Parachute Recovery System

After bringing the BRS full-airframe parachute to the Carbon Cub last May, CubCrafters now says it will offer retrofit parachute systems in all of its airplanes. The retrofits are available for CubCrafters’ production Sport Cub and Carbon Cub SS, as well as the company’s Carbon Cub FX builder-assist model and the EX/EX-2 kits. Two retrofit […]

Aircraft recovery parachute maker BRS says more than 300 lives have been saved after pilots deployed the company’s system, one that gently returns an aircraft in distress back to earth. Cirrus reports more than 60 BRS deployments, many on the 3,600-pound SR22. Cirrus is also bringing a BRS parachute to the 6,000-pound SF50 Vision Jet. […]

The AOPA Air Safety Institute (ASI) recognized Cirrus Aircraft’s efforts to stem the tide of fatal accidents by awarding the Duluth, Minnesota, company the first ever Joseph T. Nall Safety Award. With the SR20 and SR22, Cirrus became the first mainstream manufacturer to deliver products from the factory with a rocket-propelled airframe parachute as an […]

According to BRS, tests have shown that its parachutes can be pulled and still fully inflate at altitudes as low as 260 feet and speeds as high as 187 knots. Individual pilots have testified that they successfully deployed their chutes ­below 100 feet. BRS does not provide a specific minimum-altitude limitation (Cirrus recommends a minimum […]

Specialized flight training has long been part of the typical transition process for pilots moving up to ever-faster and more capable airplanes. A rash of fatal SR22 crashes in 2012, however, forced Cirrus Aircraft to go back to the drawing board and completely rethink its approach to training. Nothing was out of bounds, from the […]

Redmond, Oregon-based RDD Enterprises, a professional builder of Lancair’s experimental aircraft models, is in the process of developing a conversion for the ultrafast Lancair IVP model named LX7. The new model uses existing IVP airframes and brings them through a major modification process — new wings, a new empennage and a completely revamped cockpit. RDD […]

The FAA will allow Cirrus Aircraft to forego inflight testing of the SF50 Vision Jet’s whole-airframe ballistic parachute, saying such tests would incur “an unnecessary expense” while posing “inherent danger” to the test pilot. In a notice of proposed conditions issued recently, the FAA noted that unlike the BRS parachutes in the SR20 and SR22 […]

Another successful Cirrus parachute pull has been captured on video, this time when a father and daughter floated to safety after a loss of engine power over Long Island on Saturday afternoon. The pair climbed out of the SR22 and walked away unharmed after touching down in a grassy area in an industrial park in […]