BRS on RV-12
Go to the NTSB accident database and read all the Cirrus reports (I have.) There appear to be many accidents that would have been avoided (assuming you discount the damage/loss from the parachute landing and don't call that event an accident) had the chute been deployed. You will also find quite a number where the chute was deployed at the last minute - too late to properly function.
There have been 31 Cirrus CAPS deployments "saving" 51 lives. The records are here:
http://www.cirruspilots.org/Content/CAPSHistory.aspx
Two of my best friends are retired Boeing Flight Test types who threw a rod in their SR-20 over Bozeman Pass returning to SEA from OSH. The made a successful deadstick landing at Livingston, but told me later they were within 5 seconds of pulling the Big Red Handle. Their skills exceed mine by quite a bit, and Lady Luck played a role.
One of the hardest things for many (most) pilots to do during an emergency sequence is to mentally write-off the airplane. (During WW II, there were a number of airplanes appropriately named "**** the Expense I, II, III, etc.) Nobody likes to ding an airplane. In my analysis of Capt. Sully and his Hudson River landing, one of the most significant events was his early decision to write-off the airplane, and thereafter concentrate on accomplishing his chosen course of action as safely as possible.
Many pilots, and many Monday-morning Quarterbacks, would have returned to LGA, or attempted to land at TEB. And maybe they would have made it. But the odds were, and are, against it. He was flying a Space Shuttle without the energy management software and algorithms. Landing short or long were the more likely outcomes - they would have been disastrous. Especially in those locations.
In some of the comments on this thread, I hear stuff about "retaining control" vs., I guess, giving up control to the chute. The most painful Cirrus accident reports are the ones where a competent and skilled pilot should have given up that control. They're painful because the pilot had available to him an installed device that could have - no would have - saved his life. He paid for it - in $$$ and space and payload - and in the end, failed to collect on his payments.
Here's a particularly painful one:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20100319X35533&ntsbno=WPR10FA163&akey=1
AeroTrek offers the BRS on their airplane for $5495. It's a remarkably small package. Picture here:
http://www.fly-aerotrek.com/pricing.htm
Neither it nor the RV-12 nor any LSA is fat with space or payload, but the question for each individual is whether it's "worth it." Or as Clint Eastwood said in Dirty Harry - "Do you feel lucky?"
A BRS is not available for the RV-12. Probably a good thing for my mental health since I don't have to make a hard decision. I think I would likely forgo it even if available, but not due to not wanting to relinquish control. My insurance agent can buy me a replacement toy. That's what I'm paying him for. I would forgo it because, as an LSA, I'm not flying at night, avoid anything resembling IFR by a country mile, and especially, depend on that low stall speed from mashing me too hard into fixed immovable objects.
But,.... I probably will get a set of those inflatable air bag seatbelts just the same.....
Bob Bogash