Columbia crash...opinions

In article ,
says...

He got airborne too early, but with plenty of potential ground-effect
acceleration space/time. Between the partial stall with resulting wing drop,
and perhaps seeing the people ducking for cover, he tried to suck it up and
over. Without ground effect to accelerate, he got irrecoverably behind the
power curve.

-Cory

Maybe - but I generally consider that there's not *that* much ground effect
to worry about in these high-wing Cessnas. He got pretty high for that.

Sure doesn't look like fun.



In article ,
VE says...

Don't see how he could have done that. Have you *ever* tried to take off with
the throttle(s) / prop(s) / mixture(s) not pushed full forward? Particularly
on a maximum effort takeoff? (Maybe holding back a little bit on a
turbocharged engine with the throttle as redline dictates).


I agree - it sure seems intuitive to push everything to the firewall in such
a case - but then it seems intuitive as well to remove gust locks, yet some
pilots manage . . .

GF

Yep, "Behind the power curve".

Al


"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
On 2006-03-30, Mike Granby wrote:
Someone elsewhere suggested that the gust lock might have been in
place, as you don't see the ailerons moving.

Unlikely. The standard Cessna gust lock locks the elevators in an almost
full nose-down position - it's improbable he'd have been able to raise
the nose at all. It just looks like a classic insufficient
airspeed/mush/stall accident.

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net

I"m not sure if I think this is really a weight issue. Yes, he may have
been over weight, but a C-182 (with a strong engine) will physically
take off and fly well over gross. Maybe he had too little runway and
tried to pull it into the air too soon? Again, the prop seemed to be
turning slow in the video, but I'm not a video expert and not familiar
with all the effects of the sample rate of the camera.

-Robert, CFI

Again, the prop seemed to be
turning slow in the video, but I'm not a video expert and not familiar
with all the effects of the sample rate of the camera.

I wonder if the audio track would give the engine RPM once averaged for
approaching and departing the camera location?

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
On 2006-03-30, Mike Granby wrote:
Someone elsewhere suggested that the gust lock might have been in
place, as you don't see the ailerons moving.

Unlikely. The standard Cessna gust lock locks the elevators in an almost
full nose-down position - it's improbable he'd have been able to raise
the nose at all. It just looks like a classic insufficient
airspeed/mush/stall accident.

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net

The factory control lock puts the elevator down about 10° from horizontal,
just enough to keep the wind from flipping the tail up. But you are right,
with it in place there is no way to rotate.

I think he just panicked and pulled back on the yoke.

I thought you were talking about a crash of a Lancair Columbia. This took
place in Col-o-mbia and it looks like it was either overloaded, or he just
didn't have enough runway to get enough airspeed and get it out of there.
The flaps also appeared to be extended further than normal for a short field
takeoff.

"Kobra" wrote in message
...
Check this clip out. What does everyone think happened here?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZWC2XJYgcJU

It looks like a 182, so it had *some* muscle.

I think it must have been hot, maybe a high elevation, loaded with fuel,
people and equipment. But one passenger was a small boy so he couldn't
have been very heavy.

It also looks like a soft-field technique that was poorly executed and he
lost directional control and didn't lower the nose to build airspeed
first.

Very sad,

Kobra



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