Bad day at the airport

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 06/29/2019 at 12:44 • Filed to: None

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I was scheduled to meet with a local instructor and get checked out in his plane so I could rent something closer to home. As we were getting the engine started, the instructor reached over and turned off the plane, saying “ looks like we’re not flying.” He had seen somebody running towards the runway. We both jumped out of the plane and made our way to the runway.

Fortunately, the pilot wasn’t hurt. He said something locked up in the controls, but a witness said he stalled on takeoff. I’m not sure when the wind shifted, but by the time we got to the gyroplane there was a tailwind. That’s bad for generating lift on takeoff.

The gyro was an RAF 2000 which the pilot has been flying for 20 years.

I hope that it’s salvageable. At the bare minimum, it will need new rotor blades and tail surfaces. All three of the prop blades were also shattered, so it will need to have the engine overhauled or replaced.

Since it happened on the runway, the airport was shut down for the rest of the morning. I’ll have to reschedule my flight for next weekend.

There are a bunch of other sad planes sitting at this airport. If I had the money and time I’d rescue all of them.

Yes, anything that sits too long in Louisiana will develop a living layer on top of it. This is a Piper Seneca II. In good condition, they’re worth $150k. This one is close to scrap.

A Cherokee 140, the same as the plane I’ve been training in. That crud on the dashboard is a pile of dead wasps.

And the saddest of them all, a v-tail Bonanza.

Now I need to go back to browsing Barnstormers, the Craigslist of the aviation world.

WilliamsSW > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 12:50

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Glad the pilot walked away from that - it doesn’t look good, though at least there was no fire.

Maybe th e wind shift occurred right after rotation, I guess?

TheRealBicycleBuck > WilliamsSW 06/29/2019 at 12:53

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It could have. By the time I walked out there, it was a steady tail wind. It was leaking fuel when we walked up.

WilliamsSW > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:15

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Hopefully he learns from it ( whatever caused the accident)   and gets back in the air soon. 

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:16

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I’ve heard that the V-tail Bonanza can be a treacherous craft to fly.

TheRealBicycleBuck > WilliamsSW 06/29/2019 at 13:18

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He said he had just adjusted the controls back to factory spec, so he may ha ve screwed it up when it did that. Either way, he definitely stalled it. 

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:22

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Gyros are so dangerous, so many people have been killed in Australia since they use them for ranching. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 06/29/2019 at 13:23

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I ’ve read quite a bit on it. Most of the crashes were due to pilots flying faster than Vne - the velocity the aircraft should never exceed. The FAA issued a couple of Airw o rthiness Directives which were meant to correct tail flutter problems when flying faster than Vne.

TheRealBicycleBuck > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) 06/29/2019 at 13:25

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I’ve read that the biggest problem is when pushing over at the top of a climb. The loss of airspeed and airflow over the blad es causes a loss of positive control and they tumble.

WilliamsSW > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:27

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Not sure if the NTSB would come out for this or not, but if I were him I’d like to know either way to learn from it. A wind shift on takeoff could easily cause that - and those are usually predictable ( not always though).

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:35

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I wanted one after seeing Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome years ago, then my dad who was a military pilot told me some statistics... nope nope

vondon302 > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:41

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Wow crazy glad he was ok.

TheRealBicycleBuck > WilliamsSW 06/29/2019 at 13:43

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I’m not sure either. The airport is non-towered, but does have a small FBO. The guy working today notified the manager who probably called the FAA. I thought they would leave it there until an official could see the crash, but they were hauling away the airframe before I left the airport. 

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:49

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Story time about wasted planes

My uncle has his own grass strip, along with a large hangar to the side. He doesn’t use the hangar, as he keeps his planes(Cessna 150 tail dragger and Vans RV-8) in his shop. Several years(15 or so)  ago, a friend of his started parking his 172 in the hangar. He stopped flying it for a while, and finally told my uncle he could have it. So this was around 2011, after the tornados struck in April, and the airport my uncle works at got lightly hit. Included in the wreckage was another 172, with a fresh engine. My uncle worked out a deal with the owner and now had a fresh engine. We spent a weekend stripping them both, only for the owner of the abandoned plane’s son lay claim the plane, that is now rotting away in the hangar. 

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:50

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I wouldn't pretend to know a great deal about it. I may get a chance to go flying here in the near future. A friend of mine has a twin Comanche pa-30 b that he's refurbished or whatever I don't know the full story yet.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 13:52

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This is his plane .

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 06/29/2019 at 15:01

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It should be lots of fun!

shop-teacher > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/29/2019 at 17:12

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That's a shame :(

Grindintosecond > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 06/29/2019 at 19:01

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Ive got a few hundred hours in an a36 model. The v tails are no different. They just need proper control rigging by a mechanic and it then comes down to the pilot. One who can afford a Bonanza should fly their Bonanza regularly like it’s a Cadillac. The vtail reputation comes from hamfisted 100 hour money guys who don’t have the experience and common sense to approach the plane right. Of course it’s treacherous compared to a 172, it’s faster than the pilot is. And without regular flying, they will get behind the thing and find themselves high and fast on approach or get stupid comfortable and do things like retract the gear at 10feet (never do that in a single when you still have useful runway)

Low time pilots in advanced planes give advanced planes reputations they don't deserve.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Grindintosecond 06/30/2019 at 10:39

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Like the Kennedy kid in the foot cast who crashed his Malibu some years back?

Thanks for the perspective. I’m a fan, but certainly no expert.

CaptDale - is secretly British > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/01/2019 at 18:11

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Fuck can I have that V-Tail? A V-tail Bonanza is my dream realistic plane.

TheRealBicycleBuck > CaptDale - is secretly British 07/01/2019 at 20:50

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Mine too. This one is in pretty bad shape. I didn’t go digging around, but there was obvious corrosion on the tail. 

CaptDale - is secretly British > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/02/2019 at 11:12

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I am no suprised. Honestly something like that would be what I could afford and could take my time fixing up and making just right. Would be fun.