while open the cabin door prior to a forced landing. That would not appear to be an option in the Diamond or Cirrus aircraft.

-dan

[IvanP]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[Fritz1]

Interesting, did not know, beyond any doubt, the CAPS has saved lives and Cirrus sells about 500 singles per year

[Fritz1]

According to Cirrus CAPS training manual minimum safe deployment altitude is 500ft, probably somewhere between vx and vy 

[dkkim73]

Thanks, Rick, for sharing. I know that they advocate aggressive use of CAPS but this is good complementary info. Ie. your normal forced-landing options might actually be worse. A Mooney bellying-in in vaguely flat terrain is at least always an option if you can see. 

A good SR22T was the only real alternative I looked at. The parachute is a big branch-point in thinking. They've had some cool saves. I'm finally now getting my wife (main traveling companion) to do some pre-solo PPT training, and I occasionally think of the trade-off of having CAPS, esp. over very rugged Western mountains when touring people. 

I suppose a downside of CAPS is that, once pulled, you are committed. I wonder how often it goes badly. I recall reading about an in-pattern collision a couple years ago, and the CAPS saved the Cirrus folks. 
DK

 

[Hank]

2 hours ago, dkkim73 said:

I suppose a downside of CAPS is that, once pulled, you are committed. I wonder how often it goes badly.

Reminds me of video from several years ago, of a fully-aflame Cirrus drifting along under the chute . . . 

And there's always the Cirrus who lost control, pulled the chute and it rocketed out but never opened. The pilot was able to recover and land at an airport, taxiing in dragging the umopened chute behind . . .

Just hope, if you have to pull the chute, that you don't drift into power lines, a lake or the ocean. That's what bothers me, you have zero control after pulling the red handle, you go where the wind takes you--water, trees, buildings or cow pasture.

[201Steve]

@Hank every single caps deployment that was actuated within the speed envelope, everyone has survived. And quite a few outside the speed envelope. It’s 140 Kias in the late model 22’s. 
 

I’ve got a fair amount of time in it, so I’ve thought about it a lot, with that record- it is a no brainer. I couldnt care less about the airplane after a catastrophic failure. I’ll take the 100% survival rate all day and not leave it up to chance. The only thing I care about is making it home for dinner. 
 

if an airport is near, I would just do that. I would pull a chute in my Mooney in all same scenarios if it had one. 

[GeeBee]

I am not sure what came first, the chicken or the egg. The Cirrus did not complete FAA spin certification instead it received a ELOS (Exceptional Level of Safety) exemption in lieu of spin certification. I don't know if they designed CAPS with this in mind or it came about because CAPS was installed to protect against gear failure in an off airport landing or maybe the CAPS system was planned to kill two birds with one stone. I'm sure the original engineers could tell us. The Cirrus did complete spin testing for EASA certification so it can recover, it just was never completed in FAA certification.

[Slick Nick]

14 hours ago, GeeBee said:

I am not sure what came first, the chicken or the egg. The Cirrus did not complete FAA spin certification instead it received a ELOS (Exceptional Level of Safety) exemption in lieu of spin certification. I don't know if they designed CAPS with this in mind or it came about because CAPS was installed to protect against gear failure in an off airport landing or maybe the CAPS system was planned to kill two birds with one stone. I'm sure the original engineers could tell us. The Cirrus did complete spin testing for EASA certification so it can recover, it just was never completed in FAA certification.

I was always under the impression that the Cirrus wouldn't pass spin certification tests, so the chute was added in order to receive the ELOS exemption. 

"This airplane won't recover from a spin, so we needed to add a parachute to the entire airframe so you won't die." doesn't sound good to customers when you're trying to sell airplanes, so the marketing geniuses instead spun it into a "revolutionary safety feature, not available on any of our competitors aircraft!" 

It worked. 

[midlifeflyer]

38 minutes ago, Slick Nick said:

was always under the impression that the Cirrus wouldn't pass spin certification tests, so the chute was added in order to receive the ELOS exemption. 

@GeeBee is correct. They passed spin certification tests in Europe. EASA did not accept the FAA's ELOS satisfaction and wanted more. 

[Jackk]

Cirrus always seemed “lightly” built, I didn’t realize the nose wheel was that flimsy, but it doesn’t surprise me.

 

 Years back I was landing at a airport with both a smooth runway and a dirt/grass runway, being a nice dry day and flying a Pilatus I made the obvious choice for the grass.

As I taxied to the ramp I saw a newish 22, pilots being pilots we chat, I asked him if he used the grass and without a nano second of hesitation or thought he says NO

 

 I’ve had some off field landings, both for fun and having had a full engine failure, aside from some grass in a tailwheel all was well

 

The idea of flying a plane that is that flimsy on off airport, unless it operates in the land of flight levels and Mach numbers, I just don’t see the point

[Jackk]

17 hours ago, 201Steve said:

@Hank every single caps deployment that was actuated within the speed envelope, everyone has survived. And quite a few outside the speed envelope. It’s 140 Kias in the late model 22’s. 
 

I’ve got a fair amount of time in it, so I’ve thought about it a lot, with that record- it is a no brainer. I couldnt care less about the airplane after a catastrophic failure. I’ll take the 100% survival rate all day and not leave it up to chance. The only thing I care about is making it home for dinner. 
 

if an airport is near, I would just do that. I would pull a chute in my Mooney in all same scenarios if it had one. 

 That’s very dangerous thinking.

 

I wish the training industry would stop teaching that BS, “it’s the insurance companies plane if the engine quits”

 

Uhh, for one far better pilots said stuff like “fly it as far into the crash as possible” and lest we forget we are STILL IN SAID AIRPLANE

 

 The better condition the box, often the better condition the contents 

[midlifeflyer]

3 hours ago, Jackk said:

 That’s very dangerous thinking.

 

I wish the training industry would stop teaching that BS, “it’s the insurance companies plane if the engine quits”

 

Uhh, for one far better pilots said stuff like “fly it as far into the crash as possible” and lest we forget we are STILL IN SAID AIRPLANE

 

 The better condition the box, often the better condition the contents 

It's hard to check the numbers but I guess one could come up with a way to figure out how many injuries and fatalities were attributable to loss of control and other types of maneuvering errors trying to prevent damage to the aircraft vs pilots who actually thought "it's the insurance company's airplane" actually meant to disregard safety. So far, I haven't met anyone who thought that. Mostly, "insurance company's" and "fly all the way into the crash" seem to live comfortably side by side.

You'd also have to come up with some category definitions. Like, is a stall spin accident while trying to turn back to a runway after an engine failure on takeoff instead of landing straight ahead in a field, an effort to fly into the crash or an effort to save the aircraft?

Since we're talking about Cirrus and CAPS, is  the failure to pull an effort to save the airplane rather than the passengers?

 

[Jackk]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

It's hard to check the numbers but I guess one could come up with a way to figure out how many injuries and fatalities were attributable to loss of control and other types of maneuvering errors trying to prevent damage to the aircraft vs pilots who actually thought "it's the insurance company's airplane" actually meant to disregard safety. So far, I haven't met anyone who thought that. Mostly, "insurance company's" and "fly all the way into the crash" seem to live comfortably side by side.

You'd also have to come up with some category definitions. Like, is a stall spin accident while trying to turn back to a runway after an engine failure on takeoff instead of landing straight ahead in a field, an effort to fly into the crash or an effort to save the aircraft?

Since we're talking about Cirrus and CAPS, is  the failure to pull an effort to save the airplane rather than the passengers?

 

 I trust the info plane salesmen and insurance salesmen put out about as much as gas station sushi lol

 

What does doing a turn back have to do with a spin?   Why would you put the plane into a stall or spin?   It’s just fundamental training and rudder work and understanding energy, has nothing to do with making  power off 180.

 

 Many only teach to rote, lots and lots of CFIs not only are afraid to teach basic full slips, lest we even talk about basic stuff like a falling leaf stall or better yet pre solo spin training.

 

 Add to that “simulating” soft field ops vs actually landing on some grass and dirt

 

 Much like ADSB instead of teaching a proper foundation, we push some wiz bang gadget under the false god of “safety” 

Edited October 22 by Jackk

[201Steve]

20 hours ago, GeeBee said:

The Cirrus did complete spin testing for EASA certification so it can recover, it just was never completed in FAA certification.

My understanding- The Klappmeiers designed the airplane with the core purpose of marketing the airplane to wives. Nice ergonomics, safety, etc. The parachute was always a part of the design. It’s what stood it apart in many ways. The procedure for exiting a spin, as written by Cirrus, is to deploy the parachute. It’s logical that its’ type design be certificated in such a way that agreeswith the procedure. Evidenced by EASA, It’s probably just about as spin friendly as a Mooney, so not great. They had a safer solution and so the rest is history.

 

23 minutes ago, Jackk said:

Much like ADSB instead of teaching a proper foundation, we push some wiz bang gadget under the false god of “safety” 

Additional tools are not the enemy. Proper foundation is paramount. Proper foundation plus additional tools is always better. 
 

 

 

[GeeBee]

I think the Mooney's in particular the long bodies recover from spins better than a Cirrus. Larger tail feathers. When I first looked at the Cirrus design I thought it could be a handful in spin recovery. The coupling is average but the surfaces are small.

[Paul Thomas]

The Cirrus nose gear is similar to the RV nose gear and many have flipped over; those nose gears have been known to dig in. I'd avoid operations on rough terrain... the Cirrus nose gear has a lot of weight on it. The SR22 is typically landed fairly flat, and when I was learning power off 180 in it, they really didn't want me to flare which made me super uncomfortable. In the real world, I'd still give it a good flare to get a slower landing and protect the nose wheel but I could see it either shearing off or worse.

[Jackk]

1 hour ago, 201Steve said:

My understanding- The Klappmeiers designed the airplane with the core purpose of marketing the airplane to wives. Nice ergonomics, safety, etc. The parachute was always a part of the design. It’s what stood it apart in many ways. The procedure for exiting a spin, as written by Cirrus, is to deploy the parachute. It’s logical that its’ type design be certificated in such a way that agreeswith the procedure. Evidenced by EASA, It’s probably just about as spin friendly as a Mooney, so not great. They had a safer solution and so the rest is history.

 

Additional tools are not the enemy. Proper foundation is paramount. Proper foundation plus additional tools is always better. 
 

 

 

 Tools are great, however when they are marketed as something they arnt that’s not cool

 ie Gillette is not the “best a man can get”

 

 folks gets caught up in the marketing  

 

 I’ve heard new pilots and longer term low time guys say how ADSB has prevented like 300% of possible accidents, had you been in aviation prior to the gov forced fee and trackers you’d think planes were falling out of he sky lol

 

 Heck I legit laughed out loud when I read that  based on the DC crash they want to force more folks to install the trackers, like during bay phase 121 and ATC normalized frigging RAs!!!  Oh yeah ADSB would have fixed it….no

 

 Up until cirrus backed down from the full on CAPs is a life saver and damn near hand of god, the SR line actually has a pretty bad accent record, maybe some folks don’t timber, but I do.  Later they smartly increased standardized and in depth TRAINING and the record got better, ofcourse sales will still push CAPs as any good salesman would  

 

 

 Per the wife thing, I’ve been in the industry long enough all my real relationships they knew the deal when they met me, before that as a kid I rode dirt bikes and raced cars.  
 

Anyone who has a issue with my planes not having CAPs but was going to fly somewhere with me, well if you’re scared you’ll be much safer on spirit or something, less weight and fuel burn for me

 

 I also will legit point and laugh at people who play the “what if the pilot dies” hysteria, friggin fear porn 

Edited October 22 by Jackk

[Shadrach]

On 10/21/2025 at 3:27 PM, dkkim73 said:

Thanks, Rick, for sharing. I know that they advocate aggressive use of CAPS but this is good complementary info. Ie. your normal forced-landing options might actually be worse. A Mooney bellying-in in vaguely flat terrain is at least always an option if you can see. 

A good SR22T was the only real alternative I looked at. The parachute is a big branch-point in thinking. They've had some cool saves. I'm finally now getting my wife (main traveling companion) to do some pre-solo PPT training, and I occasionally think of the trade-off of having CAPS, esp. over very rugged Western mountains when touring people. 

I suppose a downside of CAPS is that, once pulled, you are committed. I wonder how often it goes badly. I recall reading about an in-pattern collision a couple years ago, and the CAPS saved the Cirrus folks. 
DK

 

We had a mid-air at FDK in 2014. A Robinson R44 and a Cirrus SR22 collided in the pattern. The R44 was ascending and the SR22 descending on downwind. The main rotor took out the landing gear on the Cirrus. The Cirrus occupants walked away after a CAPS deployment. R44 had no survivors.

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, midlifeflyer said:

You'd also have to come up with some category definitions. Like, is a stall spin accident while trying to turn back to a runway after an engine failure on takeoff instead of landing straight ahead in a field, an effort to fly into the crash or an effort to save the aircraft?

I always looked at the effort to find a runway, even behind you, as a landing spot is just because it increases the likelihood of survival.    A place made to land an airplane should generally be more survivable than alternatives.   There is always a decision that has to be made whether an airport is safely reachable or not, but there's always going to be risk in any decision in such suboptimal conditions.

[Pictreed]

On 10/21/2025 at 9:59 AM, Rick Junkin said:

I thought this was interesting and enlightening. Some of you may already know this but it was new learning for me.

 

I fly a SR22T for work and have asked my CSIP check airman about this stuff. I can tell you too the parachute is there for a lot of reasons. The 22T is a pig with a big engine to overcome the weight. I tried the 180 power off precision landing and it appears to have a 6:1 glide or worse with the 4 blade prop. You're not going to make it to any airport.

The SR20 is better on glide but I'm not a fan of anything going slower than my Mooney. If work pays for my commercial in the SR20 then that's what I'll do. Otherwise I'm tracking down a Mooney DPE because I don't want to fail that maneuver in the 22T.

If someone takes you in their Cirrus don't put your knee in the seat, you'll crush the honeycomb.

[Pictreed]

On 10/21/2025 at 12:55 PM, Fritz1 said:

According to Cirrus CAPS training manual minimum safe deployment altitude is 500ft, probably somewhere between vx and vy 

600' and there is a call out from the system. It's independent of Vx Vy. However if you're in level flight we teach the PAX to hit level on the AP and red/red/red for handle/mixture/fuel.

You have to get the parachute out in enough time so the slider comes down and the parachute fully inflates. It's rocket assisted to get it out faster.

Same thing with skydiving. Below 1500' you go straight to reserve which is spring loaded because it takes a bit for the slider to come down and the parachute to inflate.

[201Steve]

3 hours ago, Jackk said:

the SR line actually has a pretty bad accent record, maybe some folks don’t timber, but I do.  Later they smartly increased standardized and in depth TRAINING and the record got better,

To be fair, that can be said of any new to market aircraft. There is a curve where for many years, the data is not available yet and there are no instructors with mastery of said aircraft until it’s been around long enough to produce it. Check the curve of the MU2 for example. I don’t think we have data far enough back to legitimately score Mooney, Beech, Piper, Cessna, bc they are so classic, but there was a point where everyone was still learning there, too. 

[Jackk]

2 hours ago, 201Steve said:

To be fair, that can be said of any new to market aircraft. There is a curve where for many years, the data is not available yet and there are no instructors with mastery of said aircraft until it’s been around long enough to produce it. Check the curve of the MU2 for example. I don’t think we have data far enough back to legitimately score Mooney, Beech, Piper, Cessna, bc they are so classic, but there was a point where everyone was still learning there, too. 

 Unlike the others, cirrus marketed the crap out of their parachute gizmo, selling “safety”