The College of Aviation at Western Michigan University changed it’s single engine training fleet five years ago from Cessna 172s to Cirrus SR20’s. This new plane has many unique design features that set it apart from other general aviation single engine aircraft. Firstly it is made of fiberglass and fiberglass foam sandwich construction, a technique known very well by boat builders but which is still a minority construction method for cars and aircraft. Cirrus design have perfected a production technique which marries two hull halves together and allows for enhanced streamlining not attainable with traditional aluminum construction techniques. This allows for a reduced drag profile which ensures the 200 Horsepower Continental engine and three bladed variable pitch propeller to fly up to 4 people safely at cruise speeds up to 160knots maximum and ranges in the 650 nm range which make it a very versatile choice of aircraft for leisure pilots and business men alike. The basic aircraft, the SR 20 comes with your choice of avionic packages (avionics means aircraft electronics) and it is in this area that aircraft are embracing new technologies for displaying normal systems information on glass computer type screens for speeds, altitudes, engine information etc, and also navigation, charts, procedures etc. Some of the avionics that can be fitted are comparable to the equipment fitted on the most modern airliners and replace the old type dial gauges familiar to most pilots. Training pilots on this state of the art equipment prepares them for what they will meet when they leave and get employed in the industry. It is also very forward looking and embraces the changes in technology that are happening in the industry.
The designers designed the aircraft with some basic passenger concepts in mind. The seats are comfortable and pushed to the outside of the frame so people aren’t shoulder to shoulder as in many small aircraft, the front passenger and pilot have airbags in their shoulder straps for added safety as well as the aircraft parachute. The instrument panel is lower and the windows bigger than typical earlier small aircraft which gave improved visibility and passenger comfort and feeling of well being. The glass computer screen displays show where the aircraft is in relation to the route, when they will arrive and how much fuel will be left on arrival, again to keep the passengers happy.
In some respects the SR 20 is a very basic aircraft, for example it does not have nose wheel steering but has a castoring nose wheel which simply follows the direction of the aircraft on the ground. Steering is achieved at low speed by using the right and left brakes on the main undercarriage wheels and by using the rudder aerodynamically at speeds when you have this type of control, primarily on the runway on take off and landing. In some respects the SR20 is very advanced, in the range of avionics that it can utilize.
I want to concentrate on it’s most unique safety system, the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System known as CAPS. This aircraft is unique as being one of the few that have a parachute to enable a pilot in distress to literally ‘pull the rip cord’ and descend on a parachute instead of trying to land with a n emergency landing. When would you do this? If the engine failed and you went into an uncontrollable spin or if you flew into sever icing and were likely to stall and crash. The parachute allows the manufacturer to design the aircraft a little weaker and therefore lighter than they would if the airframe and wings were supposed to withstand high loading of spin and stall recovery at high weights. The parachute is a last ditch facility to save lives, it doesn’t save the aircraft as deploying the parachute tears the skin for the straps and the subsequent heavy belly landing utilizes a crumple zone, much like a car’s front end, to absorb the impact. But you can walk away from a potentially fatal accident. Very few parachute deployments have occurred since the aircraft’s inception but the pilots and passengers have survived when they may well have died. Check out some of the video clips to see the effects of pulling the red handle!
Check out this NASA video about aircraft parachutes
