Excessive is a relative term, no? Excessive relative to what? A gliding decent with horizontal and vertical energy components? If you mean excessive relative to survivability, the facts show otherwise. If you mean excessive realtive to teh falling leaf manuever, I am not sure why you would compare the two for use on an emergency situation?
False sense of security? As opposed to the sense of security that a Falling Leaf Manuever done during an engine out situation gives you? You fly a Pitts and I assume do some aerobatics. Does the chute you wear give you a false sense of security? If it weren't required would you not wear it? Does it make you take risks you normally wouldn't?
Is a Falling Leaf Manuever your technique for recovery from any emergency situation?
I don't understand your point. I am not trying to be argumentative. Please enlighten me.
Mike
Hey Mike....Dont worry about being perceived as being argumentative. On the contrary, I consider debating our different points of views, our understanding of facts, etc, the purpose of this threads...Let's hope we never loose the ability to talk intelligently! Here is my argument as experienced.
let me answer your questions one by one as presented.
" Excessive relative to what?"
Strictly to Vertical descent. a Cirrus with a parachute deployed has a descent vertical rate between 1,600 to 1,800 FPM !!! YIKES! Thats an uncontrolled crash my friend! I cant imagine the spinal chord compression from such a crash!!!! I dont know much about the BRS in other GA or experimental aircraft but I can imagine the decsent rate to be close to the same unless you fly an LSA weight aircraft as we all saw in tha aerobatic Rans 9 wing folding video in argentina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a8cntPdRtk
Have we forgotten the basic controll descent when everything else fails? Trim wheel all the way back, let the aircraft fly, stall, fly , stall, fly stall and dance on your feet keeping the aircraft nose wherever you want it to go? thats a 800 fpm descent at the most! They used to teach that technique long time ago...Whatever happened to it?
False sense of security? You bet! I rather fly the aircraft and leave the BRS to the absolutelly last resource if I am faced with a complete uncontolled situation where everything else fails....Same reason I wear a parachute in my Pitts.
As for the Pitts....I have several emergency procedures that I fly and practice constantly in the event of power loss. The Falling leave is one I have in my pocket if I ever need to put the aircraft on a very short field or over a tree canopy since my descent rate is close 900 FPM. In reality, if I ever ready to crash over a tree top canopy, I just keep pulling the stick back until completelly stalling over it and try to enter as vertical as possible! I can tell of you many more emergency procedures I practice thanks to passed knowledge from other Pitts owners.
In regards to this particular Thread, I have managed to practice and complete at altitude in the Pitts a simulated after take off engine out and turn 180 to land safely....all using stall and the falling leave manuever while d tap dancing on the pedals keeping the wings level and pointing the nose where I wanted to go...If you can do that in the Pitts, you can do it almost on any other GA aircraft!
The Pitts is a flying brick....It does not glide at all...100 mph is all the speed you need to know...20 mph below and it falls like a rock.... Therefore once again, I practice for the unknown all the time. Using head wind is always a welcomed savior!
one last thing unrelated to turns after take off but worth mentioning since we are talking about emergencies.. When I fly a Single engine my state of mind is that I am flying on an emergency. I know all the time where the nearest airport is, what vector to FLY TO I need if I loose power, what my Vertical navigation is, etc, etc...(I personally learned this from my father flying in the Andes of Peru where your resources are a lot limited than in the US. Always, always when flying a SE, know you are flying one step away from not having an engine!
Sorry if my grammar and english is not good! this is my third language skill and as with any other foreign language impossible to command at 100%...
Happy flying!