Former baseball player dies in plane crash

bucksmith said:
I was a long liner for a couple years before making the real money on a scallop boat. Longest I spent on a sword boat was 25 days and we were routinely 250 miles from land while fishing some of the spots mentioned in the movie. Was shooting the chit with the old salty skipper up in the wheel house one day and the conversation came around to what he'd do if we were going down out here. He pulled out a set of handcuffs he carried with him and told me I could have fun bobbing around to death. He would secure himself to the rail and get it done quick. I s till get chills thinking about it since I knew he was serious. I guess I just cling to life and and am optimistic I'd find a way to live.
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Not sure how long ago that was, but why not just carry a PLB on your person. I have two. I also have an Iridium Extreme Satphone. Makes me feel a lot better on solo backpackng trips.

I can just imagine that skipper's dead body halfway to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.....meanwhile on the surface with one button press rescues would already know where you are down to several feet.

But a captain always goes down with the boat....or some such nonsense.
 
Apophis said:
Not sure how long ago that was, but why not just carry a PLB on your person. I have two. I also have an Iridium Extreme Satphone. Makes me feel a lot better on solo backpackng trips.

I can just imagine that skipper's dead body halfway to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.....meanwhile on the surface with one button press rescues would already know where you are down to several feet.

But a captain always goes down with the boat....or some such nonsense.
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Let's see, would of been around the turn of the century. Not sure when they came out with those, and I don't think we had a sat phone. We had immersion suits, and there was a water activated raft. Summer time was fun, winter time in the North Atlantic used to conjur some morbid thoughts while laying in my bunk.
 
USMCmech said:
Just because SAR officials know where you are does not mean that anyone can reach you. Response times can easily be measured in hours or even days.
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It is still better than the alternative of nobody knowing where you are. With the proper equipment you could still survive for those hours/days if need be as well.
 
USMCmech said:
Honestly, I don't think it's a bad design. In fact all the reports I've read about the airplane say it's a great little airplane that handels great, and performs reasonably well for it's class. However, the marketing strategy of "a jet ski with wings" and the abreviated training program gave me pause from day one. Landing an airplane on the water always has been and always will be fraught with risk.

FYI, I also think the Crirrus is the best single engine airplane on the market, but the CAPS parachute is irrelevant to me.
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I have a couple friends who were aerospace engineers on the initial team that designed the two prototype A5s, and you hit the nail on the head. They are outstanding guys and produced a well mannered and easy to fly airplane. A lot of thought was put into creating forgiving handling qualities for new pilots, for example limiting the elevator travel to prevent fully developed stalls and make the airplane "spin resistant" (but not spin proof).

But I too got the impression that upper management and marketing are non-aviation people who have made the arrogant assumption that they've made a "jetski with wings" that anybody can fly. I think we will continue to see their safety record decline until the company realizes that their aggressive low level ads marketed towards non-pilot customers will simply cause them to turn around and imitate that behavior. Add them pedaling the "abbreviated training" to get their customers out the door quicker, and a nimble but easy to fly airplane with few "gotchas" and they've created a perfect storm of overconfidence. Unfortunately by then there will probably be one too many nails in the coffin for the company to recover from their safety record, which is honestly a pity.
 
inigo88 said:
I have a couple friends who were aerospace engineers on the initial team that designed the two prototype A5s, and you hit the nail on the head. They are outstanding guys and produced a well mannered and easy to fly airplane. A lot of thought was put into creating forgiving handling qualities for new pilots, for example limiting the elevator travel to prevent fully developed stalls and make the airplane "spin resistant" (but not spin proof).

But I too got the impression that upper management and marketing are non-aviation people who have made the arrogant assumption that they've made a "jetski with wings" that anybody can fly. I think we will continue to see their safety record decline until the company realizes that their aggressive low level ads marketed towards non-pilot customers will simply cause them to turn around and imitate that behavior. Add them pedaling the "abbreviated training" to get their customers out the door quicker, and a nimble but easy to fly airplane with few "gotchas" and they've created a perfect storm of overconfidence. Unfortunately by then there will probably be one too many nails in the coffin for the company to recover from their safety record, which is honestly a pity.
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I couldn’t have said it better myself. Great airplane. Horrible marketing claims.


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"What was unknown until the autopsy surfaced was that Halladay was still breathing after the accident, perhaps while people stood on the deck of nearby boats shooting videos after witnessing the crash. No one jumped in the water to help, to see if the pilot was still alive. The autopsy said contributing to Halladay’s death in addition to the blunt head and chest trauma was “foamy fluid in the larynx and airways,” meaning a contributing cause of the MLB star’s death was drowning".
https://www.flyingmag.com/roy-halladay-autopsy-findings-catch-industry-by-surprise?src=SOC&dom=fb
 
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