More than just comfortably above the obstacle is an unnecessarily steep climb. With 17,000 hours below 200' AGL and 11 engine failures there, I am still alive because I always had cruise airspeed for maneuvering or was already zooming up. Always from low ground effect, either over the runway or crop row, I entered maneuvering flight at cruise airspeed with or without engine thrust.

So many fall from too low to recover from stall, most with the engine running well. A really good pilot did so recently with a turboprop on a light airplane. Demonstration of how steeply a STOL airplane will engine climb, not zoom climb, is fine above 1,000' AGL. Demonstration of how a STOL airplane will almost hover out of ground effect is fine above 1,000' AGL. With a really capable airplane in a pilot's choice situation, it need not be life or death. Most trainer airplanes are actually STOL capable when flown using good STOL techniques, but luckily they are not capable of extended dangerous pitch attitude engine climb. Even more fatalities would occur from falls from higher up but not high enough to recover.

Few crop dusters or gunship pilots die that way because the climb up is a high airspeed zoom climb and there is a planned, steeply banked, return to target with the wing unloaded. There is neither load factor nor stall at 1g. Stall can only happen if the pilot is pulling back on the stick. The critical angle of attack is when stall happens, not what causes stall. Utilizing the law of the roller coaster, really aggressive maneuvering flight can be safely flown, demonstrated, or just enjoyed.

The difficult sell is convincing pilots to fly reasonably fast when out of ground effect but too low to recover from stall. We should enter maneuvering flight as fast as possible. The air police will not arrest us for staying in low ground effect until cruise. I have taken off that way about 8,500 times. Money in the bank doesn't start until 1,000' AGL. Don't spend all the money in your pocket trying to get to the bank hurriedly. In maneuvering flight we need to be quick, but not hurried. Slowing, on the other hand, decelerating on short final going into ground effect is fine.

An excellent example of what I'm trying to teach here was demonstrated by Dan Gryder last week. He was making a low pass over a STOL strip they had just set up. He was with the owner in his C-150 and had approached with full flaps. On the go around, the flaps were stuck down. Dan refused to pull up on the yoke and stall. Rather, he traded the potential energy of his 100' altitude for needed extra airspeed in his turn away from obstructions and to line up with the tall corn rows where he closed the throttle and landed. As any crop duster knows, tall corn inverts all who enter (with little damage.) Dan didn't have cruise airspeed, but he had some margin above Vso. Rather than insist on maintaining the 100' altitude, he traded that altitude for extra airspeed to turn without stalling (90 degrees heading change not 180.) Good energy management Dan.

Like many things in aviation, the late go around is not taught but rather the pilot who is encouraged by the system to go around is criticized for late go around rather than taught how to either just land or find a hole in ground effect on the late go around. There are many better places to crash on the airport than in the surrounding area after a fall from a stall. And the (on the airport) crash can be flown all the way to the crash. How many instructors teach rudder turns in ground effect? Think about all those open areas on most airports between runways and beside runways. This whole "altitude, altitude, altitude" paradigm doesn't help around the airport where we cannot get enough altitude before stall to recover from stall. Altitude, 1'000' around the airport, is an attractive nuisance. When the pattern was 600', even for Ozark Airlines DC-3s, pilots knew that altitude was an attractive nuisance around the airport.

Why is the school solution in so many mess ups, "well you messed up so now you have to die?"

How many instructors teach pushing over into ground effect on a late go around and zoom jump over the problem? This very technique is taught Ag students for jumping pivots without zooming too high. From cruise airspeed in low ground effect we reduce power and zoom over. When over the pivot, we push the throttle all the way forward and reenter the field as we would starting the spray run. Yes, the float in a carburetor will shut off the fuel when we go negative in the push back into the field. As soon as we pull back on the stick to return to our row, the g load will bring the float back down and the engine will start again. Oh, on the zoom over a deer on the runway, keep the power in unless you are going to land beyond.

The old PIC idea of keep flying and maneuver to miss the expensive stuff has been replaced by, "you should have gone around earlier." I should have gone around earlier is saying the same as, "we're gonna die." Teaching making the decision to go around earlier helps. Failing to teach what to do when we have not made the decision to go around early enough doesn't help. Leaders are responsible for everything that happens and everything that fails to happen in their area of influence. Blaming the student is not helpful.

Contact asked "How many instructors teach rudder turns in ground effect?" and
"How many instructors teach pushing over into ground effect on a late go around and zoom jump over the problem?"

I'd venture to say that MOST of the "instructors" out there today are the product of "puppy mills" and are instructing solely to get the time needed for airline employment. They've NEVER done either of the above, so how could they possibly teach those things?

This is why I try to find old school tailwheel CFIs to fly with me... Those guys (and gals) at least know where the rudder pedals are located, and how to use them. But these days, they are few and far between. My "guy" is late 70s, and he's starting to have a REAL hard time getting insurance, despite being a far better pilot that I'll ever be. I tried to add him to my insurance as a named insured, and no insurer would do it... Sigh.

The paperwork is involved in flight instruction, not teaching. We old teachers don't even need to be (illegally) the sole manipulator of the controls. When this damned virus is defeated with (I can't say what will save your life and that of others around you because that would be political,) I will be available again to teach on site. Have voice will travel.

Perhaps this is a case in point of an unnecessary steep climb?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvODKP32Vq4

Obviously armchair quarterbacking but that looks like a control malfunction. Or, less likely seat malfunction.

That's what we do here, look at videos and try to figure out what lessons to learn for ourselves. Every one of us, even with over 10,000 hrs in this style of aviation, still has lots they can learn.

I looked at this video the other day, and the easy reflex answer is control malfunction. But which control? Pitch seemed to be in good control on the ground roll, the liftoff, the initial climb, same with roll, same with yaw. Left wing dropped while still climbing. Not stalled but not enough lift to counter that turbine engine torque? It was a B model with the higher 400hp turbine. Wish I had the original high-definition video to be able to see control surface deflection.

Anyway, doesn't distract from the original caution on unnecessary steep climb. As my old ACAS examiner once told me: never rely on power to get yourself out of a situation.

Here's another video (no crash) of the same airplane type doing an unnecessarily steep departure.
https://youtu.be/zWs2eNYLqOk

Karmutzen wrote:That's what we do here, look at videos and try to figure out what lessons to learn for ourselves. Every one of us, even with over 10,000 hrs in this style of aviation, still has lots they can learn.

I looked at this video the other day, and the easy reflex answer is control malfunction. But which control? Pitch seemed to be in good control on the ground roll, the liftoff, the initial climb, same with roll, same with yaw. Left wing dropped while still climbing. Not stalled but not enough lift to counter that turbine engine torque? It was a B model with the higher 400hp turbine. Wish I had the original high-definition video to be able to see control surface deflection.

Anyway, doesn't distract from the original caution on unnecessary steep climb. As my old ACAS examiner once told me: never rely on power to get yourself out of a situation.

Here's another video (no crash) of the same airplane type doing an unnecessarily steep departure.
https://youtu.be/zWs2eNYLqOk

Look at ALL the control surfaces using the stop action in that video. No deflections at all. A VERY experienced aerobatic pilot makes no control inputs in an obvious upset?

Controls had to have been blocked, somehow or other.

MTV

Part of the problem with these really powerful airplanes, I think Mike, is that unnecessarily steep climb is considered normal rather than abnormal. If he had neither initiated nor desired the initial high pitch attitude, he would have pushed the stick forward immediately. That failing because of jammed elevator control, he might have closed the prop pitch control (think throttle) at a low and survivable altitude.

For normally powered airplane pilots, unnecessarily steep climb in these powerful airplanes is an attractive nuisance.

contactflying wrote:Part of the problem with these really powerful airplanes, I think Mike, is that unnecessarily steep climb is considered normal rather than abnormal. If he had neither initiated nor desired the initial high pitch attitude, he would have pushed the stick forward immediately. That failing because of jammed elevator control, he might have closed the prop pitch control (think throttle) at a low and survivable altitude.

For normally powered airplane pilots, unnecessarily steep climb in these powerful airplanes is an attractive nuisance.

I agree. What I’m suggesting is that pitch up MAY not have been intentional.

MTV

Very hard to watch, I don’t need to do that twice. My sympathies to those he left behind. It’s all speculation at this point.

As Juan Browne suggests it looked to me like a jammed control surface or run away trim (two almost full width trim tabs on that model). If the control lock works like an L19 I don’t see how he could have taxied and not seen it on. Brakes should have been on and all surfaces locked. It do not look to me like the tail ever came up on the runway. Some up trim and a broken down elevator cable?

Sobering that it could happen too such a hugely experienced pilot.

daedaluscan wrote:Very hard to watch, I don’t need to do that twice. My sympathies to those he left behind. It’s all speculation at this point.

As Juan Browne suggests it looked to me like a jammed control surface or run away trim (two almost full width trim tabs on that model). If the control lock works like an L19 I don’t see how he could have taxied and not seen it on. Brakes should have been on and all surfaces locked. It do not look to me like the tail ever came up on the runway. Some up trim and a broken down elevator cable?

Sobering that it could happen too such a hugely experienced pilot.

Those were my thoughts as well. I don't know how the control locks work in a Marchetti, but these are all fairly old, and probably many modified in one way or another. I doubt the controls were locked, but may have been blocked, or as you say, broken cable, or???

I suspect as high profile an incident and individual, the NTSB will look pretty carefully at this one. I hope so, anyway.

Tough deal,

MTV

MTV, is there a reason it takes the NTSB, or FAA if handed down, two years to complete an investigation? Is there some burn with general aviation? It seemed very circumstantial that a single pilot single airplane Air Taxi Certificate paperwork was finished for me while I was doing the check ride in 1980, yet a new one for fire watch took a minimum of six months after President Reagan fired 11,000 controllers. Is a similar work slowdown in place?

To answer my own question, I think it goes back to what David Soucie (with 17 years as an FAA accident investigator) said about the NTSB and FAA in his book, "Why Airplanes Crash." He said that the first objective was to make the FAA look good. Two years looks like a thorough investigation that justifies a large budget. With the video evidence we have so often these days, I think speculation on the part of all of us is a useful and timely way to do the same as what happens on the maintenance side with service bulletins and airworthiness directives. Even if we don't agree with Jaun Browne's data and DTSB's "Probable Cause", we have to applaud somebody searching the records enough to alert us to a great number of takeoff and go around stall fatalities in just a few months (recently is timely) say. That is the sort of thing that "the administrator" should be concerned about with the old Army admonition, "I take responsibility for everything that happens and everything that fails to happen in my unit." Otherwise he is just being administrator and not doing administrative stuff. For the rest of us troops, we need to look about us. "Ours not the reason why, ours but to do and die" fine, but we can cheat and use the +5 knots on the ACS Vx and Vy pitch attitude and maybe even pre-event push the damn nose down should the outcome of the maneuver come even slightly into doubt. And with a PPL, we can use the licence to actually learn the art of flying. Part of that means dumping the make the FAA look good side of concurrent training (Flight Review) and teach flying. That might even include safe maneuvering flight techniques for the dangerous departure phase and the dangerous arrival phase of every flight.

Be wary of "halo" effect. The thought that pilot "x" couldn't have made a mistake because of his reputation in some unrelated aspect of flying. My hangar neighbour has an RV6 and just gave up trying to teach his ex-fighter pilot/airline-pilot friend how to land it after half a dozen flights. We're all looking at the same video, some see control blockage, I don't.

Here's more fodder for contactflying's discussion.
https://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports- ... 9q0088.pdf

contactflying wrote:To answer my own question, I think it goes back to what David Soucie (with 17 years as an FAA accident investigator) said about the NTSB and FAA in his book, "Why Airplanes Crash." He said that the first objective was to make the FAA look good. Two years looks like a thorough investigation that justifies a large budget. With the video evidence we have so often these days, I think speculation on the part of all of us is a useful and timely way to do the same as what happens on the maintenance side with service bulletins and airworthiness directives. Even if we don't agree with Jaun Browne's data and DTSB's "Probable Cause", we have to applaud somebody searching the records enough to alert us to a great number of takeoff and go around stall fatalities in just a few months (recently is timely) say. That is the sort of thing that "the administrator" should be concerned about with the old Army admonition, "I take responsibility for everything that happens and everything that fails to happen in my unit." Otherwise he is just being administrator and not doing administrative stuff. For the rest of us troops, we need to look about us. "Ours not the reason why, ours but to do and die" fine, but we can cheat and use the +5 knots on the ACS Vx and Vy pitch attitude and maybe even pre-event push the damn nose down should the outcome of the maneuver come even slightly into doubt. And with a PPL, we can use the licence to actually learn the art of flying. Part of that means dumping the make the FAA look good side of concurrent training (Flight Review) and teach flying. That might even include safe maneuvering flight techniques for the dangerous departure phase and the dangerous arrival phase of every flight.

Hardly even vaguely true. For one thing, the NTSB frequently is highly critical of the FAA in its investigations.

Secondly, one reason a THOROUGH investigation takes so long is the amount of data as a result of testing that has to be accumulated and assessed.

But, frankly, the NTSB could generally care less about general aviation accidents. Which is why they defer a lot of them to the FAA. And the FAA doesnt have the resources or experts to do the job properly.

In its defense, we should remember that the NTSB, unlike the FAA, is NOT an aviation organization. They have a lot of irons in various fires.

I’ve been closely involved with two GA accidents, both “investigated” by the NTSB, both of which virtually any pilot who viewed the crash sites would have said the NTSB conclusion was dead wrong. I felt the NTSB just didn’t figure a proper investigation would make any difference.

But, they definitely got those wrong. Both conclusions were appealed. No changes.

MTV

Karmutzen,

Could the Pitts instructor actually have not understood that the fatal takeoff climb and left turn was an engine climb at 67 knots and not a zoom climb trading max cruise airspeed + the additional energy of low ground effect down the runway centerline as with the previous low ground effect passes and climb and turn back to enter pattern at 1,000'? If so this is the sort of probable cause that should concern the administrator and flight training providers and all instructors.

Three separate forms of energy are in play with the zoom reserve airspeed climb that occured on the low passes on arrival at the airfield: gravity, engine thrust, and ground effect. The airspeed could have been near Vne. The dangerous inefficiency of the takeoff without acceleration in ground effect until cruise airspeed is the lack of airspeed. Gravity was no help and ground effect (he pulled up too early) was little help. I don't know how fast his Pitts was, but 134 knots is twice the zoom reserve of 67 knots.

I'm not suggesting that flight schools teach all to spray, but perhaps they should have some ground school on the energy management involved. Actually a number of iterations of the race track pattern, using good wind management (crosswind downwind to arrive at base upwind), and full use of every available foot of runway in low ground effect for successive passes would be a good drill.

MTV,

If the NTSB would just release the data they have, along with the video data now often available, could we not learn probable cause and chains link failure and do something on our own to reduce fatalities? This stuff should not be classified. It's not a criminal investigation. Working together rather than getting his number, we might duplicate the "lessons learned in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan" concept the Army uses. As leaders in combat, we were expected to do what Dan calls Advanced Qualification Training. That is to make changes to training and technique if things are not going well. In wars where we have no intention of winning, it is useful to figure out how to stay alive.

contact

In a recent Dan Gryder video, he shows a video of a STOL airplane crash in the ArkanSTOL contest at Bird's Adventure Center. Evidently it is a race. The objective is to takeoff, turn back, and land the other way in the least amount of time. Anyway the airplane took off from a strip and stalled in the turn back to land. There was no attempt to make a crop duster like P turn or teardrop turn (actually a shallow energy management turn downwind to set up the steeper energy management upwind return to target turn. He just took off and when over the trees immediately cranked it around to return.

Anyway they have lost three airplanes already this year and I agree with Dan that the unnecessarily steep climbs in STOL contests put STOL pilots in danger of a fatal should they stall or the engine quits or both. Having made their takeoff distance in normal STOL competition, there is no need to pitch up more than to just clear obstacles.

On a site covering the event and problems, I offered my Dad's observation, "When boys are having fun look around, something is going to happen. Until I saw Dan's video and heard his probable causes of their problems, I just assumed it was a normal STOL contest. I didn't know they were doing a crop duster type operation in terrain where I would probably race track rather than attempt back and forth. And that without helmets and Ag training, or at least energy management turn training.

Dan says we are not inventing ways to crash airplanes, we are just doing the same thing over and over. In this case I disagree. This race to get back and land is a new way to crash airplanes. Yes, we have been crop dusting for many years. This contest is not crop dusting. It is trying to crash airplanes. It is engine only climbing and turning using no energy management to make the turn 1g.

Armchair quarterbacking the cause is OK for learning, but probably tough to yield much meaningful as to the REAL cause as the variables are endless, I myself can think of at least a dozen things that could simulate such a situation.

Armchairing technique, (without attacking the deceased) carries much value, as much of that is plain to see. I have suffered on runaway trim in a spray plane, upon rounding on the decent in to the field, (story for another time) and one deficit that I can see that would have saved this pilots life is failing to fly as Contact has been preaching. Dynamic,proactive....

Always, move things. Everything. If you don't like what's happening, move them some more, if you still don't like it move them the other way. These are not high power helicopters. There is a fair amount of time to get a steep climb perpetuated. Had the pilot simply closed the throttle, or feathered the prop the instant he recognized the runaway, he would have wrecked flat instead of in a spin entry. Embarrassing? you bet. Surviveable, infinitely more so than what happened here.

More speculation on my part;
What probably contributed to this situation was
A) the pilot's background to accept steep departures (would have led him deeper in to the crash sequence before looking for a way out), and
B) the pilot's background again, which would have led to a 'set take off parameters' mentality.

I by no means am being critical of the pilot or mean disrespect. It is what I see when I view the video, which is another way for me to learn or remind myself of things I find important in my flying.

Learn settings for school... listen to the wing to stay alive.

Take care, Rob