More lost in crashes over the weekend...

Okay, are we all competing who can find the most recent crashes? If that's the case I'll just post a link to NTSB's site.
Seriously we can't feel sorry for all of them, so unless there is something specific to learn I don't see a point of pointing out that a whole bunch of random planes crashed.
 
MachFly said:
Okay, are we all competing who can find the most recent crashes? If that's the case I'll just post a link to NTSB's site.
Seriously we can't feel sorry for all of them, so unless there is something specific to learn I don't see a point of pointing out that a whole bunch of random planes crashed.
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I think in every crash ,there's always something that can be learned.
 
frfly172 said:
I think in every crash ,there's always something that can be learned.
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Certainly not by posting them en masse. GA is dangerous, and more folks are flying now that its summer, and more still during a three day weekend.
 
Unfortunately there is no record of successful flights made during the same period.

I flew

~175 miles morning of July 4
~152 miles to get home, flown in the dark on July 5

All in SEP Cessna
 
I'm actually interested to know how many people died in car crashes in the US in July 3rd, 4th and 7th. That metric is important to me because I made the conscious choice to reach my holiday travel destination via private air during the peak travel days instead of drive. I'm open to be surprised, but something tells me that number is higher than the number of people who died flying on those days.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I'm actually interested to know how many people died in car crashes in the US in July 3rd, 4th and 7th. That metric is important to me because I made the conscious choice to reach my holiday travel destination via private air during the peak travel days instead of drive. I'm open to be surprised, but something tells me that number is higher than the number of people who died flying on those days.
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I think we had a safe driving year this past year, about 33,000 deaths in cars. Of course, there are many, many more drivers on the roads than airplanes in the air.

GA accident rate is similar to motorcycles, last I saw, if you compare accidents per time traveling; much higher than cars which is much higher than airline travel.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I'm actually interested to know how many people died in car crashes in the US in July 3rd, 4th and 7th. That metric is important to me because I made the conscious choice to reach my holiday travel destination via private air during the peak travel days instead of drive. I'm open to be surprised, but something tells me that number is higher than the number of people who died flying on those days.
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Out of how many drivers? GA loses on safety and cost every time. Do it cause you can and you don't want to live forever.
 
frfly172 said:
I think in every crash ,there's always something that can be learned.
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Yes but we got to a point where we're just posting random news articles of random crashes and the only thing we're discussing is how many people died.
 
True but at this point most anything we can discuss about these accidents it just random speculation, which the forum seems pretty good at.

Brian
 
MachFly said:
Yes but we got to a point where we're just posting random news articles of random crashes and the only thing we're discussing is how many people died.
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You went into full internet tough guy mode on post #4 of the thread. When exactly did we get to the point where we were only discussing how many people died?

I may not be able to fly a red plane upside down; however, I learn from every accident report / article I read. If you don't see the point of the thread; I suggest you stay away. Do you also walk up to people on the street and inform them that their discussion is pointless?
 
Walsh029 said:
You went into full internet tough guy mode on post #4 of the thread. When exactly did we get to the point where we were only discussing how many people died?

I may not be able to fly a red plane upside down; however, I learn from every accident report / article I read. If you don't see the point of the thread; I suggest you stay away. Do you also walk up to people on the street and inform them that their discussion is pointless?
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If you want to show clear respect to every single person that ever died in an airplane, go ahead, I won't try to stop you, as a matter of fact I'll even apologize if I ever disrespected anyone. Here's my thing though, aviation isn't safe, no one ever said it was safe, people die. The sad thing is that a lot of people die, a lot more than we can feel sorry for. You'll go crazy if you try to feel sorry for each and every one of them. What we (at least I) try to do is look over the crash, learn what can be learned and move on.

There is no point in posting a list of crashes that happened over one weekend and then spend a page discussing who died. You asked where are we discussing the people who died? In this thread, look at every post above this one.

You say you learn from every article you read, really? Lets look at the link you posted, all it tells us is that the guy crashed and started a fire. Can't really learn much from that. What we should do is wait a few days until we have some real information, make a dedicated thread to the crash and analyze it, then learn what we can and move on.

It's completely pointless to post 10 news reports of different crashes in a single thread that don't contain any information other than the fact that something crashed. We're going to spend a few days posting how sorry we are for everyone and then when real information comes out and we'll try discussing it, we're going to confuse everyone by trying to discuss a whole bunch of unrelated crashes in the same thread. As a result we won't learn anything.
 
So if you think the discussion is pointless, why are you participating in it? Apparently others feel like sharing their thoughts, maybe it's a waste of time, maybe not. If you feel it's a waste of YOUR time, don't waste it.

GA accident rate is similar to motorcycles,
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Crap, I ride motorcycles too. Surely I will die tomorrow.
 
http://www.kingschools.com/news/BigLie.htm

But perhaps those ten news reports should serve as a reminder themselves that the activity we partake in is particularly dangerous. I used to use the "you're more likely to die on the way to the airport" mantra a lot, but I've since stopped and will not try in the slightest to conceal the dangers of flying from a passenger or potential passenger, because it simply isn't fair to them as non pilots. I applaud my wife for accepting this risk and trusting that I do the best I can to mitigate it.
 
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vdehart said:
http://www.kingschools.com/news/BigLie.htm

But perhaps those ten news reports should serve as a reminder themselves that the activity we partake in is particularly dangerous. I used to use the "you're more likely to die on the way to the airport" mantra a lot, but I've since stopped and will not try in the slightest to conceal the dangers of flying to a passenger or potential passenger, because it simply isn't fair to them as non pilots. I applaud my wife for accepting this risk and trusting that I do the best I can to mitigate it.
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Thanks for posting the link. It's well worth a read, and has certainly given me a few things to think about.
 
StinkBug said:
So if you think the discussion is pointless, why are you participating in it? Apparently others feel like sharing their thoughts, maybe it's a waste of time, maybe not. If you feel it's a waste of YOUR time, don't waste it.



Crap, I ride motorcycles too. Surely I will die tomorrow.
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Hah. Why do you say this? Last I looked, neither has an accident rate of 100%. I see no good reason to be ignorant of the risk of any activity, though. It's even more helpful, of course, to know from where those accidents come.

For example, IIRC, when looking at motorcycles years ago, I was surprised to find that most accidents are solo-vehicle accidents, generally caused in turns by the motorcycle losing grip or hitting something in the road around the bend. Also, residential streets had far more accidents but freeways had a higher rate of fatal accidents.

Anyway, as far as MachFly's post, it's valid but I assume each person can make up their own mind if they want to read stories or not. I personally find it cathartic and I like to acknowledge the risks involved instead of being blind to them. Despite many posts on these forums, risk is not binary.
 
I was just making a little joke. I've been riding bikes a long time now and have a very real and serious mental picture of the risks. Now that I'm getting into flying I'm finding the same kind of mental attitude is necessary, except the specific areas of risk and attention are different. I was just kinda kidding about dying tomorrow, because so many non-riders and non-pilots think we are absolutely crazy for doing what we do.

As for bike crashes, you are correct, most are single vehicles in turns. However from years of riding the canyons around here I can tell you it rarely has anything to do with hitting things or even grip levels. It's mostly people riding too fast for their skill level and "failing to negotiate the turn." I think some of this could also be applied to flying. If you're not terribly experienced, and flying low over the mountains for a more exciting view you can definitely end up crashing while doing something a more experienced pilot would fly right out of. That's just one scenario I can think of, but I think what's kept me alive on bikes is constantly looking for the next thing that's going to try to kill me, and to expect it, as well as being conscious of my own skill level. I'm hoping that I can translate that same perception to airplanes, because expecting something bad to happen, being ready for it, and then it not happening is a lot better than being unprepared.
 
Thanks for the motorcycle correction.

Well, we may be just a little crazy to want to fly around in the sky instead of staying firmly on the ground. :)
 
"The brave don't live forever, the cautious don't live at all." ;-)
 
Mine is intact but the disable switch is the first thing on my emergency list, also on my list for short field takeoffs.
 
You didn't know there was a disable switch?

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
 
One of the safety features of the Arrow is the auto extend feature of the landing gear. In order for the gear to auto extend the throttle must be pulled all the way back to idle to close the end switch (the one that sets off the gear warning horn) and the airspeed must have dropped to about 104 kts. There is a second airspeed mast on the side of the fuselage for this purpose.

The reason Piper issued the mandatory SB was because pilots that had engine failures and other anomaly's were would be trying to glide to a suitable landing site with gear up and the gear would auto extend causing them to land short. I don't know for sure but I suspect there were more issues with simulated engine outs than actual.

I am not 100% certain but I think that is when they had the disable switch installed.

There is a lever down near the trim wheel (between the seats) that when pushed down relieves the hydraulic pressure in the gear system and allows the gear to fall via gravity. The disable function is also operated by this lever. Instead of pushing it down you pull it up and slide a locking pin in front of it to hold it in the up position. When you do this an amber indicator on the panel is turned on to let you know this feature has been selected and the gear will only extend if you move the gear lever to the down position.

The auto system has one other job that most are not aware of. It will also prevent you from raising the gear at a speed below about 75 kts. This was originally done to prevent people from raising the gear to quickly and settling back onto the runway. On a short field take off such as at 6Y9 I typically rotate at about 55 kts and climb at around 64 kts. At these speeds I can select gear up but it will not raise till I get above the 75 kts. This can really wreak havoc on your climb so as part of my short field list I disable the auto extend so the gear will come up when I decide.

The Mandatory SB says to either remove the auto system or for the pilot to have specific knowledge knowledge of how the system works. I have made it a point to read and understand how the system works in lieu of removing it. I also check it's operation every few hours to make sure it is functioning correctly.

I chose to understand it rather than be afraid of it.
 
I don't mind the emergency gear extension system. It helped me out the other day when, I believe, the hydraulic pump kicked the bucket. As I was flying the low pass, all three dropped and locked.

It got the job done before I left the pattern to troubleshoot (first thing I checked were the CB's).

It's a system you should definitely understand before testing your limits in those equipped with it.
 
Agreed, you need to know your airplane and how it's systems work. the POH provides very little to really explain the auto extend system. I searched till I found the repair manual which does go into a great deal of detail on how everything works.
 
The link won't work for me on my mobile, but my Sierra had the auto-extend system when I bought it, but I had some issues with the lever and the replacement we put in has since disabled this system, maybe it's for the best.
 
Never knew the Sierra had the auto extend. I really liked the Sierra and even looked at one in northern ohio. turned out to be a wasted trip, he really wasn't interested in selling it.
 
tmyers said:
One of the safety features of the Arrow is the auto extend feature of the landing gear. In order for the gear to auto extend the throttle must be pulled all the way back to idle to close the end switch (the one that sets off the gear warning horn) and the airspeed must have dropped to about 104 kts. There is a second airspeed mast on the side of the fuselage for this purpose.

The reason Piper issued the mandatory SB was because pilots that had engine failures and other anomaly's were would be trying to glide to a suitable landing site with gear up and the gear would auto extend causing them to land short. I don't know for sure but I suspect there were more issues with simulated engine outs than actual.

I am not 100% certain but I think that is when they had the disable switch installed.

There is a lever down near the trim wheel (between the seats) that when pushed down relieves the hydraulic pressure in the gear system and allows the gear to fall via gravity. The disable function is also operated by this lever. Instead of pushing it down you pull it up and slide a locking pin in front of it to hold it in the up position. When you do this an amber indicator on the panel is turned on to let you know this feature has been selected and the gear will only extend if you move the gear lever to the down position.

The auto system has one other job that most are not aware of. It will also prevent you from raising the gear at a speed below about 75 kts. This was originally done to prevent people from raising the gear to quickly and settling back onto the runway. On a short field take off such as at 6Y9 I typically rotate at about 55 kts and climb at around 64 kts. At these speeds I can select gear up but it will not raise till I get above the 75 kts. This can really wreak havoc on your climb so as part of my short field list I disable the auto extend so the gear will come up when I decide.

The Mandatory SB says to either remove the auto system or for the pilot to have specific knowledge knowledge of how the system works. I have made it a point to read and understand how the system works in lieu of removing it. I also check it's operation every few hours to make sure it is functioning correctly.

I chose to understand it rather than be afraid of it.
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:confused: Is that a modification to the system? It sure wasn't that way on the Arrow II I flew. I was taking off out of Alamosa and mine dropped. Luckily there was plenty of room to suck them back up and pin the override in place. Never was less than full throttle.
 
Yep, supposed to be under 104 and throttle closed, otherwise you would never be able to get the gear up on a climb out.
 
The lever, at least mine, has a hair trigger, if you look at it funny the gear will drop, but I have only seen this on jacks. I have never had the gear drop unexpectedly on me.

That being said the space between the seats is not a good place for storage.
 
So many crashes center around obstructions, weather, and performance issues.

The guy who hit the windmill was at 213 feet, probably scud running given the fog and weather. Something we are all taught not to do. It sounds like the Arrow crash occurred because he made a turn into the terrain and the gear dropped causing him to lack the performance to climb over it.

You never want to be arrogant about the risks and think you can eliminate risk. GA is risky. But reading about crashes like these, there's always a lesson to be learned and something you can avoid.
 
tmyers said:
Yep, supposed to be under 104 and throttle closed, otherwise you would never be able to get the gear up on a climb out.
Click to expand...

Thought I would re-read the manual, the testing procedure only says engine at idle and makes no mention of the end switch, but I think the end switch is in the sequence and that is how the system knows the engine is at idle. I might take a peek at the schematic tonight to verify.

Bottom line is that if the throttle is much above idle the gear should not auto extend regardless of the speed.
 
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