[scarier]

>far safer than a certified aircraft than the statistics will tell you

I share your frustration with the technological stagnation of general aviation, but this is completely damning. Cirrus added all of the features you mention, at great expense and in a fully certified aircraft, and took decades to show any kind of clear safety advantage over clapped-out Cessnas (as I understand it, the vast majority of improvement came from intensive training in when to deploy the parachute, which was wildly less intuitive than anyone originally realized and likely remains so for pilots without specialized training). Digital instruments, weather displays, and automation have significant benefits for many use cases, but it's unclear that they're inherently safer than legacy systems for amateur aviators.

[lovecg]

Not only it took a focused training campaign to get people to use the chute, all the increased training did was take the plane from having some of the worst safety statistics in the first decade to somewhere around average to slightly better than industry average.

It’s (mostly) not the plane, it’s the pilot.

[TylerE]

A confounding factor here is that when a shiny new "safer airplane" is on the market you know who it attracts? The least safe pilots. All the doctors and dentists bought Cirruses.

Risk compensation is real... they put themselves into marginal situations because they're telling themselves they can always just pop the chute.

[HPsquared]

I suppose the safest aircraft is no aircraft.

[tialaramex]

> wildly less intuitive than anyone originally realized and likely remains so for pilots without specialized training

AIUI the specific problem was that humans are bad at "calling it" and the parachute isn't magic. If you used the chute on time you're saved, if you spend that time working through all other options which don't save you, then deployed the chute with no time, you're still dead. So the training was to teach people to call it - yes maybe I could restart the engine (but if not I die), maybe I could keep looking and see that state road (but if not I die), however I could pull the chute right now and almost certainly live so I need to make sure I do that before it's too late.

Suppose in a board game you have three choices. One is worthless, we'll lose, one is 80% chance to draw but otherwise lose, one is a utter gamble maybe 5% chance to outright win otherwise lose. Many players will take the 5% chance. In fact in professional sports not taking that risk often annoys fans - they're here for the thrill. But flying an aeroplane isn't a game, the "outright lose" case is you die and if you have passengers they die too. You should take the draw when it's offered, and if we have to train people to do that then I guess that's what it takes.

[flippyhead]

It's true! I have only ever flown my Cirrus, in which I did ALL my training. I have no idea how to do an engine out landing. They don't teach it. The solution to nearly every major problem is pull the chute.

[sokoloff]

You can get an instructor to teach you almost anything sensible to be taught in aviation. If the instruction you’ve had up until now didn’t cover it, call up a flight school and ask to be instructed on simulated engine outs.

I can understand (and even agree with) why Cirrus teaches to “pull early and pull often”. It’s not a terrible policy, Cirrus doesn’t exactly suffer financially from a chute pull, and some Cirrus occupants died who could have lived if the chute were pulled earlier or at all.