Chills, spills, and bozos at Oshkosh arrival

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My friend Lee and I sat along runway 18 on Sunday as the arrivals come
into Oshkosh. Many pilots did a great job, but there were some notable
exceptions:

Chills: A Pitts snuck in under a Cessna on 18R, and the Cessna almost
lost its tail to the prop of the Pitts. The controller kept telling
the Cessna pilot to go around, and he finally responded in the nick of
time.

Spills: A low wing homebuilt stalled 20 feet above 18R and plopped to
the ground resulting in the right landing gear collapsing, apparent
damage to the right wind spar, and the plane slid off into the grass
where the pilot and passenger climbed out. The crash trucks kept the
scene busy for while afterward.

Bozos: Some fool tried to land on 36L while traffic was landing on
18R. Two RV-6's landing in formattion were going around to avoid
another plane landing on 18R, and they kept to the right to avoid the
incoming Cessna going the wrong way. The controller told the errant
pilot to turn right IMMEDIATELY and he eventually resonded. He was
then instructed to excecute a left 270 to land on 18R, but instead he
executed a left 180 and landed on 27. dyslexia or stupidia?

[Mike Rapoport]

Welcome to OSH! You get enough pilots together and you inevitably will have
some on the fringes of ability.

Mike
MU-2


> wrote in message
oups.com...
> My friend Lee and I sat along runway 18 on Sunday as the arrivals come
> into Oshkosh. Many pilots did a great job, but there were some notable
> exceptions:
>
> Chills: A Pitts snuck in under a Cessna on 18R, and the Cessna almost
> lost its tail to the prop of the Pitts. The controller kept telling
> the Cessna pilot to go around, and he finally responded in the nick of
> time.
>
> Spills: A low wing homebuilt stalled 20 feet above 18R and plopped to
> the ground resulting in the right landing gear collapsing, apparent
> damage to the right wind spar, and the plane slid off into the grass
> where the pilot and passenger climbed out. The crash trucks kept the
> scene busy for while afterward.
>
> Bozos: Some fool tried to land on 36L while traffic was landing on
> 18R. Two RV-6's landing in formattion were going around to avoid
> another plane landing on 18R, and they kept to the right to avoid the
> incoming Cessna going the wrong way. The controller told the errant
> pilot to turn right IMMEDIATELY and he eventually resonded. He was
> then instructed to excecute a left 270 to land on 18R, but instead he
> executed a left 180 and landed on 27. dyslexia or stupidia?
>

[RST Engineering]

The asshole in the Debonair ahead of me decided that 70 knots was safer than
90 knots all the way from Ripon to the runway, and then decided that a
crosswind leg for 18 all the way out over Lake Winnebago was safer yet.

Jerk.

Jim



> wrote in message
oups.com...

> My friend Lee and I sat along runway 18 on Sunday as the arrivals come
> into Oshkosh. Many pilots did a great job, but there were some notable
> exceptions:
>

[Michael]

> dyslexia or stupidia?

Incompetencia.

Whenever we discuss safety of flying here, someone always pops up to
say that flying feels much safer to him - because on the road there are
all sorts of idiots who might kill him, but in the sky he's mostly
alone and thus in control of his destiny.

Despite this (quite significant) factor, flying is still not safer than
driving (not even close) for all sorts of reasons, mostly having to do
with the unforgiving nature of high speeds and aircraft that are
designed with the latest in 1950's technology and thus not remotely up
to modern safety standards.

But Oshkosh is special - it combines the worst of flying and driving.
Not only do you have the unforgiving nature of high speeds and obsolete
equipment, buy you ALSO have tons of idiots around you. Oh, they're
not ALL, idiots, not even most, but the sheer numbers pretty much
guarantee that if you arrive at a busy time, some idiot will try to
kill you. On top of that, the sequencing system is ALSO the latest in
1950's (or is it 1930's)technology - controllers with binoculars, one
way radio, and rock your wings.

One of the things that makes Oshkosh (and Sun&Fun) bad is the huge
number of pilots who fly twice a year - once to Oshkosh, and once to
Sun&Fun. I shudder when I see an antique next to me in the arrival,
because I have a friend who annuals a lot of antiques and he says they
rack up about 15 hours between annuals on average. Again - they're not
the majority, but just the sheer numbers in the air with you nearly
guarantee that one of them will be close to you.

So take a bunch of pilots who don't fly much and thus have to work hard
just to fly the plane in the pattern, put them into a fast-paced and
demanding environment, and you can about guarantee that some of them
won't be up to the task. They won't hold airspeed and altitude, they
won't follow directions, and they sure won't respond quickly.

I have to wonder why we tell some people it's OK for them to fly into
Oshkosh when we would tell the same people not to even think about
flying into a major international during the evening push.

Michael

[Montblack]

wrote)
[snip]
> Chills: A Pitts snuck in under a Cessna on 18R, and the Cessna almost
> lost its tail to the prop of the Pitts. The controller kept telling
> the Cessna pilot to go around, and he finally responded in the nick of
> time.


Final Saturday evening: Adam A-500 plane (twin booms, push-pull engines) was
behind something that wasn't bugging out soon enough. A-500 was debating the
go around, you could tell in the way (s)he was dancing around on final. At
the last second slower plane pulls out (couple hundred feet above the
runway?) leaving the Adam to decides whether to grab the open runway or not.
Pilot went for it, but (s)he was dancing all the way down. That one got a
little close.


Montblack

[john smith]

Montblack wrote:
> Final Saturday evening: Adam A-500 plane (twin booms, push-pull engines)
> was behind something that wasn't bugging out soon enough. A-500 was
> debating the go around, you could tell in the way (s)he was dancing
> around on final. At the last second slower plane pulls out (couple
> hundred feet above the runway?) leaving the Adam to decides whether to
> grab the open runway or not. Pilot went for it, but (s)he was dancing
> all the way down. That one got a little close.

Unless it happened twice, it was Friday about noon.
I was finishing up loading the plane to depart and looked up in time to
see the A500 dancing from side to side to increase spacing from a Cherokee.
I had just packed the radio away a couple minutes earlier, so I didn't
hear the exchange with the tower. Somebody didn't follow directions
and/or the tower didn't follow the situation closely enough.
The Cherokee leveled off and banked left over our campsite while the
A500 continued to land long.
The A500 was south of the Rwy09 centerline when he started to initiate a
go-around before the town issued corrections.
It was interesting to observe.

[Matt Whiting]

RST Engineering wrote:

> The asshole in the Debonair ahead of me decided that 70 knots was safer than
> 90 knots all the way from Ripon to the runway, and then decided that a
> crosswind leg for 18 all the way out over Lake Winnebago was safer yet.
>
> Jerk.

Yes, but at last your 182 can fly safely at 70! :-)

Matt

[[email protected]]

Hi Jim,

Nice to have met you this year, I have read your posts on here for some
time. We met at the MyAirplane.com booth.

Dean

[Jim N.]

I had the enjoyable experience two years ago of being in sequence in my
Extra (typical pattern speed of 120K) behind a DC-3. I was stuck doing a lot
of S-turns to avoid getting low and slow (the cause of a fatal accident in
another Extra a few years prior, with an associated stall spin).

At 90K I had the nose way up in slow flight (now unable to see), knowing
that I was still eating up the distance rapidly. Luckily, the DC-3 pilots
were pros, and landed and turned off quickly.

My impression was that things were not going well, and I was becoming
uncomfortable getting so slow, and not being able to see much. After
landing, a volunteer came up to my plane, and as he backed away he walked
right into a sight gauge, cracking it. He just shrugged his shoulders and
walked away without saying a word.

This was the last time I flew into OSH, since the drive is only a little
over an hour.