I was introduced to this guy via a guy in our EAA chapter. I flew over to Lincoln twice to hang out with him. He took me up in his 182 for a while one day and I can vouch he was a compentent pilot with many hours in his 182. He got this Rans wrecked and had rebuilt the entire thing. He had been flying it for about a year or so. It was powered by a 582 Rotax same as what is in my plane. Witnesses say it stalled and went straight in from about 500ft but please no speculation until the facts come out. They have not yet released the names and I have not yet confirmed with anyone that my buddy was on board but at this point we can only assume that he was. More to come once I hear some details. Condolences to the family.

http://www.kcra.com/news/23900389/detail.html

I just found this link. Watch the video and check out the yellow thing on the tail. I'm really curious what that is. It looks like it was something that was on there with some slipstream not something that just tossed over the tail after it was down. I know he had a Ballistic Recovery Chute on this airplane...maybe it's part of that?? I know I said no speculations...but wonder if he hit a ballon or something. I imagine if whatever that is was on there inflight it would make for some serious controllability issues.

http://cbs13.com/local/placer.county.pl ... 51640.html

Sorry to hear this.
The yellow thing is hard to figure out, what color is the BRS? I guess that could be it but I thought there would be more material unless most of it is hidden. That is as far as I'm going to speculate, again bad news.

I spoke to an A&P on the field and he said initially that the yellow thing was not on the tail. It must have been something the rescue folks put there. A friend of mine pointed it that it's probably to cover the N number from the media since the names have not yet been released. Still not many details on this one.

They confirmed today that the pilot of this airplane as indeed Mike Gorden a friend of mine. Really sobering to lose someone that you have flown with and knew as a friend. RIP and condolences to the family.

http://www.kcra.com/news/23909633/detail.html

Damn! Very sorry to hear the passing of your friend! My condolences to the families of the pilot and passenger.

Prayers for the family and condolences for the loss of your flying bud.

It was a horrible week for the Experimental world in Norcal this week. We lost another one last night. It was an RV-8 taking off out of Truckee. Killed both on board.... More condolences to the family.

Anyone have any advice on how to convince my wife that I'm not going to kill myself on my way to JC next week? She is just about at the point of begging me not to go after seeing two Experimental planes go down and 4 people killed in a 4 day span within 100 miles of us. I've tried telling her 10 times that many people were hurt or killed on the freeway this week but you know how it is when it comes to our airplanes.

http://www.kcra.com/news/23938807/detai ... t=My+Yahoo

The causality of air crashes is a big can of worms, but more often than not can be attributed to pilot error. In my experience it's pretty rare that the final report says "cause determined to be in-flight failure attributed to low quality aircraft construction or owner/builder oversight."

The number of certified aircraft in smoking craters is just as high. I think that the guys building and flying RV's and Coyotes and the like are the ones out there flying more frequently than others, possibly in undetermined states of airworthiness, and the accident statistics reflect that. Complacency, poor pre-flight, low hours in type, drastically different atmospheric conditions than what they were normally used to, improper mixture control appropriate to altitude/field elevation...who knows. The list is as long as you want to make it, but it always comes back to the pilot.

If you feel that you're as prudent and conservative a pilot as you can be, are practiced up in your bird and comfortable with the entire airspeed envelope, make a habit of planning ahead and thinking ahead, and all that good pilot stuff, I think the ship you're in is much less an issue. People are out there crashing and dying every week in older model 4Runners, but it seems like an easy issue to control, right?

An old WW2 pilot who trained 100's of WW2 pilots to go into combat told me its always pilot error. Even with a mechanical failure/fire/icing etc, more times than not how the pilot deals with the emergency, or prepared/preflighted the plane before it, it still comes down to the pilots decision making process before and during the flight. If your wife trusts your decisions making process, then she shouldn't worry. The number of wings falling of airplanes is miniscule, its all about decision making by the PIC. Remember, the cockpit is no place for an optimist!

AvidFlyer wrote:Anyone have any advice on how to convince my wife that I'm not going to kill myself on my way to JC next week? She is just about at the point of begging me not to go after seeing two Experimental planes go down and 4 people killed in a 4 day span within 100 miles of us. I've tried telling her 10 times that many people were hurt or killed on the freeway this week but you know how it is when it comes to our airplanes.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that if you're wife is that concerned about you going, maybe you shouldn't. A marriage is worth a lot more than a fly-in, and I'm sure over time she'll get more used to the idea. This stuff is supposed to be fun and exciting, not scary. Just my 2 cents.

Oregon180 wrote:I'm going to go against the grain here and say that if you're wife is that concerned about you going, maybe you shouldn't. A marriage is worth a lot more than a fly-in

I don't think that's necessarily against the grain, but it is smart advice. Maybe the best PIC decision one can make is to keep the home a happy place.

keep trying to convince her!!

Good points by all... I may have exaggerated a little bit on her begging me but I know she would rather I didn't go. If I don't go though I might as well sell my airplane and hang it up. There's no difference between this trip and the next one and the next one and the one after that. My Wife has been super supportive throughout the entire building and testing process. She knows how much flying means to me. It pretty much dictates everything else in my life. I also at least believe that she thinks I make smart decisions while flying. In my professional flying job lots of people depend on me and everyone else to do it right. I fly for fun under the same principles. I just wish we had an idea of what happened in either of these. It would take away a lot of the unknowns and allow me to tell her... Okay I won't do that. I will ensure that we do that communication thing before I leave to make sure were on the same page. Thanks again for the responses.

I'll update this thread when I hear of anything solid on the causes.

Horrible news on both counts. I'll be curious to hear more about the one in Truckee, that bowl has gotten more than one plane and the DA is creeping up but an RV-8 shouldn't have any problems up there.

1SeventyZ wrote:

Oregon180 wrote:I'm going to go against the grain here and say that if you're wife is that concerned about you going, maybe you shouldn't. A marriage is worth a lot more than a fly-in

I don't think that's necessarily against the grain, but it is smart advice. Maybe the best PIC decision one can make is to keep the home a happy place.

Might get AIDS

Aviation
Induced
Divorce
Syndrome

Never mind...

500NM and 3 states away after 6 months of planning and 15 years of dreaming into the Idaho Backcountry is a bit more than a drive to Fly in

Which I could not know, Avid. Soooorry...

I'd feel 100 times safer flying in the middle of the Alvord Desert than driving across I-80 and up 95 (two lane highway). You never know what some of them crazy truckers and other 4 wheelers are going to do Or, take a chance of hitting a deer, elk, moose, bear, etc.

There's vehicle accidents every day across the U.S. with minor, major, and fatal injures. A lot more than plane incidents and accidents.