Hate to see a good plane get all bent up. Worse is to see people hurt or worse.

You can get away with a tailwind when landing uphill, being loaded is not that bad unless you are loaded on Super Dave's home brew.

Maybe if he had come in a bit slower he would have been fine. A lot of low wing guys like to land with flaps and lots of power and do not mind using the whole runway. Most of us take pride in making the first turn off.

Tim

On second thought after viewing the show a few more times, does anybody see flaps?

Tim

Tim are you loosing it How to you get landing from watching a takeoff.

That looks like Cameron Park to me.

You can see him force it off the ground then keeps the nose up.

What a tragic act of stupid. Hot heavy

Gear up, nose down, or less fuel and luggage, the old links of a chain accident scenario, he didn't need to kill two people.

Nope, no flaps. It seemed to settle so fast it looks like a loss of power or who knows? I don't know why, but it seems that about half the time I see someone do something stupid, they climb out of a Bonanza. That's not the airplane's fault, but I guess it has a tendency to draw stupid people.

So,
Flaps are not used to shorten the take off distance on a Bonanza?

a64pilot wrote:So,
Flaps are not used to shorten the take off distance on a Bonanza?

Apparently he was able to get into ground effect easily enough without them. I suppose takeoff flaps could have allowed him to break ground a little quicker, but that climbout prob would not have gone any better.

It is really painful though to watch him mushing along in slow flight, tail waddling back and forth.

The crash didn't see that bad, given they didn't have far to fall out of the sky. I am surprised there were fatalities as the airframe seems to be in decent condition. Usually the front passengers are the worst off, but if what John says is true, the rear seat got it.

I don't know Zane, but everything I've ever flown will get off sooner and climb a little better with a little flap. I'm thinking that he MIGHT have made it with the gear up and a little flap. I'm arm chair quarterbacking here and I admit it.

I don't think flaps matter as much on those wings but I'd have to agree with A64 that a bit of flap would have to help. Along with gear up IN ground effect and keeping the nose down to allow the airplane to accelerate IN ground effect. Then possibly rolling the flaps down a bit more to balloon up over the obstacles with a little back pressure when you get that far. Not something you want to do alot but it's saved me more than once while spraying off of short strips.
Of course common sense, proper prior planning, maybe even use of the manual for W&B and performance charts would all avoid the sucking up of the seat cushion into said buttocks (or even death) at the departure end.
That Bonanza Man dude that comes around here does as sporty of operations with that type of aircraft I've seen and seems to be good at it. I bet he'll have some insight for us as we armchair this one.

The impact that nosed it over was a very LARGE boulder that got pushed about 10 ft

4 souls on board w/luggage. Full fuel. About 4k ft DA tailwind up hill take off headed to Mexico for the Labor Day weekend.

That sums up the problem right there...

Taking off up hill with a tailwind is bad enough without all the added weight or the density altitude. Was there a good reason (obstacles) for taking off up hill with a tailwind?

Armchair pass: why not gain airspeed (ground roll) without flaps, drop the first notch at stall speed and pull her off the ground into ground effect. Retract the gear in ground effect to gain airspeed and climb over the obstacles before retracting the flaps.

Rumor around the office is that there was 120 gallons of fuel on board. None of the passengers was what you'd call tiny, and luggage items included 5 gallon cans of gas and a large cooler packed with ice and soda. It was around 100 degrees and there was a wind out of the south. Cameron Park is 4000 feet long...usually enough runway for a Bonanza to get going in. I wouldn't be surprised if they were 400 pounds over gross. At least they didn't slam into any of the houses they were heading for.

The reason that the news crew was on scene to film this crash is becouse there was another aircraft that crashed earlier that day at the same field. I think it was a Kitfox. They were still around getting footage for the story when the Bonanza tried to takeoff.

lowflybye wrote:Armchair pass: why not gain airspeed (ground roll) without flaps, drop the first notch at stall speed and pull her off the ground into ground effect. Retract the gear in ground effect to gain airspeed and climb over the obstacles before retracting the flaps.

I don't think he had enough experience for that, or we wouldn't have any thing to talk about.
How many cans of gas do you have to have in back to get 120 gls. in a Bonanza? With the flint tanks, I get 120 in the 210, but I always thought the Bonanza didn't carry much.

I used to fly a Muskateer and always used one notch flaps on takoff. Not sure if the wings are the same as Bonanza.

Been in and out of Cameron Airpark on several occations. As I recall, when taking off to the south, you have big hill in front of you and I think that was the dounhill runway. They used to carry 80 octane.

Tim

lowflyin'G3 wrote:I don't think flaps matter as much on those wings but I'd have to agree with A64 that a bit of flap would have to help. Along with gear up IN ground effect and keeping the nose down to allow the airplane to accelerate IN ground effect. Then possibly rolling the flaps down a bit more to balloon up over the obstacles with a little back pressure when you get that far. Not something you want to do alot but it's saved me more than once while spraying off of short strips.
Of course common sense, proper prior planning, maybe even use of the manual for W&B and performance charts would all avoid the sucking up of the seat cushion into said buttocks (or even death) at the departure end.
That Bonanza Man dude that comes around here does as sporty of operations with that type of aircraft I've seen and seems to be good at it. I bet he'll have some insight for us as we armchair this one.

Flaps in a Bonanza are for clearing a close in obstacle, all planes really. Flaps will get you in the air 20% sooner in a Bo but then what? A standard takeoff like the one in the crash, the normal procedure is no flaps. To give an example of the difference from a Bonanza book here are the numbers. A 2800 pound F33 at 5000 DA, 32 degrees, no wind. With flaps you takeoff in 876 feet and are thru 50 feet in 1200 feet. Without flaps you takeoff in 944 feet and are thru 50 feet in 1600 feet but are climbing a lot better, 1150 fpm vs 750 fpm. You will pass thru the altitude of the flap bird at 3400 feet from the start of the takeoff roll at which point you are both 320 feet in the air. So if you have a close in obstacle use flaps but say you are taking off from a typical mountain strip with a 3200 foot runway like Schafer Meadows. Flaps will get you in the air sooner but no flaps will have you higher sooner over the trees and climbing at a 50% greater rate. I would imagine every plane has similar numbers but I never saw them for my 182, don't know if anybody ever developed them and published it for others. That guy should have put his gear up as the 28 volt birds have a 4 second gear time, my 12 volt bird is an 8-12 second retract time. You get significantly more drag when the inner doors are open but with his 28 volt system it is practically trivial. My guess is either he was way overweight or didn't have the prop rpm all the way in. For the conditions that day, that plane at gross should be in the air in under 1500 feet, no flaps. He had plenty of runway with even a 10 knot tailwind, I've heard elsewhere it was about 5 kts. I can see taking off downhill with a tailwind but upwind? That wasn't too smart.

As to the gas question, the accident aircraft was an A-36 Bonanza. They carry more gas than a 33 or 35, and have more horsepower.

He flew the airplane off the ground, then horsed it up out of ground effect, and didn't retract the gear. That, combined with everything else, was obviously not good.

These airplanes are sensitive to CG as well, so you'd want to see what the CG was.

MTV

a64pilot wrote: How many cans of gas do you have to have in back to get 120 gls. in a Bonanza? With the flint tanks, I get 120 in the 210, but I always thought the Bonanza didn't carry much.

Standard Bonanza gas is 84 gallons, been that way since the early 60's, that's what I have, they typical 40 gallon bladder holds 42 gallons. The lawyers make us say 74 1/2 usable but in reality nearly every drop is available. There are several different manufacturers of tips available. Beryl D Shannon offers 30 gallon tips and a gross weight increase increase to boot, which doesn't have to be in fuel. Osborne offers 20 gallon tip as well as a gross weight increase. Several companies also offer baggage compartment tanks, not sure of the size but I would guess 20 gallons. These are more popular on the older 50's models. So it's possible to be flying around with about 135 gallons onboard.

mtv wrote:As to the gas question, the accident aircraft was an A-36 Bonanza. They carry more gas than a 33 or 35, and have more horsepower.

He flew the airplane off the ground, then horsed it up out of ground effect, and didn't retract the gear. That, combined with everything else, was obviously not good.

These airplanes are sensitive to CG as well, so you'd want to see what the CG was.

MTV

All models of the Bonanza from the early 60's to the present day carry the same amount of fuel in the extended tanks as well as the standard tanks. The accident aircraft had the 550 so had at least 300 HP for takeoff vs a little less than 285 for the 520's. CG is a non issue in A36's any more than any other plane because of the fuselage stretch. I could see a CG issue with a 66 or newer V tail but not an A36 if you're at or less than gross weight.

Just to clarify there was only one Bo model, the B36TC, of which hardly any were made that had a different fuel capacity, 108 gallons.