Quickdraw1 wrote:

pilotryan wrote:

1:1 Scale wrote:When is High Sierra?

That is exceptionally mean yet terribly funny!

Mike has already posted his side of the story. What a legend. We love you Mike, keep it up!

This is a legend.

Ditto. And one of my commanding officers on Queenfish was a legend. Wish I could share.

I always thought the Courier and the man flew as one. Probably a result of cutting his teeth on under powered ultra lites . Mike is also a talent in the aviation field.
I doubt that it would be much more than pure luck for anyone to best that local wind phenomenon channeling and rolling down the canyon and occasionally blowing over semis on the freeway .It goes from predictable to invisible super gust with no warning. Even experienced locals are wary of these unique areas downwind of the Sierras. Autos change lanes by themselves. What was a challenging cross wind added an extreme gust in milliseconds right around Draco. Mike and Draco could handle it until that millisecond. When all else does not fit it is called pilot error. Still, don’t beat yourself up Mike. No one could have done it better.

I am glad that Mike is OK..

Let's all remember that good pilots set limits and stick to those limits. They also exercise good judgement. This is especially important with the type of flying involved.

I am not seeing either in this instance. In watching the YouTube videos with the self-proclaimed "Cowboys" pilot group I see a higher than normal occurrence of this type of incident. This doesn't deserve a pass. Let's call this what it is: Poor Airmanship.

At best this is not a good example and at worst lives can be lost.

mcpilot wrote:I am glad that Mike is OK..

Let's all remember that good pilots set limits and stick to those limits. They also exercise good judgement. This is especially important with the type of flying involved.

I am not seeing either in this instance. In watching the YouTube videos with the self-proclaimed "Cowboys" pilot group I see a higher than normal occurrence of this type of incident. This doesn't deserve a pass. Let's call this what it is: Poor Airmanship.

At best this is not a good example and at worst lives can be lost.

That’s pretty much what Mike says in his video.

pilotryan wrote:

1:1 Scale wrote:When is High Sierra?

That is exceptionally mean yet terribly funny!

Not intended to be mean at all, just meant to build on Courierguy's prior post in regards to Mike's building skills and determination.

Props to Mike for owning it with the self evaluation for all of YouTube to see so shortly after the accident. It took me a while to figure out exactly wtf happened with my own accident a while back, and I still haven't commented on the thread that someone created about it here.

At some point, I think everyone here is susceptible to ignoring the signs that are right in front of them, maybe because they've "gotten away with it before".

I'd like to see him rebuild/recreate Draco, largely because he built it to fill his niche mission. But maybe his mission has changed now, and we'll get to see another awesome build from him.

1:1 Scale wrote:

pilotryan wrote:

1:1 Scale wrote:When is High Sierra?

That is exceptionally mean yet terribly funny!

Not intended to be mean at all, just meant to build on Courierguy's prior post in regards to Mike's building skills and determination.

Props to Mike for owning it with the self evaluation for all of YouTube to see so shortly after the accident. It took me a while to figure out exactly wtf happened with my own accident a while back, and I still haven't commented on the thread that someone created about it here.

At some point, I think everyone here is susceptible to ignoring the signs that are right in front of them, maybe because they've "gotten away with it before".

I'd like to see him rebuild/recreate Draco, largely because he built it to fill his niche mission. But maybe his mission has changed now, and we'll get to see another awesome build from him.

I took it as if you were gonna compete at High Sierra now that there was a chance of winning

I don't think I could have done the self eval thing so calmly right after that, especially considering the threat of enforcement action regarding 91.13 or 91.103.

How many of us would have kept our language clean in that post accident video, like he did?! Not me! It will be awesome to see his recovery from this, his usual hyper overdrive geterdone work ethic will look like slaking off in comparison I bet. He will be a driven man and great things will happen when his next creation lifts off. His wife will recover from the broken fingernail, and it was great they both saw the humor in that.

courierguy wrote:How many of us would have kept our language clean in that post accident video, like he did?! Not me! It will be awesome to see his recovery from this, his usual hyper overdrive geterdone work ethic will look like slaking off in comparison I bet. He will be a driven man and great things will happen when his next creation lifts off. His wife will recover from the broken fingernail, and it was great they both saw the humor in that.

Many ‘Outward indicators of Inward condition’ times like this a lot of times reveal the true character of a man.
May we all aspire to the same class of character.

My post was in reference to all who are calling him a great pilot for taking responsibility for his poor choices

That makes him a reasonable and contrite individual not a great pilot.

Aggrandizing this daredevil behavior does nothing to discourage this behavior in the future.

Surprised at how easily it all fell apart in such a low speed, low altitude incident, actually just a groundloop. Thought the wings/struts/fuselage/tail would have been stronger and stuck together. Eastern engineering?

mcpilot wrote:My post was in reference to all who are calling him a great pilot for taking responsibility for his poor choices

That makes him a reasonable and contrite individual not a great pilot.

Aggrandizing this daredevil behavior does nothing to discourage this behavior in the future.

Call it what you wish...

When you break Howard Hughes records, become part of the aviation hall of fame for your accomplishments and can crush the competition at any race you show up for, maybe folks will call you a great pilot as well. For now however your just a skull and cross bones alias hiding behind and avatar. Your comments are BS.

AKT

Quite a few folks on here have wadded up their pride and joy. Whether it was a $5000 T-Cart or a $1mil E-AB, the dick punch is real. Good learning opportunity when the pain wears off though. Hope he sees his way clear to come up with Rev.2. [emoji106]

The regs are flexible. Why can't we pilots be as reasonable. This would let all of us get out ahead of situations and use effective techniques rather than what legalistic pilots think is appropriate.

aktahoe1 wrote:

mcpilot wrote:My post was in reference to all who are calling him a great pilot for taking responsibility for his poor choices

That makes him a reasonable and contrite individual not a great pilot.

Aggrandizing this daredevil behavior does nothing to discourage this behavior in the future.

Call it what you wish...

When you break Howard Hughes records, become part of the aviation hall of fame for your accomplishments and can crush the competition at any race you show up for, maybe folks will call you a great pilot as well. For now however your just a skull and cross bones alias hiding behind and avatar. Your comments are BS.

AKT

Well said.

Karmutzen wrote:Surprised at how easily it all fell apart in such a low speed, low altitude incident, actually just a groundloop. Thought the wings/struts/fuselage/tail would have been stronger and stuck together. Eastern engineering?

A lot of the plane had been re-engineered by Mike, and it wasn't just a groundloop. The plane was airborne. No landing gear is designed to survive a sideload like it received, short of an airliner or military plane.

My thoughts on it? The design was PERFECT. 3 souls aboard going from what, 40 or so mph to a complete stop in a matter of feet and only a broken finger nail to show for it. If it was my loved ones aboard I wouldn't care if there was enough left to make a good belt buckle if all left unscathed.

When I first saw the picture then watched the video I was also surprised by how much airframe destruction there was. Would not have expected the wings to fold, almost looks like the thing pancaked in from 50ft until you watch the video. Not questioning anything airplane or pilot, that was just my initial observation.

I think that maybe a little reality check before posting on a thread such as this one would demonstrate some of the class that Mike Patey has shown.

The thing that I hate about the internet is that everyone has an opinion, and that we all feel that ours is as important as someones whose knowledge and experience is probably light years ahead of our own. You don't know what you don't know.

By any measure his achievements in aviation are really impressive. Yet he loves to share his enthusiasm, encourage others and on what must have been a really shitty day was humble and admitted his mistake. That is class.

Is there a single pilot on this forum who has not made a judgement error and taken off or landed on a day when they should have stayed in the hangar? I know that I have. If you got away with it try and recognise that maybe you just got lucky and still learn from it. We are all only as good as the last landing.

I think Draco was absolutely awesome, the level of thought and craftsmanship that went into it was superb, not to mention the sheer grunt of all those late night hours. And he took the extra time to share it with the intergoogle web. Glad to have seen it and met him. I wish him all the best.

daedaluscan wrote:I think that maybe a little reality check before posting on a thread such as this one would demonstrate some of the class that Mike Patey has shown.

The thing that I hate about the internet is that everyone has an opinion, and that we all feel that ours is as important as someones whose knowledge and experience is probably light years ahead of our own. You don't know what you don't know.

By any measure his achievements in aviation are really impressive. Yet he loves to share his enthusiasm, encourage others and on what must have been a really shitty day was humble and admitted his mistake. That is class.

Is there a single pilot on this forum who has not made a judgement error and taken off or landed on a day when they should have stayed in the hangar? I know that I have. If you got away with it try and recognise that maybe you just got lucky and still learn from it. We are all only as good as the last landing.

I think Draco was absolutely awesome, the level of thought and craftsmanship that went into it was superb, not to mention the sheer grunt of all those late night hours. And he took the extra time to share it with the intergoogle web. Glad to have seen it and met him. I wish him all the best.

Well put

aktahoe1 wrote:

mcpilot wrote:My post was in reference to all who are calling him a great pilot for taking responsibility for his poor choices

That makes him a reasonable and contrite individual not a great pilot.

Aggrandizing this daredevil behavior does nothing to discourage this behavior in the future.

Call it what you wish...

When you break Howard Hughes records, become part of the aviation hall of fame for your accomplishments and can crush the competition at any race you show up for, maybe folks will call you a great pilot as well. For now however your just a skull and cross bones alias hiding behind and avatar. Your comments are BS.

AKT

I guess what matters is if the points that I have posted are "truths" that apply to all pilots or just certain pilots. A truth is a truth because it applies universally.

The physical truth here is that angled more into the wind would have made it a non-incident. He understood and used the technique off airfield. He didn't use that very efficient and very safe technique here because of what we might have thought or even complained about. Tower would have been fine with greater angle across. I know this from 3500 miles weekly in whatever wind conditions. However, a complaint would have triggered an investigation, proposed civil sanction, ect.

What I'm saying is that we have to consider that we all bear some responsibility for these things. A safety culture is different than an adversarial legal culture. The safer technique was obvious here.