courierguy wrote:Hey glidergeek:we had a Stemme motor glider go down this summer outside of Copper Basin, flown by a 77 year old Bay Area pilot
who was in town, along with 4 of his buddies and their Stemmes, all of a similarly advanced age. The deceased pilot had flown this bird to Alaska, and to the tip of South America, so one could assume he had his act together. Talking to the Arco airport manager they all sounded like a real group of older badasses having one hell of a good time in the Idaho mountains, they could have been in nursing homes..... BUT I bet the last he was thinking was NOT "at least I'm doing what I like", or words to that effect. I missed meeting these guys by a day, I saw the birds, 5 in a row is a pretty awesome sight, but they were in town, the next day he went down.

As a previous Stemme S10-VT owner, I've flown with and/or know all the pilots in that group . . . including the late Thierry Thys. I'm 64 years young and a hellofa long way from a nursing home (I ride my road bicycle 80 - 100 miles a week when there's no snow :c). Nor would I characterize them as badasses. Save for one other, the rest of those pilots were younger than Thierry, more like my age.

Thierry had a previous accident in January of this year in his Wilga in Oakland, CA. He walked away from that one. Thierry was a gifted man. Do a Google search for a lot more info.

bumper wrote:

courierguy wrote:Hey glidergeek:we had a Stemme motor glider go down this summer outside of Copper Basin, flown by a 77 year old Bay Area pilot
who was in town, along with 4 of his buddies and their Stemmes, all of a similarly advanced age. The deceased pilot had flown this bird to Alaska, and to the tip of South America, so one could assume he had his act together. Talking to the Arco airport manager they all sounded like a real group of older badasses having one hell of a good time in the Idaho mountains, they could have been in nursing homes..... BUT I bet the last he was thinking was NOT "at least I'm doing what I like", or words to that effect. I missed meeting these guys by a day, I saw the birds, 5 in a row is a pretty awesome sight, but they were in town, the next day he went down.

As a previous Stemme S10-VT owner, I've flown with and/or know all the pilots in that group . . . including the late Thierry Thys. I'm 64 years young and a hellofa long way from a nursing home (I ride my road bicycle 80 - 100 miles a week when there's no snow :c). Nor would I characterize them as badasses. Save for one other, the rest of those pilots were younger than Thierry, more like my age.

Thierry had a previous accident in January of this year in his Wilga in Oakland, CA. He walked away from that one. Thierry was a gifted man. Do a Google search for a lot more info.

Here's the NTSB report on Thierry accident this last January:

http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20090103X05930&ntsbno=WPR09LA071&akey=1

I'm glad he walked away from the accident, but sheesh, I can't believe someone would take off with little to no fuel in there plane. Even for a short flight. I don't know about the rest of you all, but I never trust my fuel gauges. It's worth the extra minute or two to dip the tanks to see exactly how much fuel I got on board before most all my flights.

Thanks for the clarification Bumper, I had just enough details to get it mostly wrong, I remember the airport manager commenting on someones age and took it to mean all of them. Hey I'm 60 and will be getting the snowboards out in a couple weeks when my runway gets snowed in for the winter, so I'm with ya on that agism thing. I had just flown pretty near that area (the crash site) a few weeks before, about as rugged as it gets. I do remember that line of Stemmes (4 or 5 of them) at the little Arco airport was a real sight, and not meeting any of the pilots I probably made up a scenario in my head, and I liked the thought of these older pilots (wrong there) having a real flying adventure up in my neck of the woods, when many of their contempories would consider themselves "too old". I was saddened to hear about the crash the next day for sure.

I saw this guy at the ski hill yesterday that was 80 if he was a day. After my first day of the season on wednesday, my legs have been toast-- walking down stairs sideways toast. I was walking behind this old fella, and our hobbling gates were very similar. I thought "what am I going to be like at 80 years old?" Everyone is different. Some 90 year olds are sharper and quicker witted than a 35 year old, some can't remember what year it is.

1SeventyZ wrote:I saw this guy at the ski hill yesterday that was 80 if he was a day. After my first day of the season on wednesday, my legs have been toast-- walking down stairs sideways toast. I was walking behind this old fella, and our hobbling gates were very similar. I thought "what am I going to be like at 80 years old?" Everyone is different. Some 90 year olds are sharper and quicker witted than a 35 year old, some can't remember what year it is.

Bret Hart is 94 years young and out running and out working most 40 year olds -He has a 1957 182 at Whiteman (WHP) and works on other peoples airplanes to have something to do. Best A&P /I.A. in the San Fernando Valley --- Know him well from when we lived a few blocks apart and he would walk or ride his bike around the neighborhood every day.World War II pilot ,TWA 38 years driving the big iron until he retired . Bret Hart my friend who was the first to fly my airplane after I put it back together ---- EAGLE ! This Tread was started about another friend of mine -- Mr. Sparky Imeson Great Pilot

Blue Skies and Tailwinds is written in my Mt. Flying Bible Signed Sparky Imeson when I was in hospital getting my knee replaced

God Speed Sparky

182 STOL driver wrote:Bret Hart is 94 and out running and out working most 40 year olds -

Best A&P /I.A. in the San Fernando Valley ---

There is a very over-used expression in aviation, "he's forgotten more about airplanes than you'll ever know". Not many people can live up to that expression, but Bret Hart is one of those people. He is genuinely one of the most knowledgable, experienced, and gifted people in aviation. It is an honor to know him. True to that saying, I've learned more from just hanging around him over the last few years than you could learn in a semester of full time aviation college!