UAV crash after takeoff...story deleted?

Richard

Richard

Final Approach
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Ack...city life
No longer can I find any article on the April 21st, 2010 UAV crash at Southern CA Logistics Airport (Victorville, CA)
 
Negative, Ghostrider. I'm talking of the April 21, 2010 MQ-9 Reaper crash shortly after takeoff. The orgin of the flight is unknown but suspected to be Palmdale, CA.
 
I just talked to my friend who works for the company that makes the Predator, and flies UAVs out of Victorville. He said it was a National Guard UAV. It happened earlier this week, was a pilot in training who stalled it 30' over the threshold.
 
SCCutler said:
Oops, slow on the punch, and apparently, wrong.
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That should be the one. My friend said it's the only crash since he's been there. He got the job flying predators with only a private and now he's about to do a six month stint in Iraq.
 
KVCV = airport with the least attentive control tower ever. IME, but sadly I can't post the story publicly :)
 
Spike, how in the heck did you pull that up? I read the original article (the one you linked) but since then have not been able to find it on the 'net. And today the Daily Press said that article is no longer available. You da man!

EDIT: Brad, you da man! I assume you mean it was CA NG?
 
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sba55 said:
KVCV = airport with the least attentive control tower ever. IME, but sadly I can't post the story publicly :)
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Get Joe A to tell you our VCV story. It involves a dsplcd threshhold which may or may not be "in effect", clearing on a vehicle road, and a semi-irate TWR telling us we can/cannot park at a specific location in a non-movement area.

I landed there several weeks ago No. 2 following a B-787 and TWR was as sweet as ever.
 
Funny, that's how he got the job. A buddy of his is an A&P for Gen Atomics and got his bosses to look at his resume. (Which wasn't much. Private Pilot and about 150 hours.)
 
Thanks, Kent. How curious that the link you provided bares a date stamp of today (April 25th). Talk about LATE breaking news. Further, since I did multiple searches this morning with zero hits I wonder if the story you linked wasn't released until AFTER 0900 PST.

Anyway, thanks for the link.
 
Brad Erichsen said:
Funny, that's how he got the job. A buddy of his is an A&P for Gen Atomics and got his bosses to look at his resume. (Which wasn't much. Private Pilot and about 150 hours.)
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My guess is total time is but one thing they look at. Mil experience, etc would be a factor I think. That and maybe heavy Dungeons & Dragons time....
 
who stalled it 30' over the threshold.
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wow, for a $5mil airplane, I wonder if you could not program something into the software to help the pilot avoid that?
 
Richard said:
My guess is total time is but one thing they look at. Mil experience, etc would be a factor I think. That and maybe heavy Dungeons & Dragons time....
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Ya he was in the Navy for four years and probably did play D&D, though I think it was mostly his friend hounding the bosses until they finally said yes. Oddly enough he was never a video-gamer, which would probably best qualify you for that job...
 
Brad Erichsen said:
Ya he was in the Navy for four years and probably did play D&D, though I think it was mostly his friend hounding the bosses until they finally said yes. Oddly enough he was never a video-gamer, which would probably best qualify you for that job...
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Maybe they should hang around local high schools and recruit the geekiest-looking ones.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Maybe they should hang around local high schools and recruit the geekiest-looking ones.

-Rich
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In HS I knew a guy who was a straight A+++ student his entire academic life. On one fateful day he found out he had a B on his report card. He cried and he cried and cried...huge weeping tears. Also, since our swim couch had a policy of not cutting anyone who wanted to be on the swim team this student was going to swim in the really big meet against our cross town rivals. That meet was scheduled for that fateful day.

Suffice to say this guy was so distraught that he was absolutely no good to our team. Now, put that guy at the controls of a UAV....

Moral of the Story: geeks may not have the right stuff.
 
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