My wife has resisted not only my own flying but going anywhere with me for over 30 years. All you guys who poo-poo additional safety innovations in any GA aircraft need to quit thinking about just yourselves for a minute and look around at the non-pilots among your own families and friends. Most non-pilots are uncomfortable at best and terrified at worst (like my wife) of flying in “small” airplanes. You need to also think about this when you have to pay for your next insurance policy. When we as an industry or group can improve safety in actuality and the perception of safety among the non-flying public we should applaud and support every advancement and innovation that strives to do that. Just think, it might actually improve the accident history and thereby our cost of flying! What a concept!

After showing my wife the features of the SR22 and perspective & synthetic vision, I pointed out that if something happened to me (incapacitation) OR we had mechanical difficulty,(her biggest fear) we (she) needed only to 1.) push the “blue button”, 2.) pull the throttle back, and 3.) Pull the parachute. For the first time in 34 years of flying, she actually gave me a sincere “wow, that really is nice!” instead of the usual patronizing “yes, that’s nice, dear” reply. Then to top it off, she sat with me and wanted to know more about the plane and looked at the brochures. That has never happened before. I am getting ready to place my order next month.

When any aircraft that can accomplish the conversion of a dedicated non-flyer to actually becoming interested in GA flying, we should all applaud that accomplishment! I certainly do!

Of course, when they got on the they ground, it would probably be something like “that !@#% parachute popped out on me and I HAD to float to safety instead of dead-sticking it in”. I doubt we’ll ever see an NTSB report that reads: “pilot was so darn good he didn’t use any of the safety equipment provided”.

No, there is no false sense of security from wearing seat belts, and there never was. You could tell from observing drivers with and without back in the years when it was not compulsory. They behaved the same. The seat belt was pure benefit.

Yes, some other systems delivers a false sense of security. Cars with anti-blocking brakes were found to have more accidents back in the days where only some cars had them. Drivers drove closer to vehicles in front and had more rear-end accidents. Today that is different. All cars have anti-skid brakes, no-one thinks about it, and they work, making things a little bit safer, again because it requires nothing from the driver.

A parachute and a fly-straight-button? Both are obvious to pilot and many passengers, and both require action at a critical moment. I’m not sure the false-sense-of-security problem is over for Cirrus.

If he means by the phrase “automated pilot”, a real human at the controls of a machine designed to operate in three dimensions which has numerous features and functions that may distract from the aforementioned basic premise, then the ‘automated pilot’ definitely must assimilate,demonstrate, and perform significant abilities to simultaneously manage both the functions of operating the machine and the associated avionics.

Or in the vernacular, if you got ‘junk in the trunk’, ya gotta know when to leave the junk in the sky an’ jus’ fly.

Another senseless “safety feature” that reflects a nagging problem beneath the surface–pilot competency? I may be missing something iregarding flight instruction during the “glass cockpit” era, but basic flight skills ought to assure reasonable control of the aircraft including the ability to recognize and recover from unusual attitudes.

My concern is that promoting dependence on autopilot technology, automated approaches and flight control, and a “panic button” all tend to diminish actual hands-on flight skills. The real question is whether the automated pilot is safe to fly the airplane….

http://www.turbopilot.com/cirrusperspective/