2 Killed at Oshkosh

Unlikely, considering EAA is made up mostly of "weekend warrior flyer types".

The real issue is pilot proficiency, and what I'd like to see is something that requires pilots who fly less than 50 hrs a year or so to have a flight review annually instead of biennially. Will it help? Who knows. Can't hurt.


No offense to the weekend warriors but they do some crazy stuff sometimes that obviously gives them the name they have. I think a more frequent flight review might also be a good idea.
 
All the time when I ask a student to do a slip to landing, they start to cross control stall it. This is something that everyone needs to do a better job with drilling into students brains what cross controlling is.
 
I've seen 2 happen. I saw 3 friends burn in one. The A300 out of JFK.

The aftermath of a bad decision, and taking a PA-28 into icing conditions.

And the aftermath of a medical issue that came up in a bonanza.

The images remain vibrant, but after time they don't pop up as often.

Sorry you had to witness this event.


I witnessed the events leading up to the crash of a Citation and the worst part is I can still recall the conversation and picture the faces of the occupants. Those thoughts will always stay but it is true that the thoughts are less frequent than they were.
 
All the time when I ask a student to do a slip to landing, they start to cross control stall it.

Slips and skids are both cross-control situations, so they need to be warned about something else. I warn against too much inside rudder.

Still, even relatively advanced pilots can get them confused. I had a -II student show me a "slipping" turn to final, which was actually a skid. I had taught him the maneuver during Commercial training and had seen him demonstrate it correctly dozens of times, so I was a bit shocked. I hoped he had not been teaching that to his students.

Probably not something you should teach unless you teach it thoroughly, and maybe not even then to private students.
 
on a sidenote, all technical explanation aside... cant a pilot just "feel" when the plane is misbehaving, or being miscontrolled, and nearing the edge of its stability????

i understand some designs have a much finer edge between control and snapping into a spin, but holy beejeebus, theres a LOT of play in something like a cessna or warrior before you get anywhere near popping into a spin on the base-final turn.

i just gotta think it can ONLY be due to grossly poor pilot technique that you would enter a spin in that situation, like... BAD flying, completely stomping a rudder to crank around a horribly misjudged turn or something... baffles me.

hell even in the Super D i have a HARD TIME getting into a "classic base-final spin" by cross controlling it. i mean you really have to WORK at getting it to spin like that....
 
i just gotta think it can ONLY be due to grossly poor pilot technique that you would enter a spin in that situation

That's sorta true by definition, but I don't think it follows that the person who does this necessarily demonstrates poor piloting skills prior to this event. In some ways, it's a "blame the victim" point of view. Pilot crashes because he's a sucky pilot. Not much insight to be gained there, IMO.

The question is, why, in this situation, did the pilot display sub par aviating skills? The most common answer appears to be distraction. Something other than flying the airplane rose to the top of the pilot's priority list. In the case Oshkosh, it's probably 1) other airplanes, and 2) ATC.

The degree to which these things are distracting is related to the degree that the pilot fears them. I had a student nearly stall the airplane on final because he was frantically looking for traffic that had reported itself 10 miles away. I made the point to him that pilots are a bigger danger to themselves with their own flying than other airplanes are. And this is true about pretty much any risk.

Excessive deference to ATC can also be dangerous. With the accident in the article I posted a link to, those familiar with the case thought the stall spin had something to do with ATC asking the pilot to slow down. And there was another accident posted here a few weeks ago that appeared to be a stall/spin in a turn to crosswind that was overly aggressive in order to comply with an ATC instruction.

So my belief is that, rather than focusing exclusively on increasing stick and rudder skills, we need to remove the obstacles that prevents the pilot from using the skills that he has. One key is avoidance. Why put yourself in situations that are liable to lead to distractions? I would never fly into Oshkosh; the one time I attended the event, I flew into Milwaukee and drove the rest of the way.
 
That's sorta true by definition, but I don't think it follows that the person who does this necessarily demonstrates poor piloting skills prior to this event. In some ways, it's a "blame the victim" point of view. Pilot crashes because he's a sucky pilot. Not much insight to be gained there, IMO.

The question is, why, in this situation, did the pilot display sub par aviating skills? The most common answer appears to be distraction. Something other than flying the airplane rose to the top of the pilot's priority list. In the case Oshkosh, it's probably 1) other airplanes, and 2) ATC.

The degree to which these things are distracting is related to the degree that the pilot fears them. I had a student nearly stall the airplane on final because he was frantically looking for traffic that had reported itself 10 miles away. I made the point to him that pilots are a bigger danger to themselves with their own flying than other airplanes are. And this is true about pretty much any risk.

Excessive deference to ATC can also be dangerous. With the accident in the article I posted a link to, those familiar with the case thought the stall spin had something to do with ATC asking the pilot to slow down. And there was another accident posted here a few weeks ago that appeared to be a stall/spin in a turn to crosswind that was overly aggressive in order to comply with an ATC instruction.

So my belief is that, rather than focusing exclusively on increasing stick and rudder skills, we need to remove the obstacles that prevents the pilot from using the skills that he has. One key is avoidance. Why put yourself in situations that are liable to lead to distractions? I would never fly into Oshkosh; the one time I attended the event, I flew into Milwaukee and drove the rest of the way.


:drool:

in the absolute total opposite move from 99% of the threads here, i feel like I actually got smarter reading your post.

thanks for the insight.
 
In that linked article to AvWeb, there is this sentence....That Seminole pilot — he had an Izod shirt on, you could pick out the little alligator — looked just stupefied.

The logo with the little alligator is Lacoste.....Izod uses the shield or crest or whatever it's called.

Just sayin'.....:D
 
Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick. Flying little planes with cobbled together engines in an area you absolutely know is cockroach-overflowing with the same is a dangerous thing to do. In the end, THAT'S WHY YOU DO IT and other people don't. What a bunch of *ahem* "kittycats" we've become, in this day and age.

Those guys died doing something they spent insane amounts of money, time, expertise, and love doing. We should all be so lucky. You put a lot of little planes built by dudes with more love than experience together in a small place and someone's gonna lose an eye. I see that as a beautiful testament to people having a passion, rather than a reason to get hysterical and scream for further Gummint oversight so people can safely sit on their asses, eat ice cream, watch tv, and dream of what might have happened if they'd been able to do something interesting. We're all going the same place, but we can choose what we do before we get there. Death and Taxes.

"Come on you son's of bitches, do you want to live forever?" - Gunny Dan Daly, USMC.
 
Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick. Flying little planes with cobbled together engines in an area you absolutely know is cockroach-overflowing with the same is a dangerous thing to do. In the end, THAT'S WHY YOU DO IT and other people don't. What a bunch of *ahem* "kittycats" we've become, in this day and age.

Those guys died doing something they spent insane amounts of money, time, expertise, and love doing. We should all be so lucky. You put a lot of little planes built by dudes with more love than experience together in a small place and someone's gonna lose an eye. I see that as a beautiful testament to people having a passion, rather than a reason to get hysterical and scream for further Gummint oversight so people can safely sit on their asses, eat ice cream, watch tv, and dream of what might have happened if they'd been able to do something interesting. We're all going the same place, but we can choose what we do before we get there. Death and Taxes.

"Come on you son's of bitches, do you want to live forever?" - Gunny Dan Daly, USMC.

AMEN
 
It amazing how quick people are to blame experimental aircraft for the accidents, and not pilot error. I've helped build around 10 RV's, and all of them are exceptionally well built aircraft that are scrutinized by the FAA before flying. Experimental aircraft also often have better maintenance schedules than certified aircraft because the pilot built it and cares for it (and their own life).

I also got to help a friend disassemble his RV-6A after crashing at OSH in 2005.
 
What is the difference between a cross controlled stall and a slip to landing (like when you're on final?) I know you can stall the plane if you are skidding, but what about slipping? Does a stall during a slip happen if your slip is too "slippy?"
 
Went out & did some cross-controlled stalls today as part of CFI training. These were the skidding turn stalls that juxtapilot mentioned. In the 172, the tail buffet is really noticeable and recognizable when you have that ball skidding to the outside of the cage like that. I just did them to the onset of buffetting, and recovered, but a deeper cross-controlled stall can result in a spin entry. That's why they're so dangerous.

On the other hand, a stall from a slipping turn or a coordinated turn will work out pretty normally as far as stall recovery. If you haven't tried coordinated turning stalls, you might talk to your CFI about showing these to you. A slipping turn is pretty spin resistant because the nose of the airplane is yawed away from the direction that the spin would develop towards in the event of a stall.

The scenario where you see the skidding turn usually is on base, turning to final, overshooting the final approach path, and kick in extra inside rudder to skid the tail around. I see guys do this all the time in old airplanes by the way, used to think it was kinda cool. Now I know better. A spin at low altitude typically won't be recoverable.

One thing to note is that in the typical training aircraft, like a C172, the effects are usually pretty docile and even self-recovering if sufficient altitude is available. It can get dangerous for people though when they graduate to more sophisticated aircraft without getting training in stall and spin characteristics.

But any stall in the pattern is a big problem, so keep the bank angles gentle, watch your airspeed, and go around and take another shot at it if you overshoot badly.

So to summarize it for you,

skidding turn: bad
slipping turn: okay
 
A slipping turn is pretty spin resistant because the nose of the airplane is yawed away from the direction that the spin would develop towards in the event of a stall.

Not really. The spin will develop in the direction of the applied rudder, not the bank.
 
What is the difference between a cross controlled stall and a slip to landing (like when you're on final?) I know you can stall the plane if you are skidding, but what about slipping? Does a stall during a slip happen if your slip is too "slippy?"

The difference is the aircrafts angle of attack. Stalls are caused by exceeding the critical angle of attack of the wings. Spins are caused by stalling an aircrafts wings unevenly or out of coordination. Slip-to-a-landing should be done with a low angle of attack ie. nose low. At a low angle of attack you can slip most GA aircraft with full aileron deflection one direction and full rudder the other. On the other hand, pull back enough on the stick in this enough configuration and it's going to get exciting.
 
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