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Have you seen the cirrus aircraft? Unskilled, but rich people are willing to pay > $500K for a plane with a parachute and a button that auto-rights them.

The result is a 6x fatality rate compared with the average for general aviation. That's including some horribly twitchy aircraft in that average.

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The envelope that ballistic parachutes provide a life-saving emergency resolution vs a well executed power-off glide is pretty narrow. The studies show that far too often it is abused by providing a false sense of security, encouraging pilots to take risks they otherwise wouldn't have.

Yup. It doesn't help that they use the parachute to sell to nervous but status conscious celebrities/generic-rich-guys.

The cirrus is a terrifying plane[1], whenever I see one coming I run for my life. You should too.

1. In the hands of a trained pilot, flown for the long range missions it's designed for it's a fine plane. But 90% of the people buying these things aren't well trained, don't have the experience and don't do the sort of flying appropriate to the Cirrus.

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