Dale Snodgrass crash in Idaho

Velocity173 said:
Yeah I remember her accident. Son was narrating. Tragic.

I took an aerobatic lesson right down the road at Flagler. The owners of the flight school were Daniel and Montaine of the French Connection. Got to meet them and chat with Daniel about his French AF flying. Sadly they’d die at that airport about a year later doing a practice show.
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:(
 
Air shows can be an unforgiving vocation. I lost 2 good friends trying to become air show pilots. Competition acro is far safer. Another died trying to get into air racing. All were much too young.

If there is any consolation here, Mr Snodgrass lived a full life. Actually that's an understatement; he lived enough adventure and accomplishment to fill ten lives.
 
Ward Carroll did a good YT video on call names. Basically you don't get the one you want and you're not supposed to like it. There's a Seinfeld episode where George wants to have a cool nickname and well, it just goes bad from there...
 
Silvaire said:
Ward Carroll did a good YT video on call names. Basically you don't get the one you want and you're not supposed to like it. There's a Seinfeld episode where George wants to have a cool nickname and well, it just goes bad from there...
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Certain very highly selective ground units have/had call names. They are totally meant to give the person crap. I knew a guy nicknamed Viper. Pretty badass, right? He earned it by picking up a poisonous snake and getting bitten.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Certain very highly selective ground units have/had call names. They are totally meant to give the person crap. I knew a guy nicknamed Viper. Pretty badass, right? He earned it by picking up a poisonous snake and getting bitten.
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High price to get it, but still a cool name.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Certain very highly selective ground units have/had call names. They are totally meant to give the person crap.
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And every guy who has a callsign that's a play on his name also has at least one more he's not telling you about.

Nauga,
just Nauga
 
nauga said:
And every guy who has a callsign that's a play on his name also has at least one more he's not telling you about.

Nauga,
just Nauga
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Yeah, I always thought the name puns were a dodge. Figg Newton, etc.
 
The best one I heard was from a Navy driver posting on Beech Aero Club. His callsign was "Pom Pom". He got it when he was given a mission in Iraq. He had a hearty breakfast on the boat and then launched. Very quickly he found out that something did agree with him. Nonetheless, he continued to the target and trapped. "Pom Pom"? Pooped in Myself, Pressed on Mission.
 
My initial PP instructor stressed the point that many pilots are killed by ignoring some of the basic things taught before your first instructional flight, such as pre-flight inspection, visual fuel check, full motion of flight controls etc…. You may be the most skilled pilot in the sky, but ignoring some of the very basic aspects of flying are waiting to bite and/or kill you. It happens every day. Even a cargo shift, as some have questioned as the cause of Snort’s accident, is the responsibility of the pilot. No free pass in flying, even if you have 20,000 hours.
 
Brad Smith said:
It happens every day. Even a cargo shift, as some have questioned as the cause of Snort’s accident, is the responsibility of the pilot. No free pass in flying, even if you have 20,000 hours.
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Part 91 sure. But not true universally (part 121/135/military).
 
nauga said:
And every guy who has a callsign that's a play on his name also has at least one more he's not telling you about.
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Back when I was due to report to my first assignment after graduation, the office where I was going was perplexed by my last name.

This being in the '70s, one of the men was a "Barney Miller" fan. He decided my name was close to that of the Polish-heritage cop in the show, and thus I became "Wojo" during my four-year hitch. I *never* used it, afterwards.

I was always impressed at how the guys from the southern states could pronounce it with three or more syllables.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Ok, so Wojo it is. So let it be written...
 
Call signs don’t really follow a protocol so much. It’s a name, just has to fit. The guy getting it doesn’t have to agree... it just is what it is, has to fit.

I got Tools very early, another student in a 4 plane form hop as I was showing up for the brief, and who had been to my shop a fair amount, simply said, “hey look, it’s Tools Danford.” And it stuck.

I did PLENTY of stupid things to get it changed, and there were attempts, the others just didn’t “fit”. One time they couldn’t make up their mind, Goldy, Chunks, Spew, Fish and a few others, I’ll let you guess what happened. Just didn’t fit.

I’d show up to the next training squadron, with a callsign, would get grief, I’d be like what ever... invariably someone would need something fixed, and “Tools” would live to fight another day.

Some guys are NEVER gonna not be called Nose, you know the type... Aaron Kazarian, he’s just Kaz... forever.

Hydrant, he shouldn’t have told us his dog ****ed on him when he was passed out in the kitchen... who says you don’t pick your own?!!!

Cow, a major, and a dick head, liked his callsign. Just never figured out it stood for “captain one way”. That was never gonna change...

And so it goes.
 
I’d just like to say, I am Rush, not Rushie. The only reason there’s an ie on the end is because when I registered here it required 6 characters. I hate Rushie. Blech. I got Rush having to do with adrenaline rush, not because I’m Rush Limbaugh or I like the Canadian rock band.
 
Brad Smith said:
Even a cargo shift, as some have questioned as the cause of Snort’s accident, is the responsibility of the pilot. No free pass in flying, even if you have 20,000 hours.
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A friend was to deliver cedar shingle tiles to a lodge 30 miles or so from the airport. Very experienced high time hour pilot. He was flying a Beech 18. On TO the load shifted aft and Tom was killed in the crash. Sad day RIP Tom
 
Tools said:
Call signs don’t really follow a protocol so much. It’s a name, just has to fit. The guy getting it doesn’t have to agree... it just is what it is, has to fit.

I got Tools very early, another student in a 4 plane form hop as I was showing up for the brief, and who had been to my shop a fair amount, simply said, “hey look, it’s Tools Danford.” And it stuck.

I did PLENTY of stupid things to get it changed, and there were attempts, the others just didn’t “fit”. One time they couldn’t make up their mind, Goldy, Chunks, Spew, Fish and a few others, I’ll let you guess what happened. Just didn’t fit.

I’d show up to the next training squadron, with a callsign, would get grief, I’d be like what ever... invariably someone would need something fixed, and “Tools” would live to fight another day.

Some guys are NEVER gonna not be called Nose, you know the type... Aaron Kazarian, he’s just Kaz... forever.

Hydrant, he shouldn’t have told us his dog ****ed on him when he was passed out in the kitchen... who says you don’t pick your own?!!!

Cow, a major, and a dick head, liked his callsign. Just never figured out it stood for “captain one way”. That was never gonna change...

And so it goes.
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One of my favorites was Hornet guy who earned the call sign FIDO (F# it’s dark out) after making a night landing on the boat with his day visor down.
 
Since this has already gone way off topic and all of the Dale Snodgrass talk has my YouTube que now filled with everything Bird Dog and Tomcat
I found this little clip of them cutting up an F-14 (I imagine they don't want any of the parts making it over to Iran)
Anyway, admittedly hard to watch but wow, these were one tough bird! That crusher is having a rough time tearing it apart, it takes two of them.

 
Silvaire said:
Since this has already gone way off topic and all of the Dale Snodgrass talk has my YouTube que now filled with everything Bird Dog and Tomcat
I found this little clip of them cutting up an F-14 (I imagine they don't want any of the parts making it over to Iran)
Anyway, admittedly hard to watch but wow, these were one tough bird! That crusher is having a rough time tearing it apart, it takes two of them.

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Ouch! :( Looks like some sort of space alien robot vultures tearing up carrion. Creepy.
 
Today I finally got a chance to take pictures of a friend's Machetti SM.1019 with the gust lock engaged and disengaged. I also take a picture of the seat rail. It's so short. I don't think any pilot would have missed removing the gust lock. Nor could the seat slide too far back. Could that be another lock or seatbelt entagled in the back seat? I heard this was the first flight after the plane was delivered. And you can see the stick position is almost unchanged when the gust lock is disengaged. I hope NTSB could find out the cause. RIP Snort!

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midwestpa24 said:
Unfortunately decorum has gone right out the window.
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I don’t think it ever existed. It was just an idea. When I was working in law enforcement I carried tarps in my trunk to cover bodies so people couldn’t take pictures/video of the deceased. Tv crews were the worst.
 
jpskies said:
...I also take a picture of the seat rail. It's so short. I don't think any pilot would have missed removing the gust lock. Nor could the seat slide too far back...
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Agree about the gust lock because as far as I know it also locks the rudder pedals but the seat issue isn't just about it rolling back, it's also about the front roller cages coming off the rail if it gets moved too far forward and it's also about the front roller cages breaking allowing the seat to tilt back and it's also about the frame tubes cracking and support of the seat failing. You can see the exposed torque tube that runs under the seat that connects the front and rear control sticks. If the seat were to collapse onto that it would certainly create some control problems.
 
Steve Costello said:
Met a Tomcat pilot at the Oshkosh HOPS party that had personal interaction with Snort. I know the vast majority of folks seeing this are saddened and affected in some way, but to interact with someone who had a direct, personal, professional connection with Snort... he was clearly moved in a much different way than most. (Coincidentally found out he was on my boat, Ike, for my last cruise, which was pretty cool.)

I hope that somehow investigators are able to determine what happened here, and with that knowledge, we can avoid tragedies like this in the future.
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Was the guy you met on the GEICO Skytypers team?
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I don’t think it ever existed. It was just an idea. When I was working in law enforcement I carried tarps in my trunk to cover bodies so people couldn’t take pictures/video of the deceased. Tv crews were the worst.
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Local media used to be pretty good. They knew where the line was, and they would take the high road. The national media not so much, and unfortunately a lot of locals are following the trend.
 
LesGawlik said:
The best one I heard was from a Navy driver posting on Beech Aero Club. His callsign was "Pom Pom". He got it when he was given a mission in Iraq. He had a hearty breakfast on the boat and then launched. Very quickly he found out that something did agree with him. Nonetheless, he continued to the target and trapped. "Pom Pom"? Pooped in Myself, Pressed on Mission.
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Funny, I know I've heard of other pom poms, but I'm pretty sure I cruised with the guy you are talking about. That was the exact story behind his callsign. We flew as wingmen on a memorable sparrow missile shoot in Tyndall in maybe 2012 as well. I remember he led us back into the overhead at approximately 9000 knots.....the intakes were howling we were both going so fast; think I finally intercepted some sort of a "base" position about 4 miles deep on the approach end after the jet finally slowed down. The one I'm talking about later ended up in the F-35 program.
 
Just coming back that it sure ‘seemed’ like his controls were locked or had very limited movement. I also think that an actual control lock in place would be unlikely. I see mentioned that he loaded some materials for his building project? Not sure what the materials were, & how ‘slippery’? With that cargo, then combined with a STOL takeoff, as reported, possibly contributing to a load shift of sorts?

I don’t know if a little shifting on that plane would even matter? With mine a slide of cargo would just end up against the back wall, unable to get back to flight control cables, pulleys & such without breaking through the wall.

I mentioned before, but the timeline from start to takeoff ‘seems’ kinda short. The comm with the video could easily look that way, lacking accuracy. Whatever did happen, could it of been eliminated with a little more time on the ground getting ready before takeoff?
 
sourdough44 said:
Just coming back that it sure ‘seemed’ like his controls were locked or had very limited movement.
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Here's how it ought to look:


Judging from the elevator horn, it takes a lot of forward elevator as the plane gains speed. After lift-off it seems to take a bunch of forward elevator to keep the nose down (unless it's because the pilot is just fighting against a poor trim setting). In the Snodgrass video I didn't see any control deflection at the 90° bank position when the airplane was aimed right at the camera. You'd think something would be deflected if it was at all possible. So, I'm pretty sure they'll find the controls were locked. Perhaps by external gust locks? Perhaps the pilot temporarily set the control lock before takeoff and forgot to release it? The lock is supposed to act as a parking brake if I'm not mistaken (and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work too well). If that were the case, undoing the latch against aerodynamic forces might have been too difficult in the available time. :dunno:
 
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sourdough44 said:
I don’t know if a little shifting on that plane would even matter? With mine a slide of cargo would just end up against the back wall, unable to get back to flight control cables, pulleys & such without breaking through the wall.
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You might be on to something. If a cargo shift interfered with the controls it would be just as bad as a control lock
 
Again, first lesson of taildraggery is stick full back to taxi. Second lesson is stick forward on takeoff roll to raise tail.

IMO that makes gust lock scenario extremely unlikely. Only an extremely sloppy and casual tailwheel pilot would not move his stick at some point prior to rotation.

Shifting load makes most sense given limited info. Baggage area is pretty far back on tandem aircraft. Overloading that station puts the CG aft of limits. Combination of powerful acceleration and pitch up to rotate could cause poorly secured construction materials to shift rearward, putting CG further aft. At some point that aircraft is unflyable.

He might also have removed the rear panel to allow room for longer materials like lumber. A rearward shift of heavy load into tailcone would obviously be catastrophic.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
IMO that makes gust lock scenario extremely unlikely. Only an extremely sloppy and casual tailwheel pilot would not move his stick at some point prior to rotation.
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That’s my thought as well. I find it hard to believe he could’ve gotten that far into the takeoff phase without realizing the controls were locked and aborting.

It must be the most sickening feeling knowing you’re within a couple seconds of death and not having any control over it. Unimaginable! :(
 
RyanB said:
That’s my thought as well. I find it hard to believe he could’ve gotten that far into the takeoff phase without realizing the controls were locked and aborting.

It must be the most sickening feeling knowing you’re within a couple seconds of death and not having any control over it. Unimaginable! :(
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Does this takeoff profile look familiar?

 
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