Jaun was there and saw an airplane mix problem, but mainly he saw a pilot turn level at a bank angle for which he had insufficient airspeed. The solution to that problem is not limiting bank as there was need to miss the other airplane. The solution is the same in all turns and is actually designed into the airplane. Allow the nose to go down as designed for safety. It is fruitless and dangerous to stay up at too little altitude to recover from stall

This hold the nose up problem kills several every year and will continue doing so until we quit the idea that altitude is what is important in the pattern.

contactflying wrote:Jaun was there and saw an airplane mix problem, but mainly he saw a pilot turn level at a bank angle for which he had insufficient airspeed. The solution to that problem is not limiting bank as there was need to miss the other airplane. The solution is the same in all turns and is actually designed into the airplane. Allow the nose to go down as designed for safety. It is fruitless and dangerous to stay up at too little altitude to recover from stall

This hold the nose up problem kills several every year and will continue doing so until we quit the idea that altitude is what is important in the pattern.

While I agree that keeping the nose up is what the final cause of the stall was, he should've peeled put of the circuit before he got to the point that he had to he that slow. Perfect example of the Swiss cheese accident investigation technique. Multiple factors led up to this, each one a hole in the cheese, and the final one is when the cheese finally falls apart. There was multiple opportunities to not get himself in that situation, holding altitude in the turn was just the final hole.

A1Skinner wrote:

contactflying wrote:Jaun was there and saw an airplane mix problem, but mainly he saw a pilot turn level at a bank angle for which he had insufficient airspeed. The solution to that problem is not limiting bank as there was need to miss the other airplane. The solution is the same in all turns and is actually designed into the airplane. Allow the nose to go down as designed for safety. It is fruitless and dangerous to stay up at too little altitude to recover from stall

This hold the nose up problem kills several every year and will continue doing so until we quit the idea that altitude is what is important in the pattern.

While I agree that keeping the nose up is what the final cause of the stall was, he should've peeled put of the circuit before he got to the point that he had to he that slow. Perfect example of the Swiss cheese accident investigation technique. Multiple factors led up to this, each one a hole in the cheese, and the final one is when the cheese finally falls apart. There was multiple opportunities to not get himself in that situation, holding altitude in the turn was just the final hole.

I agree. First, you have to FLY the airplane. That means keeping it above stall speed/critical angle. Turning doesn't kill pilots, poor pilotage kills pilots.

MTV

Wake turbulence could also have been a factor in this accident. He was flying exactly where you don’t want to be with respect to another aircraft with little reserve maneuvering energy.

In primary flight training, we learn that the airplane that is heavy, clean and slow generates the greatest wake, and that you don’t really need to worry about the wakes of light aircraft. I know from experience that a light, dirty and slow airplane can also generate strong vortices.

I’ve seen a 180 lose control on departure, taking off just seconds after a Champ. He stayed after it and was fortunately able to climb out normally after exiting the vortex, but he was definitely off in the weeds with the ailerons and rudder fully deflected against the motion of the cone. Full control deflection is what it took to avoid total loss of control. Could have been a bad accident if the sides of this strip weren’t clean enough for bouncing through the sagebrush until he was airborne.

Spend a little time tracking the wake of a Maule, Cub, Champ or Pacer sometime when you are out flying with your pals. Very eye opening as to what’s going on behind one of these planes. Then imagine trying to do that at 95% of your stall speed, which works out wings level, and coordinated while in ground effect. Operating like that is what you do in these competitions. Expecting a plane to behave the same way out of ground effect, and in choppy air can be a serious mistake.

Decelerating gust timed with start of turn may have contributed to final act…..

Scolopax wrote:...
I’ve seen a 180 lose control on departure, taking off just seconds after a Champ. He stayed after it and was fortunately able to climb out normally after exiting the vortex, but he was definitely off in the weeds with the ailerons and rudder fully deflected against the motion of the cone. Full control deflection is what it took to avoid total loss of control. Could have been a bad accident if the sides of this strip weren’t clean enough for bouncing through the sagebrush until he was airborne.

Spend a little time tracking the wake of a Maule, Cub, Champ or Pacer sometime when you are out flying with your pals. Very eye opening as to what’s going on behind one of these planes. Then imagine trying to do that at 95% of your stall speed, which works out wings level, and coordinated while in ground effect. Operating like that is what you do in these competitions. Expecting a plane to behave the same way out of ground effect, and in choppy air can be a serious mistake.

I went to a warbird club event a couple years back. We set out in what I would call a very loose formation (500', staggered). The planes were an L-3 (two seat Aeronca), L-16 (champ), myself the lone imposter (150hp Citabria) and a Seabee. It was windy enough that day that anything without wheel chocks was immediately in motion.

My assigned position was behind the Seabee. I figured power/weight wise I had all these planes beat but on climb out at 80mph I was getting trashed in the wake turbulence of the Seabee. I thought I would just climb so I was above his wake turbulence but every time I would get above a certain point my controls would go slack and my plane was done flying - wings level, nose on the horizon and 80mph showing on the ASI. No burble, shake, or odd wind noises. It would just mush back down until I was getting thrashed again.

Once in level flight I could position myself out of his wake and it was no issue, but in this pic you can see that I elect to stay above him just a bit

The major pilot error I find with gust spread upset during slow flight, short final, and anywhere when upset while slow is the pilot's failure to use the rudder aggressively for level and the throttle aggressively for balloon or mush. Unfortunately muscle memory causes greater aileron movement than rudder movement, so not really coordinated. Coordinated turn to bring the wing up in very slow flight or when slow on short final is much sloppier than using rudder only. In strong upset, that means rudder to the stop. Gust wing disruption is like turbulence. When two small airplanes are in the same airspace, the one calling it moderate turbulence is using coordinated aileron and rudder to level the wing. The one calling it light turbulence is using rudder only to level the wing. And if we are using dynamic proactive rudder only (walking the rudders) to bracket and thus nail the centerline, the wing is automatically level. We are better with gust spread when we move. We are better with slow flight when we use rudder only to level the wing. The down aileron just pulls the down wing back slowing it and thus aggravating the problem.

This is not something we just go out and practice occasionally. It has to be default when too slow for the ailerons to effectively coordinate with the lead rudder. Leading rudder helps with this head space as well.

soyAnarchisto wrote:I'll also point out that all those pilots, including the one who crashed were pretty well experienced. I think he had an instrument rating even though he had gotten his pilots license just a year ago. All of them were required to go through a mandatory training program that week or before and were "qualified" to compete the organized event and had to demonstrate pretty significant skills to be able to even be there. There's even an FAA waiver and an entire training program they all go through and they are required to maintain special insurance no less. This appears to be a self-organized thing after the actual event was cancelled.

I have to posit, and I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead or cast any kind of blame, but it is simply impossible to become pretty well experienced in a year of flying. I won’t put an hour mark to it, as I will probably get accused of having a soap box too, suffice to say I think for a busy private pilot that may come in ten years.

When you go looking for the edge, you might find it.

Work in the dirty low environment of aviation makes it real, real fast. Thanks, Ardent. Keep the sticky side down.

Another good point Ardent made was about looking for the edge. With a lot of practice at altitude first, Bob Hoover learned to work on the razor's edge. We who work all day in the maneuvering flight envelope are certainly not looking for the edge. We are using wind management and energy management in every way we possibly can to cheat and stay off the razor's edge. With a good headwind component and dynamic throttle (or collective) we can get down with zero ground speed and never be near the edge of stall. By using the apparent rate of closure optical thing to prevent the desired touchdown spot from appearing to speed up at the bottom, we can decelerate in ground effect to get down really short and never be near the edge of stall (either out of ground effect where we are still at higher airspeed with the apparent brisk walk or in ground effect where we decelerate to prevent speed up of the apparent rate of closure beyond what appears to be a brisk walk.) We use wind management and energy management and the law of the roller coaster to reduce the radius of turn where horizontal space is limited and never be near the edge of stall or settling with power because we unload the wing.

One takeoff and one landing per sortie is where most pilots are exposed to the maneuvering flight environment. As Ardent says, maybe ten years to figure out what the airplane wants to do and what the pilot needs to do to save themselves down here. On top of lack of exposure, training is nonexistent for maneuvering flight. Not only is training nonexistent, high altitude training sometimes causes poor muscle memory for maneuvering flight. It is hard to prevent low altitude stall if we are training pilots to always pull back on the elevator in turns.

Ardent wrote:I have to posit, and I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead or cast any kind of blame, but it is simply impossible to become pretty well experienced in a year of flying. I won’t put an hour mark to it, as I will probably get accused of having a soap box too, suffice to say I think for a busy private pilot that may come in ten years.

When you go looking for the edge, you might find it.

Agreed 100%, but we only know what we only know.... said another way, he just didn't know how much he didn't know.

As a 1000hr. Private I mostly hung around other private pilots, and probably had more time than the average, so I felt like I really knew something. At ten times that I hungered for more and mostly sought out my flight fix from people with vastly more experience, and realized how little I really bring to the table.

Soap box shmop box. Your posts are eloquent, your photos riveting. Your experience real, and a switch hitter to boot.
I'd call that a podium, one that not only you've earned, but have a responsibility to get on from time to time. A gentleman who speaks well enough to captivate, but has the real world experience to back it up just might be the one who sinks in the pearl that saves a life, or creates a better pilot.

I am at peace with posting an opinion that casts me as on a soap box. If I needed a brain surgeon, the last qualification I'd be interested in would be his social skills. I am not casting myself as a brainiac of the pilots simply that I may have something to share with the fellows that are just dabbling in a realm I've spent years not hours (of flight time) in... let that thought sink in.

.02 at the door please.

Take care, Rob

That was far, far too generous and gives me too much credit. Like you, the longer I do this the more I realize how little I actually know, especially in the way of realizing my strengths and weaknesses, and what others hard won experience offers. I wrote a memo for the pilots at work the other day, the gist was the best advice I receive comes quietly in lean in comments, that take years or decades to collect and give back yourself in sufficient quantity.

The poorly kept secret is as pilots there’s a culture of avoiding admitting what we don’t know, and a misguided belief (or hope) in having “natural talent”. The reality as I’ve seen it is, some of the slowest students at progressing initially, ultimately often make the best pilots. I had to confirm the thought with the chief flight instructor of a large operation here. He’s flown everything and agreed wholeheartedly. A big part of that is over-valuing hands and feet, at the expense of valuing decision making. Decision making is nearly always the cause of the crash.

“There is no such thing as a natural born pilot. Whatever my aptitudes or talents, becoming a proficient pilot was hard work, really a lifetime's learning experience. For the best pilots, flying is an obsession, the one thing in life they must do continually. The best pilots fly more than the others; that's why they're the best. Experience is everything.”

-Chuck Yeager

I don’t condemn these guys looking for the edge, or taking risks, progression is impossible without accepting risk. We celebrate risk in this sport, and I don’t want to see that go away. I just want to see it measured, and considered. I think it’s probably more measured than ever, but the advent of camera phones means we see more of the sad endings exposed. Talking about them openly like this thread can only help those still aloft, and avoids seeing a tragedy go to waste.

Excellent post Ardent. I’m inspired by your lifestyle and experience.

I’ve done a little digging on YouTube regarding Tom Dafoe. He had a his own page and I watched some videos. One item that stood out to me in every video was his low flight. His 140 had lap belts, no shoulder harnesses. That really struck me as being “unprepared”. From the AGL he flew in these videos, his only option with an engine issue was nose down for energy with limited choices to land. A harness certainly would not have saved his life in this situation, but how prepared was he if he overlooked such a basic potential life saving tool?

How does one “prepare” for flying on the edge?

Excellent and thought provoking posts.

In a nutshell,

He never should have been in the position in the first place. I'm not a fan of any of these types of events. Period. I see no value whatsoever and way too much risk for the average aviator.

I agree there has been some good insight and thought provoking comments on this thread but this all could have been avoided.

I'm sorry for his wife and kids.

MW

I can't disagree. He had 500 hours and had been through Kevin's training program for the STOL drags, AFAIR. You gotta know when to push forward and when to lift a wing with your feet instead of the ailerons. I don't know if you get to that point at 10 years or 10,000 hours. I do know we all ought to be there during our primary training - especially in the tailwheel transition - if we are honest with ourselves.

I do think there is some value in these events - and that's to give people an excuse to practice these skills. However, I also agree that the external pressures and distractions during the events and the large gatherings are tremendous and sometimes hard to anticipate - let alone practice for.

Ardent wrote:

soyAnarchisto wrote:I'll also point out that all those pilots, including the one who crashed were pretty well experienced. I think he had an instrument rating even though he had gotten his pilots license just a year ago. All of them were required to go through a mandatory training program that week or before and were "qualified" to compete the organized event and had to demonstrate pretty significant skills to be able to even be there. There's even an FAA waiver and an entire training program they all go through and they are required to maintain special insurance no less. This appears to be a self-organized thing after the actual event was cancelled.

I have to posit, and I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead or cast any kind of blame, but it is simply impossible to become pretty well experienced in a year of flying. I won’t put an hour mark to it, as I will probably get accused of having a soap box too, suffice to say I think for a busy private pilot that may come in ten years.

When you go looking for the edge, you might find it.

Ardent wrote:A big part of that is over-valuing hands and feet, at the expense of valuing decision making.

Yes! This^. These Cubs and Cessnas that everyone thinks they're so good at flying slow are glorified trainers. They are meant to be simple flyers and forgiving. It's easy to feel like a hero with the hands and feet part.

Best way to escape hairy situations is to not be there in the first place. I personally handle this one by being a people-avoiding fair-weather weenie. The grumpier I get, the less I feel like proving anything to anyone. Maybe that keeps me safer. Should submit a proposal draft of that to the FAA for inclusion in Chapter 2 of the PHAK.

I'd offer that the merit in good, advanced training vs abstinence alone, is that with good, advanced training you have nothing to lose when you choose to abstain. And the obvious, with good, advanced training when feces hits the ventilator, you will be better poised to make what may be your one shot at redemption stick.

But ya, I rely on good training to put bread on my table in a purpose built ship, not to run amok pissing on every bush like a wanna be alpha dog.

Take care, Rob

The irritating thing is that the poor energy management and therefore less safe school solution is so respected and what would save lives if done properly and sensibly is not.

How does one “prepare” for flying on the edge?
The best thing I ever did for STOL training was 5 hours of Spin/Stall and Acrobatic training. Then followed it with repetitive slow flight and maneuvering in my plane at altitude. Now go practice landing and have someone video your landings and take off. Study the videos and have someone help figure out how you could do better. I recommend this to every new pilot even if they have no intention of doing any type of STOL work/play. Once you understand the true bottom of the airspeed limits and how the plane will react you can make much better choices. It does not seem like a big deal to just take off fly a simple pattern and land. The pressure from the competitive nature of the event, and the knowledge that your landing screw up could just be the next one million hits on You Tube can and does affect how you fly.
I think the events can make you a better pilot if you are willing to learn. Being able to block out the mental pressures of the crowd and the competition is a skill that can transfer to other types of flying. Being able to hit you spot and know what distance is needed to land and takeoff is a basic Backcountry skill. So yes training for and participating in STOL events can improve you skills. Having said that many of the things you see at STOL events such as steep climb outs, takeoff at minimum airspeed, dragging it in landings are all things that should be avoided if possible in Backcountry flying. After 12 weeks of training and STOL events I would send some time training for normal operations again.
Several factors came into play with this crash. A rush to make a lot of new rules is not the answer. But it is important to try to mitigate the dangerous factors as much as possible so if you are a Pilot, Staff or Spectator and you see something wrong SPEAK UP!!
DENNY