RivetBangers.com

Have you seen this video?

http://www.checca.net/ftp/torn-off-wings.wmv

The worst accidents seem to start with the words, "Hey, watch this"!

CJ

it was weird that he posted that in VAF, 'cuz i had just seen that for the first time last week. scary and tragic.

Yah, I had seen some of the other videos before, but not that one.

WHOA!!!

huh?

Don't overspeed your plane and try a big pull up!

What type A/C was that anyways?

CJ

from what i can tell in the video, it looks like a partenavia. don't know which model though.

I would love to know his airspeed relative to VA and what kind of G's he was pulling. Assuming it wasn't fatique, I just dont understand how people do things like that.

I remember when that happened, I don't know how they turned that into a foreign film. That was an n numbered airplane, and it was a Partinavia. The pilot was performing a routine similar to Bob Hoover's at an airshow, and did that at the bottom of a loop. His wife was the show announcer.... All of the news footage I saw was from the other side of the field. This must have come from someone's home video.............

Spike wrote:I would love to know his airspeed relative to VA and what kind of G's he was pulling. Assuming it wasn't fatique, I just dont understand how people do things like that.

The NTSB did some video analysis and said that airspeed was around 220 kts; the Partenavia's Vne is 193 kts. The aircraft rapidly pitched up to 8 degrees, which at that airspeed resuted in 8+ Gs...that's what caused the wings to shed.

Dave

...that will certainly do it. So much for Va, let just go right to the top of all the arcs.

How can that happen to an airshow pilot?!?

- Peter

Well, I am wondering if he was an "airshow pilot". Maybe he was someone smart enough to gain a level of experience and thought he was smarter than he needed to be to pull off a stunt like that. Essentially, not thinking. He just happened to be someplace where he could exercise his intelligence.

Too bad it had such drastic results.

CJ

Now now John all of us are only human. He made a mistake and paid for it, possibly more than he should have.

Indeed.

True, true...

Sad, no doubt.

CJ

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/ ... F580.shtml

Since we're on the topic of aerobatics, here's the other end of the spectrum, insufficent airspeed.....

Went down to Sacramento last weekend on the way to the World Ag Expo and saw this accident on the front page of the Sacramento Bee.

Experimental Glasair doing a "watch this" for his wife and mother-in-law. Apparently he didn't make the loop and stall/spun into a house. I wonder how many loops the guy had done previous? Other accounts said he did a couple of rolls right before he pulled up hard, stalled, tucked the right wing and spun.

I love the part about "the pilot wasn't communicating with a control tower" Yeah right.

Glasair: "Sacramento approach, request."

Sac: "Go ahead."

Glasair: "We'd like FL 8 for loops and barrel rolls over a densly populated area."

Sac:

Sarcasm warning: The really wonderful part was this joker taking out a kid on the ground. Man, I just gotta' go...

*sigh* Okay I feel better now.

That is truely sad. If a kid in his own house got killed because of some jerk screwing around. WHAT AN IDIOT. CJ do you have anything to add.

Well, not that MY opinion matters but...

I feel bad that the pilot and passenger died.

It is most unfortunate, but also gives us a black eye as well.

The general public has no idea what this stuff all means. They just see a plane fall out of the sky and land in a smoldering pile.

Now there is another twist to it as well.

Now Jim, your op?

CJ

I agree with you entirely John.

Hey, you gotta check out how the guys in Texas wash off their alodine.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/s ... #post35928

Is that still considered acrobatics or aerobatics? Waterbatics? CJ, do you have an opinion?

HA! No thanks!!!

There is just NO REASON to do that!!!

That is a "hey watch this" waiting to happen!!!

Now, being a floatplane pilot as well as a landplane pilot, I see so many problems with that!

From a float perspective, it is glassy water. Glassy water is deceiving. It is hard to tell height above water when it is glassy. Also, sink in too deeply and you are in for a high speed dunk. Now, I am sure there is some water tension at 80 preventing such a dunking and I am sure these guys are WAAAAAAY more experienced than me but, that isn't the way I want to gain my experience!

CJ

The Sacramento incident is sad beyond words because of multiple fatalities, but the part that really concerns me is it was a homebuilt. The average guy on the street already believes that anybody who builds an airplane in his garage is a wacko. These kinds of incidents add "irresponsible show-off" to the descriptor. We homebuilders all suffer from this kind of thing, whether we know it now or not.

Yes, but the thing that really bothers me (if I can put it into words concise enough), is that we (collectively) seem to be getting to a point in this country that we have to constantly worry that our freedom is going to be taken away by a majority who don't "like" what we do.

Flying is not the only area I am seeing this happen. It seems like if there were not "watch-dogs" on the hill backed by collective organizations(with $) to protect our freedom, they would be picked off one after another with no resistance. We would end up living in a place similar to China. Where big communist brother would dictate what, when, and where in almost every aspect of our life.

Now I agree with a law that makes flying acrobatics over populated areas illegal. But if someone does something like this, it does not give a right to take away our freedom. People have forgotten what it means to live in a Republic (representative) form of government with a Bill of Rights that treat all people equally (even minorities like pilots).

Blame it on the trial lawyers, the judges appointed to the bench (who used to be trial lawyers), and a run-away executive and $ pressured legistlative branch?

Throw the bums out (but don't put worse in!)

Way