Two of my flight instructors were and are former F16 instructor pilots (living a few miles away from one the larger F16 bases has its pluses). A few months ago I had a long talk with one of them (combat decorated, multi thousand hour, retired col. and general badass) and I asked him about the ejecting mindset and how it was taught by the Air Force. I asked because at the time I was thinking about buying a Cirrus and I was trying to figure out why people were not pulling the chute as often as they should be.
His answer was basically F16s and high performance tricycle gear singles have no business landing on anything other than a runway or a highly improved field. If you try it, you may not get hurt but that is pure luck. More likely than not, you will flip, hit a rut etc. In an F16 he said unless he could make to a runway, he would eject unless he thought his aircraft would hit something where people were located. In that case, he would ride it to the ground to avoid ground injuries.
His advice on the Cirrus was unless you are willing to bet your life you can make it to a runway or happen to see a really nice golf course or six perfectly aligned golf courses, pull the chute and get the insurance check.
My deepest apologies for the thread drift. I'm really enjoying this thread and I'm hoping we can get back the pictures and if someone has a comment on my post we should start another thread.
Apologies.
