Unfortunate accident at Light Sport Expo

txflyer said:
You won't catch me in one of those flying kite's without one. :nonod:

Don't get me wrong, I love flying in anything, I'd especially love a ride in an Aircam someday.

But either it or I am going to have a chute.
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Why not have one in the Wagon?:dunno: They are already STCd for a 182, I bet adapting that installation to the 180 would not be a huge undertaking.
 
Henning said:
Why not have one in the Wagon?:dunno: They are already STCd for a 182, I bet adapting that installation to the 180 would not be a huge undertaking.
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I'd do it if it isn't a million dollars and weighs 500 lbs.

I'm exaggerating, but a little birdy told me they're expensive and heavy.
 
txflyer said:
I'd do it if it isn't a million dollars and weighs 500 lbs.

I'm exaggerating, but a little birdy told me they're expensive and heavy.
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Well, instead of listening to birdies, might look into facts. It's not cheap, but the 182 is $15k parts and paperwork, granted you will have elevated instal costs due to it being a one off, although if you pay to STC it, you own the STC and can potentially sell it, but doubtful.

The weight is 85lbs at CG station 120, so yeah, you're carrying some weight, but about the same as my tool box I would carry in a 182 to make it less nose heavy, and in around the same location. So you have to consider how often you operate that close to gross I guess to make that determination.

Figure even if it costs $40k to get one in the plane, even though it's a fair chunk of the cash value of the plane, it's still a pretty good value against what it would cost to buy that increase in capability and safety in any other way. The determinant of the real value to you is how does your current plane suit your mission? Does this plane have a place in your stable until it or you are done operating? If so, this would be a very high value upgrade if you fly night, IFR, over hostile terrain, or any combination of the prior.

The only other way to get that level of capability for safe impact is with a twin or a Cirrus. An Aztec will go most anywhere your Wagon will, Baron pretty much will as well at the same loads you fly in the 180. Then of course there is a Beech 18.:D
 
Henning said:
Well, instead of listening to birdies, might look into facts. It's not cheap, but the 182 is $15k parts and paperwork, granted you will have elevated instal costs due to it being a one off, although if you pay to STC it, you own the STC and can potentially sell it, but doubtful.

The weight is 85lbs at CG station 120, so yeah, you're carrying some weight, but about the same as my tool box I would carry in a 182 to make it less nose heavy, and in around the same location. So you have to consider how often you operate that close to gross I guess to make that determination.

Figure even if it costs $40k to get one in the plane, even though it's a fair chunk of the cash value of the plane, it's still a pretty good value against what it would cost to buy that increase in capability and safety in any other way. The determinant of the real value to you is how does your current plane suit your mission? Does this plane have a place in your stable until it or you are done operating? If so, this would be a very high value upgrade if you fly night, IFR, over hostile terrain, or any combination of the prior.

The only other way to get that level of capability for safe impact is with a twin or a Cirrus. An Aztec will go most anywhere your Wagon will, Baron pretty much will as well at the same loads you fly in the 180. Then of course there is a Beech 18.:D
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Gotta wonder if insurance would change for the better or not.

The 182 and 180 are the same airframe, so I gotta wonder if the 182 STC covers skywagons ... I doubt it unless they had the presence of mind to go for the skywagon airframe at the same time they did the 182.

Forced Aeromotive makes a supercharger for the 182 that's STC'd, but when they applied for it and went through the process, they overlooked 180/185 airframes so I'd have to do it on a field approval. The guy at Forced Aero told me he's still kicking himself over that one.
 
txflyer said:
RIP

Two words

Ballistic parachute ...
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I am a proponent of ballistic parachutes, but this type of low altitude stall/spin is NOT the kind of incident where I think it has a chance of working.

With only several seconds to identify a critical situation and then react and pull the chute AND have it deploy it's just not enough time.
 
Everything I have read about this chute systems, They need to be deployed at around 1000-1500' in order for it to help. Anything lower and the chute does not have enough time to deploy.
 
FastEddieB said:
I am a proponent of ballistic parachutes, but this type of low altitude stall/spin is NOT the kind of incident where I think it has a chance of working.

With only several seconds to identify a critical situation and then react and pull the chute AND have it deploy it's just not enough time.
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I agree. It is not too dissimilar to the New York Yankee flying into a building in New York in his Cirrus. No way the chute helps.
 
FastEddieB said:
I am a proponent of ballistic parachutes, but this type of low altitude stall/spin is NOT the kind of incident where I think it has a chance of working.

With only several seconds to identify a critical situation and then react and pull the chute AND have it deploy it's just not enough time.
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It's amazing what people survive with just a little something that takes away some energy from the final stop. 50g is the "LD-50" for crashing, 100g is 100% fatal. Under 40 and as long as nothing penetrated you, your chances of survival are really good.

The trick isn't to walk away unharmed (although it's what we want), the trick is to not die.
 
1600vw said:
Everything I have read about this chute systems, They need to be deployed at around 1000-1500' in order for it to help. Anything lower and the chute does not have enough time to deploy.
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The chute seemed to help the Cirrus pasangers at Fredric from very low altitude.
No safety device is going to help in every situation.
Vance Breese, my father successfully tested an aircraft mounted parachute in 1930.
It took a while for the idea to catch on.
 
Henning said:
It's amazing what people survive with just a little something that takes away some energy from the final stop. 50g is the "LD-50" for crashing, 100g is 100% fatal. Under 40 and as long as nothing penetrated you, your chances of survival are really good.

The trick isn't to walk away unharmed (although it's what we want), the trick is to not die.
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ld50.png
 
txflyer said:
RIP

Two words

Ballistic parachute ...
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No way a ballistic chute had time to come Into play that close to the ground, though. It takes too long to get it out and deployed.
 
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There's been more than one ultralight BRS save at 300 feet after structural failures. And I think I recall an 80 foot save of a light sport. OTOH, we lost a light sport near here. He stalled and spun in base to final and he was observed fighting the spin all the way to the ground even though he had a chute.

Just as important as the chute is the discipline and clear head to use it.
 
Old Geek said:
There's been more than one ultralight BRS save at 300 feet after structural failures. And I think I recall an 80 foot save of a light sport. OTOH, we lost a light sport near here. He stalled and spun in base to final and he was observed fighting the spin all the way to the ground even though he had a chute.

Just as important as the chute is the discipline and clear head to use it.
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Agreed....

The "chute" is there for a airframe or motor malfunction.... If you need one because you might stall /spin the plane..... You need to QUIT flying..:yes::rolleyes:
 
Old Geek said:
Just as important as the chute is the discipline and clear head to use it.
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The Navy used to have a safety poster. It showed an F8 going off the angle, starting to pitch down, with its landing gear afire. The canopy is off, and the ejection sequence has the pilot out of the airplane already (ie, superhuman reaction time to fast-developing situation).

The Navy' caption was:

"KNOW WHEN TO GO...THEN GO!"

Edit: Found the photo:
F-8_MB2.jpg


Ron Wanttaja
 
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Old Geek said:
There's been more than one ultralight BRS save at 300 feet after structural failures. And I think I recall an 80 foot save of a light sport. OTOH, we lost a light sport near here. He stalled and spun in base to final and he was observed fighting the spin all the way to the ground even though he had a chute.

Just as important as the chute is the discipline and clear head to use it.
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He may not have been fighting it, very likely he was watching it play out like a movie.
 
wanttaja said:
The Navy used to have a safety poster. It showed an F8 going off the angle, starting to pitch down, with its landing gear afire. The canopy is off, and the ejection sequence has the pilot out of the airplane already (ie, superhuman reaction time to fast-developing situation).

The Navy' caption was:

"KNOW WHEN TO GO...THEN GO!"

Edit: Found the photo:

Ron Wanttaja
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This Thunderbird pilot punched out with .8 seconds and 140' of altitude to spare...I'd say he left the office at the last possible moment.


517px-Crash.arp.600pix.jpg
 
Old Geek said:
There's been more than one ultralight BRS save at 300 feet after structural failures. And I think I recall an 80 foot save of a light sport. OTOH, we lost a light sport near here. He stalled and spun in base to final and he was observed fighting the spin all the way to the ground even though he had a chute.

Just as important as the chute is the discipline and clear head to use it.
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Ahhh, the 70's :D

The first BRS chutes were fitted to hang gliders. Before Boris Popov came along with his great product, I wore a belly pack sewed to my harness with a velcro closure and the chute inside in a deployment bag.

The plan was to rip open the pack, grab the bag handle and toss the chute clear of the flying wires and kingpost while likely descending in a spinning maple seed configuration.

Let's just say I was glad I never had to use it. :D

I recall hearing of some BRS saves from just a couple of hundred feet back then.
 
wanttaja said:
How high? Roughly the same as Lancairs. However, their rate of *fatal* accidents is much lower.
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Last year a strut broke on a SeaRey after takeoff, so the wing came off. The airplane came down from some 30 feet, but both onboard survived. Maybe water helped, maybe the crash structure. They didn't drown either. If a strut parts on my airplane at takeoff, it's curtains for sure, even though I have a BRS brand chute.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Could it be that the pilot was trying to impress the peanut gallery with the ability of this aircraft in slow flight and stalled it? Sounds logical rather than "spooky". Low slow flight is always ill advised.
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Apropos that... here's a video of CGS Hawk from a while back (the captioning is very ill-advised - please pardon the pun):
 
N801BH said:
If you need one because you might stall /spin the plane..... You need to QUIT flying..:yes::rolleyes:
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I still contend that the vast majority of pilots who have spun in figured they were as immune to that sort of thing as you seem to think you are.

"Pride goeth before a fall" and all that.
 
FastEddieB said:
I still contend that the vast majority of pilots who have spun in figured they were as immune to that sort of thing as you seem to think you are.

"Pride goeth before a fall" and all that.
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35 years of flying without stalling or spinning one by accident, I hope to go another 35 too....:yes:.......:redface:
 
N801BH said:
35 years of flying without stalling or spinning one by accident, I hope to go another 35 too....:yes:.......:redface:
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Well, ya beat me. I went about three days after I got my Private before accidentally stalling and spinning. While carrying my first passenger, yet....

Ron Wanttaja
 
You can not compare the deployed of ejection seats to the deployment of a BRS system. The BRS system has to deploy in a slower fasion. If it don't it will rip the airframe apart from deploying to fast.

I had a long conversation with the company who makes these BRS systems about this deployment and how its slowed down and why they say you need some altitude for these to work.

If you do not believe what I say send this company an e-mail and ask, they will tell you its a slowed reaction compared to a ejection seat or any other parachute system. It must be to keep from ripping the airframe apart. They went through a lot of R&D to get this worked out correctly.
 
N801BH said:
35 years of flying without stalling or spinning one by accident, I hope to go another 35 too....:yes:.......:redface:
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I have you beat by about five years.

Yet I have humility to realize that I have had momentary lapses* of all sorts throughout my career. I just count myself fortunate that none of them, to date, has ever led to an accident or a violation - much less to a fatality.

*I did a rather long post on "Momentary Lapses" a while back. Here you go:

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73846
 
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The cirrus and Cessna versions are reefed to slow deployment I don't believe the ultralight versions are. Perhaps that has changed if the same versions go in the faster LSAs. Partially inflated parachutes have saved lots of lives.
 
Damn. My hubby and I went to Sebring for the LSA show last year, and he took a demo flight... said the tower kept the traffic pretty tight together and he felt a bit nervous in the show environment airspace.

Awful loss of life.
 
FastEddieB said:
I have you beat by about five years.

Yet I have humility to realize that I have had momentary lapses* of all sorts throughout my career. I just count myself fortunate that none of them, to date, has ever led to an accident or a violation - much less to a fatality.

*I did a rather long post on "Momentary Lapses" a while back. Here you go:

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73846
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Anything can kill you...

Slip in the bathtub and hit your head...
Run a stop sign and get T boned by a semi...
Step off a curb and get squished by a city bus...
Slice off your finger while dicing potatoes and bleed to death......
Get electrocuted by stepping in a puddle with a live wire laying in it...

etc.etc,etc,etc......

Life is short, live it to the fullest, push the envelope,, Just DON'T step over the edge......

So far, so good for me...:yes::):):):):):)
 
FlyGirlKHWO said:
Damn. My hubby and I went to Sebring for the LSA show last year, and he took a demo flight...
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In January of 2007 I was still trying to decide if the Sky Arrow would suit our needs.

We did a trip to the Light Sport Expo that year and Karen took a demo flight with one of the Hansen twins:

16291782236_9cf9b94fd7_z.jpg


Makes it hit home - no one ever expects that a simple demo flight will be their last.

Just horrible.
 
wanttaja said:
Well, ya beat me. I went about three days after I got my Private before accidentally stalling and spinning. While carrying my first passenger, yet....
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The difference is the altitude at which you do it. Ability to recover a spin would make no difference in this crash. According to witnesses at least, they did not even complete one rotation.

BTW, I accidentially spun a Cherokee even before the checkride once. That one recovered before a full rotation, with a fairly normal technique. But although I do not remember exactly, I guarantee that we lost more than 500 ft.
 
N801BH said:
Anything can kill you...

Slip in the bathtub and hit your head...
Run a stop sign and get T boned by a semi...
Step off a curb and get squished by a city bus...
Slice off your finger while dicing potatoes and bleed to death......
Get electrocuted by stepping in a puddle with a live wire laying in it...

etc.etc,etc,etc......

Life is short, live it to the fullest, push the envelope,, Just DON'T step over the edge......

So far, so good for me...:yes::):):):):):)
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Yeah, you know me, full throttle don't scare me, neither do live wires... but still, a parachute on a plane just makes sense when you only have one engine, especially if you fly in sprawling urban settings or through harsh terrain. If you want to rely on energy management, and STOL design, that's fine, you have to very comfortable operating full flaps at the bottom of the speed envelope coming in. You have to be comfortable landing at 25 with everything hanging out and no power in it. Landing partial flaps at 60 is not conducive to surviving crashes.
 
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