August 2011 Archives

Laura Thorburn-Gundlach (hereafter referred to as TG) learned a hard lesson about simulated versus real manoeuvres on Independence Day.

TG badly pranged the Beechcraft BE-77 "Skipper" she and her husband own while trying to takeoff from a cow pasture in Virginia on the fourth of July.

She and her husband, also a pilot, had been flying to a nearby airport the day before when the Skipper's engine quit due to a clogged fuel tank, and they safety put down in the cow pasture, according to the NTSB report.

Later that day, their mechanic, also a pilot, and his partner, a certified flight instructor, helped the couple fix the fuel flow problem. TG, in the NTSB report, says the local FAA flight standard district office "approved" the aircraft as "airworthy" the next day, July 4th.

What followed next led to TG's folly.

"I measured the length of the field and found it shorter than our typical requirement, but was heavily depending on  the opinion given by both our mechanic and his partner, who felt that the plane would have no problem taking off out of the field," she stated. "Their opinion was that the grade of the terrain (downward sloping runway) would increase acceleration - effectively creating a great deal more thrust."

With that recommendation, put a freshly moved path through the grass, a go-no/go decision point mapped out and all non-essential elements removed from the aircraft, TG attempted a takeoff.

One key element was missing from formula though: She had never actually done an actual soft field takeoff from a soft field.

During the takeoff run, where she found the "plane to be underpowered" and no apparent extra acceleration from the down-slope, she became "overwhelmed by trying to keep the plane under control on the rough field" and did not abort the takeoff at the go-no/go decision point.

The aircraft ultimately hit a fence post at the end of the field and caught fire as TG jumped out. She received second degree burns on her lower legs.

 

What did she learn from the experience? "Simply put, I should never attempt any form of piloting that I have not successfully done with a CFI -- no matter who says how easy it is," she concludes.

The Geophysical Institute has posted a video showing a very practical use for unmanned aircraft systems in civilian operations. In this case, the Institute teamed with the North Pacific Fisheries Foundation and the Navy to use an AeroVironment Puma all-weather UAV with an EO/IR sensor package to quietly observe Stellar sea lions in the Aleutian Islands.

Fatigue put a tired cropduster pilot in Buttonwillow, California right into the dumpster, literally.

According to the US NTSB, pilot Douglas Abbott was coming back to his home field at the end of the day on 13 June having completed 20 missions in a Grumman G-164A-600 Ag Cat (N5286).

"I experienced a loss of directional control on the landing rollout and stuck a small dumpster near the end of the runway with the lower right wing of the plane at about the location of the wing strut," Abbott told investigators. "The impact with the dumpster cause the airplane to spin into a larger dumpster that the aircraft struck at a approximate 75 degree angle and the plane came to a rest agains the side of the larger trash dumpster." Neither he or anyone on th ground was injured, fortunately.

What did he learn from the accident? Abbott and his employer told the investigators: "Emphasize to pilots the need to keep a clear head," he said. "Take breaks when needed even if there is more work to do. In the summer heat, they need to stay hydrated and take breaks. Never stop 'flying' until the plane is in the hangar."

Words of wisdom, which might also be augmented with - Keep dumpsters far away from the airfield...

AeroVironment plans to fly it's "nano hummingbird" at the DC Convention Centre next week as part of this year's AUVSI show.

For a preview of what you might see when the bird's chief developer, Matt Keennon (flying the bird in the picture above, and in the video below), takes to the radio control box at the show on August 16, 17 and 18, check out the video AeroVironment put together for programme funder DARPA at the end of the second phase of the project earlier this year. 

Click here for a feature article I wrote on the nano hummingbird in Flight International's primer on the big ticket news items for the show. 

DARPA has not said whether it will fund a third phase, where the bird would shrink in size and expand in capability.  

The two pilots testing a Wright Brothers' Model B experimental aircraft were killed when the Lycoming-powered replica, one of two flying versions belonging to the Ohio-based non-profit, Wright B Flyer Inc, crashed in a field on 30 July.

Killed were Mitch Cary, a former US Air Force test pilot and programme manager at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and Don Gum, an engineer working simulation and flight dynamics roles at Wright-Patt.

News outlets said the aircraft had accumulated about 25 of the required 40 hours of local area test flights, needed to prove out the vehicle's safety to the FAA. Wright B Flyer had planned to use the "Silver Bird", built for easy assembly and disassembly, for demonstrations around the world.

An earlier replica, the Brown Bird, was built in the mid-1980s and has traveled as far as Berlin for flight demonstrations.

Below is a video of the Silver Bird during test flights earlier this year.

I discovered several videos that make me believe the next person to shake the aerospace world the way Burt Rutan, now retired, did is not at the MITs or Stanfords of the world, but at your local model airplane field.

Two videos below from the 2010 Academy of Model Aeronautics (AME) annual EXPO the wonderful things that can happen when a young mind (above is Scaled Composites creator Burt Rutan at age 5) is allowed to tinker, experiment and push the bounds of what is considered proper as only a young mind can do.

In this case, the two newsmakers are Rutan, and his senior structural engineer, Dan Kreigh, both of whom gave fantastic talks, complete with video, at the AMA Expo last year.

P.S. You'll find out more about the freaky twin-engine design above in Kreigh's talk (bottom). 

My life flying models Burt Rutan from Academy of Model Aeronautics on Vimeo.

Dan Kreigh at AMA Expo 2010 from Academy of Model Aeronautics on Vimeo.

The captain on board this once-beautiful DC-6 carrying fish and cargo between Togiak and Cold Bay, Alaska, took the blame for June 12 landing prang at Cold Bay.

According to the NTSB factual report issued 29 July, the captain told investigators "he distracted the crew by pointing out a boat dock" as the four-engine plane approached the runway. "He said that after touchdown, he realized that the landing gear was not extended, and the airplane slid on its belly, sustaining substantial damage to the underside of the fuselage," says the NTSB.

In his written statement to the board, the captain said there were "no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane", but he said the flight crew did not hear the landing gear retracted warning horn.

How to avoid this type of accident in the first place? NTSB: "The captain also stated that the accident could have been prevented if he had not distracted the crew."