Lidle crash: who is wrong?

Next time you have a day or two out of the hospital, let us know.
Someone in the area would be delighted to take you for a flight.
Up the west side of Manhattan, of course. Or across Long Island.
Or further west.

"Blanche" wrote in message
...
112 mph, 30 deg bank = 3000 ft turn diameter
112 mph, 45 deg bank = 2000 ft turn diameter
112 mph, 60 deg bank = 1000 ft turn diameter

So, if the "canyon" is 2000 ft wide, and they were traveling
up the middle, incredibly difficult to make the turn safely.

www.csgnetwork.com/aircraftturninfocalc.html

I wouldn't characterize a 45-60 degree bank as "incredibly difficult". But
if there was an easterly wind, then their margin would have been reduced by
several hundred feet; that could've been part of the problem.

--Gary

Mxsmanic wrote:
.Blueskies. writes:

Plenty of box canyons in CA that have planes in them, but those
don't make the news like this one....

How many of the box canyons have multimillion-dollar apartments in
high-rises as well?



There are a few folks in LA with money. G

Blanche wrote:
Next time you have a day or two out of the hospital, let us know.
Someone in the area would be delighted to take you for a flight.
Up the west side of Manhattan, of course. Or across Long Island.
Or further west.

Blanche, bless hearts like yours.

I'm actually at home in a high-rise on the Jersey side (although my
last hospital stay had a view of the "Lidle crash building"). I'm very
touched by your offer and have no doubt you and/or those you mention
would make good on it. Without getting into details, let's just say I
have certain permanent surgical complications that rule out such a
trip. Even if I felt I had the strength and wanted to trade the
sickness for the experience, I'd be too embarrassed to cause anyone to
take a slop bucket to their shiny Cessna or Cirrus. It's ok. I was
blessed with a cinematic imagination, and seeing you out my window is
almost like flying myself.

Thanks again,
Jim ("Blasto")

Gary Drescher wrote:
"Blanche" wrote in message
...
112 mph, 30 deg bank = 3000 ft turn diameter
112 mph, 45 deg bank = 2000 ft turn diameter
112 mph, 60 deg bank = 1000 ft turn diameter

So, if the "canyon" is 2000 ft wide, and they were traveling
up the middle, incredibly difficult to make the turn safely.

www.csgnetwork.com/aircraftturninfocalc.html

I wouldn't characterize a 45-60 degree bank as "incredibly difficult". But
if there was an easterly wind, then their margin would have been reduced by
several hundred feet; that could've been part of the problem.

--Gary

The winds here are usually S or N Easterly, but on that day in the
afternoon were very light with weak infrequent gusts.

The margins you guys are talking about seem awful tight, but that's why
you're pilots and I'm not. I can calculate pretty well in my head and
have good technical ability (was a contributor to the original Ethernet
standard that became the Internet), but hurtling along in the sky
trying to figure and implement turning radii? Forget about air over the
wing plane, my gray matter wuold go into a stall. Yet, the record is
what it is and it's obvious almost all of you manage just fine. Plainly
there is an almost pure Darwinian selection that goes on and you people
who end up at the throttle have passed through filters within filters.
This even more than licensing is what gives you the right. This is also
why celebrities, athletes and perhaps the occasional type-A
businessman/woman are a bit worrisome-- they have the means and status
to sidestep some of these filters. What we may need here is a
contribution from some of our better legal minds: can you craft an
enforceable law making it a little harder for new GA pilots from
non-aviation backgrounds to zip next to skyscrapers, all without being
communistic or fascistic about it?

--
B

--
B

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 04:45:14 +0000, Blanche wrote:

Up the west side
of Manhattan, of course. Or across Long Island. Or further west.

Or over the East River but in the class B. It just means spending a few
electrons on the radio.

- Andrew

"Blasto" wrote in message
ups.com...

"Blanche" wrote in message
...
112 mph, 30 deg bank = 3000 ft turn diameter
112 mph, 45 deg bank = 2000 ft turn diameter
112 mph, 60 deg bank = 1000 ft turn diameter

The margins you guys are talking about seem awful tight, but that's why
you're pilots and I'm not. I can calculate pretty well in my head and
have good technical ability (was a contributor to the original Ethernet
standard that became the Internet), but hurtling along in the sky
trying to figure and implement turning radii?

You'd want to plan it in advance, not calculate it in real time. (In fact,
it is just such a calculation--in combination with other factors, such as
the high-density traffic--that convinced me in the past that there's not
enough of a safety margin, so I've chosen to avoid the East River.)

What we may need here is a
contribution from some of our better legal minds: can you craft an
enforceable law making it a little harder for new GA pilots from
non-aviation backgrounds to zip next to skyscrapers, all without being
communistic or fascistic about it?

Such a law would be neither necessary nor sufficient to address the risk.
Small planes have been flying along the Hudson River and East River for
decades, and this is the first such crash I'm aware of; so there seems to be
no necessity for tighter restriction. Further, such a restriction would be
insufficient to prevent this sort of accident. After all, Lidle was flying
with an experienced CFI (flight instructor). But (apart from mountain-canyon
flying) a pilot's experience almost never addresses a situation like this,
so years of prior flying wouldn't necessarily help. In fact, this is the
sort of thing that a new pilot might even better at than a moderately
experienced one, because students are drilled in all sorts of obscure
matters that they soon forget because those matters don't come up in the
course of ordinary flying.

--Gary

"Blasto" wrote in
oups.com:

Peter R. wrote:

Hmm sorry for the speech. One must vent occasionally. Back to the

Don't be sorry. We all vent, and it was a good speech.

issue... it seems a fair speculation from a few of the comments above
that the existence of this particular VFR corridor border at this
particular spot may have been a determining factor. Maybe Lidle was a
crash waiting to happen, but his rendevous with this exact building on
this day could have been a function of corridor layout. Maybe there
should not be seams in VFR corridors obliging pilots to negotiate
high-skill turns over ultra-populated ground?

There are various types of aircraft that can navigate the East River corridor
without difficulty, even some smaller, slower planes. It's the responsibility
of the pilot to make sure

Judah wrote in
:

Sorry, sometimes the fingers are too fast...

There are various types of aircraft that can navigate the East River corridor
without difficulty, even some smaller, slower planes. It's the responsibility
of the pilot to make sure that he and his equipment are capable of flying the
maneuvers required to do so safely under the prevailing conditions (ie: wind,
ceilings, etc).

This is probably why Mr. Lidle had an instructor in the plane - he wanted to
have someone with experience at his side to teach him how to navigate the VFR
corridors.

I'm not intensely familiar with the Cirrus, but my guess is that the
instructor didn't consider the prevailing wind conditions nor did he consider
the higher minimum speeds of the Cirrus as compared to a similar equipped
Cessna 172. I also question whether or not he had any Canyon flying training
/ experience, which may have helped make it possible for that plane to safely
perform a U-Turn over the East River... I don't know if the instructor and
Mr. Lidle had known each other, or

It's a terrible shame. But closing the corridor because of one unfortunate
accident reminds me of a situation a few years back that happened nearby.

The Cross County Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway in Yonkers are
linked together by a short traversal onto Route 100 - which at that point is
almost like a service road. If you are going West on the Parkway and want to
go South on Route 100, you get stuck behind a traffic light on Route 100
following the posted signs. Alternatively, you could exit for the Deegan
North, and then make a Michigan U-Turn (I think that's what they call it -
it's a U-Turn lane through the median - almost like a jughandle style lane
but over the center median to the left instead of around to the right).

The U-Turn lane culminated in a Yield followed by a quick entrance onto the
Deegan. I used it for many years driving to school in Washington Heights and
driving to New Jersey. It was more convenient and I never thought twice about
it.

A few years ago, at around 4am, a Fuel Truck was making that U-Turn, and a
driver in a small car was coming South on Route 100. I don't know if they
ever really assigned fault, but the bottom line is that the car hit the
truck, and it caused an explosion of the fuel truck and many months of
rebuilding an overpass over the U-Turn lane. When they rebuilt it, they
closed off the U-Turn lane indefinitely, citing that it was too dangerous.

I don't think it's any more dangerous than any other posted yield sign - if
people don't pay proper attention to the signage, someone is going to get
hurt. But government officials needed to demonstrate their reaction to the
"horrible accident" to save face with the media, and now I have to wait at
that stupid light every time I go to New Jersey (it's one of those lights
that happens to ALWAYS be Red whenever you get there!)

Unfortunately, not enough people felt strongly enough about it to get them to
re-open it, probably because there are other acceptable ways to get on the
highway. Now there is grass in that median, and there is no sign of the U-
Turn.

I suspect the same may hold true for the East River corridor, especially
since seaplanes and helicopters are not part of the exclusion. Quite frankly,
I think it was pretty well known among the pilots in the area that the East
River corridor is very narrow, and most safely navigated while talking to LGA
Tower. I've flown the Hudson River corridor many times, but I've never flown
the East River corridor without being on with ATC. I once took a Canyon
flying course in Colorado, but I wouldn't want to worry about dodging tour
helicoptors in a Canyon turn...

The reality is, though, that had this happened pre 9/11 and had it been just
an average joe instead of a super-star athlete, it would have been an
unfortunate accident and written off.

We've become a bunch of cowardly lions...

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 22:50:14 GMT, Judah wrote:

Judah wrote in
:

It's a terrible shame. But closing the corridor because of one unfortunate
accident reminds me of a situation a few years back that happened nearby.

The Cross County Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway in Yonkers are
linked together by a short traversal onto Route 100 . . . etc.

This may have been covered in another post that I skipped, but I'll
make the question short, and you seem like a good guy to ask.

If the VFR corridor is mainly to save the LGA controllers the
distraction of talking to planes on floats and helos using that short
strecth of the East River, and the only thing you can do without
busting the LGA bravo is fly up and make a U-turn, why does anybody do
that? Are they still burning that stuff under the 59th St bridge?


We've become a bunch of cowardly lions...

Sixth-graders packing heat? Scares *me*.

Don