I am curious to hear from current Lancair owners and builders what
their thoughts are about a Balistic Recovery System parachute option.

I certainly feel more comfortable having one on board today in my
Cirrus, and I'd be very excited about building a Lancair that included
one.  What do other participants in the list think about the idea?

I've asked Lancair, and they say that they're talking about this, but
have no firm timeline.

Dane,

 

Any safety improvement is worthy of a risk/reward analysis.  One such aspect is an evaluation that includes the possibility of greater risk caused by an attitude of over confidence in the device itself. 

 

For example, I have decided it is risky to fly my single engine over mountains at night.  If I add a synthetic VFR display system, would I be tempted to change my decision and accept the greater risk because some, like cumulo-granite FITs, are less likely while others, like an engine out over craggy peaks, are unchanged but greater because I'm actually there.

 

Does feeling more "comfortable" with a BRS lead one to take more chances?

 

I think that the touted Cirrus saves must be balanced by the causes - a maintenance error and poor-weather pilot decision making, along with the recall to fix the inability to activate the system.

 

Another consideration is just who would be willing to possibly sacrfice a Lancair or two to test such a system?  Would the seating system have to be beefed up to account for the hi-G smack?  How much weight would all the components add? 

 

Does the analysis of Lancair accidents show that enough of them could have been "saved" by deployment of a chute? That is assuming that the decision to deploy would have been made, thus losing control of the ground contact location.

 

When I saw your query, I immediately thought of the most recent accident - After experiencing an engine out at some altitude and obtaining vectors to a nearby airport, would Shannon have deployed such a chute when he knew he wouldn't make it to the airport?  Deploy it over a populated area?

 

Opinions may vary.