Details are sketchy but I know it was Blake Chapman who flew out of Driggs Idaho that crashed (died.) The story I got was there were two Huskies coming back from sun and fun, one made it through the pass and one didn't. The one Blake flew down to Florida got ruined by a tornado and he was flying a different one back for the owner. Evidently it was near I 80 mile post 327. Blake was a good guy who loved to fly, I have the 182 he flew for many years. RIP Blake.

I just heard the news too... RIP Blake......

this is the plane I think... http://www.alpineaviation.net/Husky_A1C ... n39wy.html

Wow thats close to home for me, about 30 miles away. Is there any more details yet on what happened?

Brutal weather the last few days hereabouts..........

There was some snow and poor visibility around here today, I wonder if that was a factor?

From the info that was trickling in, it sounded like a scud run gone bad. Smashed down by the ceiling into mountain turbulance. I've been around when Blake dead sticked a Husky into Driggs from Targhee and heard of some of his other exploits, he was a pretty cool cucumber. It must have been awful if he couldn't land on the interstate. I'm pretty sure the other guy in the lead was a former Aviat test pilot.

An Old Blake Story:
.....The Safari splits up into different groups for the flying so there won't be too many planes trying to crowd into the same airspace or landing sites. Our little group consists of Harrison Ford in his De Havilland Beaver, Harrison's chief pilot Terry Bender in Ford's Husky, a couple named Hap and Cecelia Perry in another Husky, and Blake Chapman, a crusty rancher and Husky pilot from Wilson, Wyoming who, if one believes the tales, has apparently crashed more airplanes than Jupiter has moons. Blake also achieved a particular kind of notoriety in this group a couple of years ago when a collection of late-night revelers, including Harrison Ford, decided to harass Blake with wolf howls outside his tent. The prank lasted until the group heard the distinctive "Che-CHUNK" of a shotgun round being chambered inside the tent.

Game, set, and match, Blake Chapman.

Here's a news story, albeit a poor one, the picture is probably accurate:
http://www.laramieboomerang.com/articles/2011/04/07/news/doc4d9d3ed16f148951580192.txt

Oh, MAN--that is TERRIBLE news. Blake Chapman was one of my favorite people in aviation. What a terrible loss for us all. God bless, and blue skies, Blake.

MTV

So sorry to hear this. Sounds like he led a full and interesting life.

From the picture, it looks more like one of their Huskies, not a 180.

ASW.

Very sad, probably spacial disorientation or a medical problem. I never met Blake. Sounds like a heck of a guy. RIP

From the article (and yes, it's a Husky, not a 180), it sounds like he was flying with another Husky, and if the article is accurate, that would probably be Mark Heiner. Sounds like there was some communication between them, so maybe they'll actually figure this one out.

Dancing with weather in the mountains can be hazardous to your health, in any case.

MTV

What MTV said.

And, right now, I'm looking out the window and can't even see the birdfeeder, totally crap weather for the last several days, and I don't imagine it was any better Laramie way.... getthereitis strikes again. Being in a group may lead to pushing on when one may turn back if solo, a false sense of strength in numbers. As does flying into Oshkosh, Sun and Fun, or J.C. for that matter. I've seen people fly when otherwise they would never consider it, due to pressure to get to a fly-in. I had time to ponder that at Smiley Creek last year, waiting for the fog to lift so I didn't have to fly to JC over a solid deck (clear on top) and hope it was open once there. Here it is 2011, and the same thing killing aviators in 1911, continued flying into shit weather, still happens. Don't mean to guess as to cause, a bad deal all around no matter what.

I don't know Blake or his family, but I have family in the Jackson/Wilson area. My sincerest sympathies to his family and friends.

On the one hand, people may take comfort from an aviator dying in pursuit of his favorite passtime.

But it's really distressing to see so many of our most experienced and knowledgable pilots cracking up in the mountains. The NTSB may well figure out what happened yesterday, and until then there's no point in speculating on the cause of this accident. If it turns out it was indeed a case of simply flying into bad weather (or hitting downdrafts in the mountains like Steve Fossett and/or Sparky Imeson did), then why don't our best mountain pilots avoid these kinds of accidents, given their superior knowledge of what it takes to fly safely there?

It makes me wonder, what will it take for me to make a really bad decision someday on something for which I really should know better? How do I prevent myself from making that bad decision under similar circumstances, if much better pilots than me don't?

Warning................ If you have thin skin don't read this......

I agree, let the investigation move toward a logical conclusion as the NTSB is VERY good at what they do.... But.

Lets also not lump Blake into the same catagory as Steve Fossett or Sparky. Blake was an outstanding pilot who knew his limits and tried his best to adhere to them. Steve Fossett was known as the master in soaring and still positioned himself in a place where he had to have known mountain updrafts and downdrafts would exist and those winds dealt him his final flight......http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentRe ... 120000.pdf

Sparky wrote several books on mountain flying and proceeded to ignore one of his most important talking points, " give yourself plenty of altitude and space between you and the terrain". That alone removed him from our presence. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id= ... 154&rpt=fa

Blake was just a guy who loved to fly and did it as often as he could. It would be very interesting to see the actual number of gliders he safely towed into the sky to give others the feeling of flight. At all the Young Eagles events I attended at Driggs he was always entertaining and had the utmost respect for anything aviation related. This accident just goes to show gravity does not discriminate and because of that we lost a very good pilot, friend and great story teller.... Godspeed Blake.....

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.....

Ben Haas.
Jackson Wy.

I heard today that the last radio transmission was "I'm stalling." Kinda looks like it hit on it's side in a stall. I also noticed it was carburated......the article mentioning engine trouble could have meant something or it could have assumed that's what a stall was. NTSB is pretty good I think, maybe they'll come up with a conclusion the rest of us can learn from. The weather is looking good for a pilot's funeral, it usually is.

Question: If he rimed it, would the vg's have made it worse? I'm assuming not or they wouldn't be there but looking at them......why wouldn't they gather ice?

Nosedragger wrote:I heard today that the last radio transmission was "I'm stalling." Kinda looks like it hit on it's side in a stall. I also noticed it was carburated......the article mentioning engine trouble could have meant something or it could have assumed that's what a stall was. NTSB is pretty good I think, maybe they'll come up with a conclusion the rest of us can learn from. The weather is looking good for a pilot's funeral, it usually is.

Actually, unless the aircraft is a part 121 carrier and there is major media coverage, I don't believe much of anything the NTSB comes up with. I've "investigated" two general aviation accidents with family members of the deceased, and we found stuff that the NTSB missed, that was critical. After submitting this evidence to the NTSB, they ignored it, and came to completely erroneous conclusions. In both cases, the pilots were likely at fault, but not for the reasons the NTSB gave. In one of those cases, there were skid marks for a quarter mile down the mountain, leading to an upside down float plane, and the NTSB report called it a "loss of control, resulting in a stall/spin"....

So, I don't believe much of anything the NTSB publishes on GA accidents.

MTV

mtv wrote:

Nosedragger wrote:I heard today that the last radio transmission was "I'm stalling." Kinda looks like it hit on it's side in a stall. I also noticed it was carburated......the article mentioning engine trouble could have meant something or it could have assumed that's what a stall was. NTSB is pretty good I think, maybe they'll come up with a conclusion the rest of us can learn from. The weather is looking good for a pilot's funeral, it usually is.

Actually, unless the aircraft is a part 121 carrier and there is major media coverage, I don't believe much of anything the NTSB comes up with. I've "investigated" two general aviation accidents with family members of the deceased, and we found stuff that the NTSB missed, that was critical. After submitting this evidence to the NTSB, they ignored it, and came to completely erroneous conclusions. In both cases, the pilots were likely at fault, but not for the reasons the NTSB gave. In one of those cases, there were skid marks for a quarter mile down the mountain, leading to an upside down float plane, and the NTSB report called it a "loss of control, resulting in a stall/spin"....

So, I don't believe much of anything the NTSB publishes on GA accidents.

MTV

That's good to know, I'm going to copy that last sentence and staple it to the cover sheet on my life insurance policy.

NTSB preliminary report indicates that weather was not bad and that witnesses say that Chapman's plane appeared to wobble back and forth before nosediving to the ground:

http://www.laramieboomerang.com/article ... 423911.txt

While the NTSB investigates, the media has discovered the cause of the accident... No flight plan was filed.

Good one Cowboy !!!!