Travel Air down near Durham, NC

Huh, high speed CFIT, pilot incapacitation? BTW, that is a Travelair, a Travel Air is an old biplane that is a common root of Clyde Cessna and Walter Beech.
 
Wow, all the images on the Internet and I can't get one of the insignia to Google up?:dunno: Looks like either is "Factor Correct", I always assumed there was a Trademark issue since Travel Air was trademarked to The Travel Air Company. However since Walter Beech was part of the company, who knows, he may have retained some rights even after the Curtiss buyout.
 
Be interesting to see the report on what went wrong. The travel air is a pretty docile twin. Think it's the same airplane that's been doing multi training for years.
 
frfly172 said:
Be interesting to see the report on what went wrong. The travel air is a pretty docile twin. Think it's the same airplane that's been doing multi training for years.
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Yeah, I had one for over 10 years, you can trim them to fly on one. "Really, really, fast" says nose down at cruise power to me, the most easily achieved form of that is a graveyard spiral, what most any plane not operating under an autopilot will develop not long after corrective control input is cancelled.

That's either a classic result of VFR-IMC or pilot incapacitation.
 
3393RP said:
What makes you say that? I'm looking at a photo of an essentially intact aircraft. Looks like it hit the trees at a very slow speed and flipped over.

http://www.wral.com/one-killed-in-plane-crash-near-bahama/14100801/
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The interview with Cletus.:D;) Trees absorb a lot of impact slowing you down if you go into them right, especially a farmed stand where they are all pretty much equal height. The level of the damage you see is not necessarily representative of his maximum speed. Plus the Travelair is a stout airframe.

Cletus said it was going really fast, most yokels watch Nascar, so 'really fast' is pushing over 200, and his description of the engine 'not exactly cutting out' is the kind of sound you hear as the prop starts driving the engine at high speed. If he's governed for 2200 and pushing Vne, he'll be driving the engine hard with the prop, and if he started at altitude, he'll be getting 'lean pops' in the exhaust.

Just a guess from the info given. What was the weather?
 
I wasn't paying too much attention because I was working and not flying but it's been mostly blue skies but breezy (by central NC standards) this week.

Henning said:
Just a guess from the info given. What was the weather?
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noobJohn said:
I wasn't paying too much attention because I was working and not flying but it's been mostly blue skies but breezy (by central NC standards) this week.
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Then my money goes on pilot incapacitation, give me good enough odds and I'll bet on a heart attack.
 
noobJohn said:
Whenever I hear of multi-engine training accidents I think of spins but I have zero experience with either multi-engine airplanes or spins. I just google.

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/1981/A81_49_53.pdf
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Yep, but spins happen at the bottom of the speed envelope, you are not going fast. It takes multiple things going wrong in order to enter a spin, it takes nothing to enter a graveyard spiral, it is the "stable" condition for every airframe and will enter it given no corrective inputs.
 
There were two pilots in the plane, though.

Henning said:
Yep, but spins happen at the bottom of the speed envelope, you are not going fast. It takes multiple things going wrong in order to enter a spin, it takes nothing to enter a graveyard spiral, it is the "stable" condition for every airframe and will enter it given no corrective inputs.
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