[fibonacc]

Very interesting point but this chute is seriously making me consider taking flying lessons. Compared to motorcycle, plane is far safer. If an engine fails you can still glide to safety. Failing that deploy this chute.

One additional feature safety would be terrain recovery where if it detects you are unconscious, the plane would automatically pull out of the dive or avoid terrain obstacles (like side of a mountain) and place itself in a holding pattern. Taking a step further, the plane would identify nearest field without traffic or powerlines and deploy the chutes to land itself.

The last two layers are really nice to haves, its already incredible to have chutes readily available in private jets. Now its tough to argue that flying is inherently dangerous with these extra layers of last resort measures.

Having said that I do think cheaper alternatives to this Cirrus jet already exists, nothing wrong with propeller planes either. My goal would be to be able to do bush flying, landing on top of mountain fields, camping for a while and then flying back home.

[dhsysusbsjsi]

What you’re after is a piper cub. Incredible short field takeoff and landing performance. You can land from an engine failure in a tiny amount of space, quite safely.

The comments so far seem to presume the parachute is the only thing required to keep you safe. Statistically there’s two engine failures every 100,000 hours in single engine pistons. That’s incredibly low. Most pilots are lucky to make 1000 hours in a lifetime.

The thing that is actually going to kill most people is flying a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the side of a hill in bad weather, hitting wires, or mishandling on base turn and stalling.

The previous comments about the parachute being ineffective for takeoff and landing are partially correct. The minimum altitude for successful CAPS (parachute) deployment is 500ft AGL, but it has been used much lower successfully (sorry don’t have the figures but I think 200-300ft).

They market the CAPS like it’s the only thing required to make flying safe but in reality you are more likely to kill yourself than the airplane killing you; and a parachute won’t stop that.

[dhsysusbsjsi]

I know of 7 engine failures with people I know and they all walked away safely after landing in a field. It’s rare it ends up in a fatality, even without a parachute. Most are in fact twin engines that suffer an engine failure and mishandling results in Vmca (too slow for rudder to keep it straight), and they depart controlled flight and crash. 2 engines is not safer.

[dehrmann]

At least for commercial flights, takeoff and landing are the dangerous parts, and that's where the chute is least effective. I wonder if it's the same for general aviation.

[fibonacc]

I wonder for those situations where you experience catastrophic failures at low altitude situations where you can't deploy the chutes, whether some type of short burst rockets situated around the plane could activate to "cushion" the plane and orientate it to safety.

Sort of like the short takeoff/land rockets used in large military planes.

[theflyingelvis]

As a general aviation pilot it’s my opinion that takeoff and landing are indeed the most dangerous parts of a flight. Takeoff being the most dangerous of the two.

Altitude is your friend.

[dhsysusbsjsi]

A wise man once told me: there are three things: Altitude, airspeed and brains. You need two of those things!

[wyager]

> Compared to motorcycle, plane is far safer.

I looked into the stats before I started flying and iirc this is not the case for private aircraft on a per-hour basis. In fact, private aircraft may have been riskier than motorcycle.

[hn_user2]

Last time I checked overall private flying was about 8 times more dangerous than a car, and right on par with a motorcycle.

~~However, something like 35% of the accidents are running out of fuel, and of the remaining accidents, 35% of those were in poor weather.~~

So if it is a clear day and you remember to put fuel in the airplane it gets you ahead of a motorcycle and not as safe as a car.

It really depends on if you look at just fatal accidents or all accidents.

Edit:

Looking at 2019 it appears 38 of 109 fatal accidents were weather and fuel related.

So if you fill up with gas and fly on a nice day you are definitely still worse than a car and maybe twice as safe as a motorcycle? (statistically speaking of course)

https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/air-safety-institut...

[bombcar]

The key is that something like 90% of pilot fatalities can be traced to pilot fault.

60% of motorcyclists becoming organ donors are not the motorcyclists fault.

[_carbyau_]

If choosing a powered outdoor hobby, maybe ride motorcycles offroad then. Trail riding is totally a thing. With electric motorbikes it could be a peaceful day out!

[kurupt213]

Both hobbies are equally unforgiving of mistakes

[cjbprime]

> Taking a step further, the plane would identify nearest field without traffic or powerlines and deploy the chutes to land itself.

This kind of feature exists, as Cirrus Safe Return Emergency Autoland:

https://cirrusaircraft.com/story/introducing-safe-return-eme...