PlasticPilot.net

The goal of the fly-in to which Matthew kindly invited me was to visit the Britten-Norman subsidiary in Bembridge, which is in charge of the final assembly of all Cirrus aircraft for Europe. Don’t ask me why the workshop doing it is located on the Isle of Wight, but I’m sure that the logistic experts know what they do… So what is going on there ?

One of the complexity in building plastic aircraft is that the composite fuselages and wings are not that easy to work with. Cirrus delivers fuselages and wings separately, and they got “glued” together in Bembridge. The glueing process takes place at mollecular level, so once started, it can not be stopped.

No way to separate them, nor to reposition the wings if something is not well positioned - understand by the millimeter. We also had the chance to see the famous BRS balistic parachute, about which I will say more later on. The parachute is folded in a separated space, behing the luggage compartment. When the pilot (or a passenger) activates it, it is pulled outside (and through) the fuselage by a rocket (the red cylinder on the photos below). It then unfolds progressively, to avoid a brutal deceleration.

Deploying the parachute is not an easy thing to do. To say it differently, it’s not something that can be done accidently. One must first remove a cache (picture on the left above), then rotate the handle down to bring it out of its hole. The next step is to pull the lever to extend it, by approximately 40 centimeters. The parachute will extend only once the now very long handle will be pulled towards the plane’s floor, which requires a force equivalent to 20 kilograms. There is absolutely no chance at all to do all of that accidentally.

Visiting the place where the Cirrus aircraft actually come to life and get tested was an interesting experience. But the best part of it was at the far end of the hangar… The team was finishing a Cirrus Perspective. Just in case you missed it, this is the next version, integrating the Garmin 1000 glass cockpit, with a new auto-pilot, offering the famous “recovery” button, which can bring the airplane back to wings-level attitude from up to 70° of bank and 50° of pitch. The plane was waiting for us, connected to an external power supply, so we could play with the new avionics.

I immediately felt home, and also appreciated the addition of a keyboard. If you ever filed a flignt plan in a GNS 430 / 530 or G1000, you know how much time can be spent rotating and pressing knobs. The keyboard was definetly missing, and the space on the center pedestal - where the GNS430s are on Avidyne Cirrus - has been re-allocated to the keyboard, the autopilot, and the audiobox. The autopilot has more modes than what light aircraft pilots are used to: Vertical Speed, Vertical Navigation (VNV), and Indicated Air Speed. I particularly like the IAS mode, which somehow transforms the throttle into an vertical speed controller. The autopilot simply maintains the airspeed. More power will make it climb, more power will lower the nose. You want to change flight level smootly ? Switch more to IAS, and push the throttle forward - how good is that ? If I were in position to buy a Cirrus today, I would certainly take this new version. Click here to read why I perfer the G1000 to the Avidyne Entegra.

On our way to the paint shop, we passed by a Cirrus G3 on a parking, and I could not resist the temptation to take the classical picture of the propeller spinner.

Well before starting my IFR training, I read an interesting paper in a French aviation magazine, about what flying IFR involves. The author developed the hypothesis of a knowledgeable VFR pilot, filing an IFR flight plan, and bluffing his way through the whole flight.

His point was that flying precise heading and altitude, tracking navaids, and responding correctly to air traffic controllers is not that complex. The author of this paper saw more possible problems if the hypothetical pilot had to fly IMC. In his opinion, the difficulty of hand-flying in clouds would be beyond the abilities of any non trained pilot.

I don’t fully agree with that. I can imagine a passionated VFR pilot knowing the IFR system well enough to fly in it with no major problem. This is not such a big imagination effort, I actually know such pilots. They also know how to use an autopilot, so flying IMC should not be a problem.

Do I mean that I know some pilots who fly IFR with no rating ? No. They’re not that stupid. Any incident leading to an investigation would have a simple consequence: their license would be cancelled. Not to mention possible fines, legal procedures, and insurance not covering possible damages.

Generally speaking, pilots are responsible persons. We understand the system, the rules, and the reasons behind the rules. There are some cow-boys, and under certain circumstances the rules have to be slightly bent, but not that much.

To summarize, I do believe that even if bluffing the controllers, and getting through IMC without an instrument rating is possible, the immense majority of us are flying honestly, despite how tempting such things can be.

When I prepared my post about the new Cirrus Perspective, which includes G1000 and an upgraded autopilot, I read some info about an auto-pilot button labelled “LVL”, for wings-level. This sounded to me like the basic mode of most autopilors, I was even surprised that so many reports were even mentioning it.

It’s only when I read an AOPA news post calling it “emergency switch”. This auto-pilot mode is indeed a new and cool thing: it does bring the aircraft in wings-level and pitch-level from (nearly) any attitude ! As long as the bank does not exceed 75° and the pitch does not exceed 50° (both rather extreme…), pressing this button will make the autopilot restore wing and pitch level attitude.

Even if all IFR pilots are trained for unusual attitude recovery, this is not an easy thing. Turbulence in IMC can be challenging, and loss of spatial orientation is sadly not a seldom thing. So if everything else fails, this button can be a life saver.

Missing what this new feature is, and how good it is was for me a practical lesson about human performance. In the first report I read, it simply sounded like “that’s not really new…”. When I got additional information, my mindset turned towards “you guys are annoying me with that”.

I strongly sticked to my original idea, and simply removed that possibility that I could have a wrong understanding for the list of options. Which of the five dangerous attitudes do you recognize in that (more than one correct answer) ?

This was my personal “I learned about flying from doing that blog” lesson for today, and I’m not particularly proud about that. Hope it will help someone else.

UPDATE: Strangely, the editor of AviationWorld had the same kind of reaction, and also published about it here.